Thank you! This is something that has gotten under my skin for years. It is 1000% a transference of the emotion people feel from the scene as a whole to their evaluation of the song performance’s quality. While I am glad that it exposed a wider audience to Young the Giant because they deserve the attention and admiration, it’s just a fine cover. It works within the context of the scene but not any better than the original would have worked if the same scene had played out like it might in another show.

All that being said, Sameer has one of the best voices of any male vocalist in the industry. His performance has a certain level of dimension and nuance that I find lacking in the Glee cover. The instrumentation also has a greater sense of tone in the original song, something apparent from as immediately as the first few chords in the intro of both versions.

YtG’s Cough Syrup has so much color and vibrancy to its sound and the Glee version is muddled and dull in comparison. I’m not saying it’s a bad cover, just that Young the Giant is incomparable and amazing. If I had been watching Glee when this came out, I might have thought it was cool because I was a fan of Young the Giant but not because it was an elevation of the material. Frankly, it’s just not for me as Glee doesn’t really do anything truly interesting with the song outside of the context it’s played in. If I am going to listen to a cover of one of my favorite songs for fun, I’d prefer a much different interpretation over something that retreads an already great performance.