“So tell me you love me / only for tonight / even though you don’t love me / I’ll give you all of me / even though you don’t love me”

The original version of this song and the cover version are almost the same age, unleashed to the internet merely months from each other.  The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” pulls not only at the heart, but at the loins – that is, unless you’re dead inside.  Throughout the song he battles his visceral craving for her with the painful knowledge that she doesn’t love him back.  Listening to the original like getting drunk from cocktail carefully concocted from two parts pure sex, one part devastation, shaken over heartache and sprinkled with drug lust.  You will always want one more.

Even while the Weeknd was still fresh in our ears and the internet blogosphere, out of nowhere comes Beatrice with her version of “Wicked Games”.  Still relatively unknown outside this cover, this version lingers still.  Rather than exuding sex, the tinny piano sets an eerie tone from the start.  But the way her voice delicately hovers the piano, brings an almost a whimsical quality to this song, as if she doesn’t care that her heart is on the line.  But don’t think this version lacks intimacy, though – at some points she sings so close to the mic you can hear her lips and tongue move within her mouth just so slightly, beckoning you to listen closer.  Do it.

Guest review by: Hoolz