Brooklyn Duo, a duo composed by Brooklyn-based husband and wife Marnie and Patrick Laird, creates earworm-like covers of hits like “Someone Like You,” “All of Me”, “Chandelier” and “Take Me to Church.” Their arrangements give depth to pop-ballads and manage to turn ballads into full-blown tearjerkers (but remember, the human psyche is naturally wired to respond to sad music).
Their cover of Nothing Else Matters was hailed as “sounding Like Rachmaninoff” by Classic FM, who praised both the piano part and the cello’s glissandi. They met while attending Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival in Maine in 2012 and got married two years later. Last year, while working as a classical duo or performing separately, they recorded a classical rendition for piano and cello of Shakira’s “Empire” an John Legend’s “All of Me” without giving too much thought to the whole process.
The former was noticed by Shakira herself, who promoted their cover, and that’s how their project Brooklyn Duo was born. When they covered Taylor Swift’s “Blank Space” last fall—the video was released for Thanksgiving— Taylor Swift noticed them too, saying that their cover was “.like a song people should walk down the aisle to..”
Here is a list of our favorites:
Young and Beautiful
Elastic Heart
Love Me Like You Do