Without a doubt, the greatest Extreme hit is their classic ballad “More Than Words,” and the Boston rockers matched it with an equally iconic black and white music video. Funnyman Jack Black dropped in to The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon to recreate the famous clip with Fallon, and the results were hilarious. Black took the role of Extreme frontman Gary Cherone, complete with flowing hazel locks, while Fallon donned an equally impressive mane to play the role of guitarist Nuno Bettencourt.
Black re-recorded the instantly recognizable acoustic guitar part for the video, and also provided lead vocals. While the video is clearly meant to be comedic, you gotta give it up for Black, who really did an excellent job on the challenging vocal part. His high-range vocals in particular are really impressive, and I’ve never heard him tackle that kind of vocal part before. Black and Fallon’s comedy chops are on point, with the pair pulling some truly bizarre faces throughout the performance.
Fallon plays acoustic guitar and sings along to the backing vocal part in the video clip. It’s pretty clear that Fallon didn’t play the guitar part that’s heard on the video, but he may have actually done the backing vocals for real, as it sounds like his voice. The vocal arrangement definitely works, and the video was quite the hit on YouTube, attracting 35.8 million views.
I’m sure it won’t surprise our readers here on The Music Man that music fans loved the pair’s take on “More Than Words.” Fans added comments such as “By far the best vocals on these music video recreations. Black’s got some serious vocal abilities and the harmonizing is so spot on!” and “If you can hit every note perfectly while goofing around on top of that, then you truly rock.” You can tune into Extreme’s original music video for “More Than Words” below and see how the remake stacks up.
“More Than Words” was written and performed by Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt. Extreme released the song on March 12, 1991, as the third single from their second studio album.
The Music Man readers may recall that the Michael Wagener-produced ballad became Extreme’s first and only number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and also went Gold in the US. “More Than Words” has since become the band’s signature song, and has remained their most popular tune on streaming services, with 678 million streams clocked on Spotify.