Jon Pardi’s ‘Wherever I May Roam’ Cover Is Dark and Twangy [Listen]
Jon Pardi has stepped out of his cowboy boots and dived into rock 'n' roll, offering his take on Metallica’s “Wherever I May Roam.” The unexpected cover of the metal band’s classic comes from The Metallica Blacklist, a collection of covers of some of the group's biggest hits.
Clocking in at over six minutes long, Pardi's version of "Wherever I May Roam" not only showcases his voice but gives the spotlight to some hair-raising instrumentation as well. Sonically, it stays true to Metallica's original, but adds a bit more country twang to the melody; a fiddle solo ends the track, after the song initially appears to be over.
Pardi’s release of “Wherever I Mar Roam” is accompanied by a video produced by Hidden Road Studios. The clip features a man on a motorcycle traveling down an empty road, with the flicker of the streetlights and the setting of the sun mirroring the haunting feel of the song.
“Wherever I May Roam” is a bit of a departure for the “Heartache on the Dance Floor” singer, known for down-home (and mostly fun) country music, though it's not completely out of his wheelhouse. As noted by Rolling Stone, Pardi went in a slightly melodically darker direction on the track “Me and Jack,” featured on his 2019 album Heartache Medication.
Pardi is one of four artists to reimagine "Wherever I May Roam" for The Metallica Blacklist, a massive collection that finds more than 50 artists covering songs from Metallica's self-titled album from 1991, more commonly known as The Black Album. From the country and Americana world, the project includes Chris Stapleton, Mickey Guyton, Jason Isbell, Darius Rucker and the folk-rock band Goodnight, Texas; the list of participating artists also includes, among many others, Miley Cyrus, Weezer, J Balvin and Rodrigo y Gabriela.
The Black Album is Metallica's fifth studio album, and saw the band adopt a slight change in style. The critically acclaimed record is Metallica's best-selling project to date: It's been certified a whopping 16-times platinum and spent four consecutive weeks atop the all-genre Billboard 200 — Metallica's first No. 1 album on that chart. "Sad But True," the project's final of five singles, peaked at No. 15 on the Billboard mainstream rock singles chart.
All profits from sales of The Metallica Blacklist will be split between Metallica's All Within My Hands Foundation and a charity selected by each artist (Pardi is helping the Doug Flutie Jr. Foundation). The collection is due out on Sept. 10 and is available on both vinyl and CD, and as a digital download.
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