David Bowie Cover of the Week: Above the Moon covers “Under Pressure”

There were several good Bowie covers posted over this past week, and my selection came down not just to performance quality, but sound and, well, vision. I really enjoyed both the sound of Above the Moon’s performance here and also appreciated the simple but relatively high-quality video.

“Under Pressure” has been on my mind in part because, during my interview last week, Prof. Donald Lopez walked us through a lyrical analysis from the perspective of Tibetan Buddhism, with which Bowie was familiar. I hadn’t thought about the lyrics that way before, but Prof. Lopez, one of the most eminent scholars of Tibetan Buddhism in the United States, made a strong case. Coincidentally, Annie Lennox made some news reflecting on her performance of the song with Bowie at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992 as one of the highlights of her career.

Above the Moon’s performance is fairly faithful to the original, with the noticeable distinction of lead singer Kate Griffin taking on both the Bowie and Freddie parts. Clever video editing and audio mixing avoid the problems of this seemingly straightforward video showing where the two voices are coming from. That, plus the lighting, different shots, and camera angles, reveals that much more thought and artistry went into the visual elements here than a typical “guy in the basement with a guitar” style of home video, which is typically made by setting up a camera phone and letting it roll (which, by the way, is fine with me if the performance is worth hearing). Anyway, the whole thing here demonstrates thought and virtuosity.

According to their website (abovethemoonmusic.com), Above the Moon is a suburban New Jersey rock band formed in 2015 that blends influences from singer-songwriter and rock to shoegaze and pop. Over the past decade, they’ve played widely across the tri-state area and released five EPs, including collaborations with Rob Freeman (Hidden in Plain View) and Joe Reinhart (Hop Along), plus an acoustic EP recorded during the 2020 pandemic. Their self-produced 2023 full-length album was created at their Madison, NJ studio, Bottle Hill Recording. In 2025, the band—Kate Griffin (vocals, guitar), Kyle Griffin (bass), Shawn Murphy (guitar), and John Gramuglia (drums)—plans to release two five-track EPs.