Jason Derulo Covers Kanye West’s “Heartless” A Few Months Too Late

For Billboard.com’s Mashup Mondays, Jason Derulo honored his idol Kanye West with an acoustic rendition of “Heartless,” that song everybody was covering last year. So, it may not be very timely (he should have beaten everybody to the punch and recorded his own version of Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” before it gets covered to death), but does it have heart? Listen below.

Jason Derulo – “Heartless”

“I love Kanye’s music and ‘Heartless’ happens to be one of my favorites,” Derulo tells Billboard. “I can remember the time where I was on the brink of getting out of a bad relationship, and that’s where this song stands.”

We’re not entirely on board with this Mashup Mondays project. Yes, it’s interesting to hear one artist cover the song of somebody they admire, but many of the results have been an assult on the ears. Iyaz covering Green Day’s “21 Guns” was an aural nightmare, and Jason Derulo’s warbling Auto-Tuneless vocals make Kanye’s heartbreak just plain whiny and shrill. (Although it is a nice change of pace not hearing J.R. Rotem napedropping his moniker in the song like pretty much every track on Derulo’s debut album.)

When it comes to acoustic “Heartless” covers, we’re Team Kris Allen all the way.