Perhaps it’s early to start thinking of my Top 25 list for 2017, but if this wasn’t a cover this would 100% be on that list. As it stands it’s most likely going to be a honorable mention. The Cut is easily one of my favorite recent idol songs and I’ve been listening to it pretty frequently for the past few weeks.

A cover of the Base Ball Bear original (featuring the hip hop group Rhymester), this is a collaboration between the hip hop unit Lyrical School and the group Idol Renaissance, that performs covers and generally has a classic idol feel to them. It’s not a collaboration that I would have expected but it works incredibly well – the sung vocals are lovely, and Lyrical School is on point. All the MCs in Lyrical School have fantastic flow and totally elevate the material.

I didn’t listen to the Base Ball Bear original until today, and while it’s different and great, I think I have to prefer the Lyricalnaissance cover – this cover has a darker feel to it, a darker beat to it. It’s kind of interesting, I don’t know if I’d expect the idol cover of anything to have a darker feel, but the background instrumentation has a dark, minor beat behind most of the song that works well.

The Cut is absolutely fantastic and it’s great to hear more interesting music coming from interesting groups. I hope Lyricalnaissance will keep up this collaboration in the future, because The Cut is fantastic.