It was Diva Deals Day at My Gay Opinion last week. I took advantage of Bandcamp Friday, where all the proceeds of purchases went directly to the artists. I purchased Madi Diaz’s new EP, Same History, New Feelings. Madi took four songs off her last album, History Of A Feeling, and reworked each with a different diva. Same History, New Feelings is five divas for the price of one. I haven’t been this excited about five divas since The Spice Girls.
The backing vocals of the original songs are now front and center with Madi’s. “Resentment” with Waxahatchee is just as beautiful as the original with it’s heartfelt and hurtful lyrics. There’s a stripped-down simplicity to the Natalie Hemby collaboration of “History Of A Feeling” that has me basking in the glow of a new age rainstorm. The countrified version of “New Person, Old Place” with Courtney Marie Andrews is the most revised version of all the songs. The piano and guitar musicianship on the “Forever” duet is a compliment to the melding of Madi and Angel Olsen’s voices. Each diva’s voice only enhances this EP.
In my gay opinion, Same History, New Feelings keeps the haunting and brooding lyrics of History Of A Feeling but takes them in a new direction. Not only are these versions new to me, but Madi also introduced me to new divas to discover.
