"Grain" of a voice: Two versions of "Fade Away" by Jay Chou (cover and original)

1.  By Jay Chou (original)

2.  By Xiao Qu Er (cover)

For this post, I selected the original and a cover of Jay Chou's "Fade Away" (烟花易冷) to examine the "grain" of the human voice. According to Barthes in this week's reading, "[t]he "grain" of the voice is not - or not only- its timbre; the signifying it affords cannot be better defined than by the friction between music and something else, which is the language (and not the message at all)" (273). Also, Barthes criticizes the music critics of today as they employ too many adjectives in their attempts to describe the music they are critiquing. By listening to these two versions of the same song, there definitely is a difference in timbre, style, and feeling of each artist.  However, where would the friction between music and language come to play here? Is it the attempt to incorporate the voice of the artist into the tune of the music? In addition, is it possible to describe the versions of this song without the use of any adjectives at all, especially if one does not understand the language it is sung in?  Personally, I feel that although a string of nouns may provide a general idea of the music, they still fail to truly describe everything that the music is embodying, much like the case of adjectives.