Please Enjoy Amy Shark And Thelma Plum’s Magical Cover Of ‘Valerie’

The very best covers don’t just replicate the pleasures of an original — they discover new ones.

Think of Denzel Curry’s recent scorching take on ‘Bulls On Parade’, which found fresh extremes by stripping the song down to its most bare essentials. Or even Jeff Buckley’s reworking of ‘Hallelujah’, one of the most beloved covers around, which blows out Leonard Cohen’s original into a maximalist, wispy vision.

Neither Curry or Buckley treat the originals as blueprints, to be slavishly pored over. Instead, they use them as starting off points, like diving boards positioned over the ocean.

Well, by that metric, the cover of ‘Valerie’ we got on Wednesday night’s episode of The Set is one for the books.

Needless to say, the original is a classic. Originally written by British bands The Zutons, it was popularised back in 2007 by Mark Ronson and his friend and colleague Amy Winehouse. Their version’s the famous one for a reason: Ronson’s smooth production and Winehouse’s velvet-smothered voice do something entirely special and new to the song, transforming it into a rich, lovesick ballad.

The task of injecting new life into the track was handed down to Amy Shark, Thelma Plum and members of The Teskey Brothers band. On first glance, their version has all the hallmarks of the original: a horn section; a poppy chorus; jazz-inspired vocal deliveries.

But the key to the magic lies in the voices of Plum and Shark, two of the most exciting musicians in Australia. Importantly, they never try to replicate the golden, husky quality that made Winehouse’s voice so special. Instead, they thoroughly do their own thing, bouncing off one another in frenetic, extraordinary ways.

Basically, it’s one of the most magical moments of recent musical television, and you should watch it a thousand times, until you know every last solitary beat.