Looking for Mandy Moore Umbrella Chords? Quick Tip!

For all you folks landing here after a search for guitar tabs or chords for the Mandy Moore cover version of Umbrella, here's a hint I just tried out myself:


1) I did a Google search for plain old "umbrella tab"

2) Picked a chord transcription for Rihanna's version that had a high rating.

3) Played it slower and didn't use a capo. The version I picked said to use a capo on the first fret, but when I played along with Mandy's version (still can't buy it, but the video works!) I realized they used the same chords but no capo.

That was easy right? Have fun!

UPDATE: If you like Mandy's version, you might also be interested in Marié Digby's acoustic version of Umbrella, which IS available for purchase on iTunes.

If you're not a guitarist, never fear, more reviews are on the way, as soon as I get them all written up. Keep an eye out! Or just subscribe to Lyrical Venus by Email or by RSS Feed and have the updates come straight to you!

Umbrella Craze Continues... Marié Digby Has One Too!

A couple entries back I posted a vid of Mandy Moore covering Umbrella by Rihanna.

Since then I've gotten a bunch of hits from people searching on how to buy Mandy's version. As of this posting, it's not on iTunes, and I don't know if it ever will be (if they add it later I'll let you know).

I DID find a different acoustic version of Umbrella on iTunes, sung by Marié Digby. If you like Mandy Moore's version of Umbrella, you might like Marié's too. It's a little more upbeat, but it's still slower and less produced than Rihanna's version, so the lyrics/story of the song really stand out.

It's getting mixed reviews on iTunes. Some people like it better stripped down. The comments from the "haters" who don't like this version are mostly people who are mad at Marié for "messing up" or "stealing" Rihanna's song and say that Marié should write her own music. This is kind of funny because:

1) Umbrella doesn't belong to Rihanna, it was written by Terius Nash (who wrote it as a wartime lullaby for his buddies in Iraq and at one point thought he'd have Britney sing it!)

2) Profits from the downloads are going mostly to the writers and to the Save the Music Foundation.

3) Marié DOES write her own songs and has since she was 15! She just happened to catch people's attention with her Umbrella cover on YouTube.

Now that Marié has that attention, the spotlight is on her to deliver the goods, and I think she's more than ready and capable! Pretty voice, sparkly personality and a radio friendly sound. She has a Digital EP called Start Here set to release September 11, 2007 that should be fun to check out.

Find out more about Marié Digby:
Marié on MySpace

Official Fan Site (has Marié originals)

Marié's YouTube Channel (Originals, plus she covers other popular stuff - Maroon 5, Nelly Furtado, Linkin Park, etc. It's kind of like she's hosting her own American Idol or something.)


A quick Google and YouTube search shows that Umbrella is "THE Song of this Summer" apparently, everyone wants to sing it, critique it, or play it on the piano, or make mash-up tribute videos. Everyone except the people who hate it that is. Because there are definitely people planted firmly on both sides of the fence. It's kind of growing on me personally, but maybe that's because I only discovered it last week, and finding out about the history of the song makes me appreciate it more... What do you think? Love it? Hate it? Somewhere in between?


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Mandy Moore Borrows Rihanna's Umbrella

Over at Yahoo Music they've got a little series called "Cover Art" where current musicians cover songs by other current musicians. It's kind of like those reality shows where they swap families and try to pick polar opposite moms to make it more interesting, because the "Cover Art" series pairs up artists with songs that aren't their usual genre. The latest one is Mandy Moore singing Umbrella - originally done by Rihanna (iTunes link).

As Mandy says in the beginning of the video, she doesn't much listen to Top 40's music these days, and neither do I, but of course once I saw Mandy's version, I had find Rihanna's version to compare.





It's funny, while I definitely resonate more with Mandy's style (as evidenced by my rave review of her new album), at the same time I think I like Rihanna's version better for the song. Mandy's slow, sweet and smooth take is gorgeous melodically, but some of the lyrics sound a wee bit silly when sung in a more straightforward manner. Rihanna sings the same lyrics and I don't bat an eye, they're more suited to the R&B/rock style. And I'm really glad Mandy didn't try to sing the title word in the same number of syllables as Rihanna, that would have been too over the top. Good choice Mandy! No um-ber-rel-la's for you! Rihanna needs them for her dancers.

Speaking of which, I'm not so sure about the dancers with their umbrellas in Rihanna's live version. Maybe I was thrown because I'm just used to seeing that kind of umbrella work more in a Broadway musical than an R&B video. I do like all the ballet shoes and umbrellas and such in the studio version though:



Rihanna on wikipedia
Rihanna's new album Good Girl Gone Bad on iTunes
Rihanna on MySpace

(I found the Mandy video via crazybananas. Thanks!)


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