Covers of songs.

Dragonetti

Dragonetti

Water Chip? Been There, Done That
By this I mean Covers done of an existing song by another band, rather than the artwork.

These, recently, have upset me greatly. McFly have proved their incompetence by being:
1: Shit
2: Bad coverers of 'Pinball Wizard'.

The Audiobullies have followed quite closely with 'My Baby Shot Me Down'. This is, technically, a remix rather than cover, but it is terrible. I'm usually a great fan of remixes.

Of course, there is a lot of good music still out there, being created, and these two examples hardly show a wide range of what there is.

Another thing that sprung to my mind whilst watching a music channel was how modern artists always include some form of rap in their music. I saw an old christina aguilera video, and thought "What's different? Oh, she's not pretending to be black and a rapper." And I thought further. In my eyes, a lot of the 'Mianstream' popular music out there is laced with rap, and people pretending to be black. The people who don't do this tend to be rubbish, or copy each other. Of course, this is a huge gerneralisation, but I hope you see my point.

Why is this happening? Can't the white man sing anymore? Has politically correctness gone TOO far?

Please note, this is not racism. I dislike Rap, not black people. But normally, the two go hand in hand in music.
 
A lot of folks are doing the rap bit because it's commercial. I remember listening to Sting doing a hip hop version of Roxanne. Before that Aerosmith did "Walk this Way" with Run DMC. You can hear rap on Santana's Supernatural.

It's unfortunate and not good for the music.
Rap and hip-hop started as a fringe music in urban areas, primarily the Bronx, and just grew. In someways I think its unfortunate that it's left its ethnicity and roots and has become more mainstream. There is something wrong with a white kid from the middle class doing rap music- itself a form of protest among inner city blacks of their marginalization. I am more sympathetic to inner city white kids from russia using rap as a means of protest. That said, when the music loses the message, it begins to loss it's meaning.

Compare for instance reggae. For years reggae was ignored until someone in UK figured out that Jamaicans living in the UK wanted to listen to reggae music. Whites began to listen and Bob Marley became a superstar practically overnight. Then you get UB-40 and other acts following. Now reggae is crap.

As for covers- I am tempted to agree with you that most covers are crap and show a lack of originality. Then I think of the Pretty Woman cover by Van Halen. I also think of the many covers from the blues done by the Beatles, the Stones. Remember when both groups were starting out they basically relied on repackaging the Blues.

But yes, most covers are unoriginal crap, often done by big stars in order to build profits off a song that a lesser star hardly got noticed for.

Example Robbie Robertson did "broken arrow" and that was fine. Then Rod Stewart fucked it up.

Covers should be like movies- if the original is still good, it should be rediscovered and recirculated (do we really need another King Kong? Another Mighty Joe Young? Planet of the Apes?). If you can't make it better, you shouldn't do it.

That's what reviewers should set as a standard- should the original have been remade? Is the cover better or does it add something?

I remember listening to the awards for best music and getting pissed off because everything was a cover. Lack of originality = the death of a musical genre.
 
Scooter make great covers. No rap, either.

RESPECT TO THE MAN IN THE ICE-CREAM VAN!
 
welsh said:
Example Robbie Robertson did "broken arrow" and that was fine. Then Rod Stewart fucked it up.
Click to expand...

I prefer Rod Stewart's version of Waltzing Mathilda, though, but that may just be because I can't stand listening to Tom Waits singing. Same thing with Downtown Train and Bruce Springsteen's Jersey Girl cover.
 
ohh billy Darkness Darkness by the Youngbloods coverd by the Screaming Trees. It gets to better than that.
 
Credible Covers

Credible Covers



I hear this thread resonating parallel commentaries.

Good covers and bad covers.

The 'bad', may they be soon forgotten.

Sometimes the irrational exuberance makes one cover better than most.

Blue Cheer's ""Summer Time Blues""

Patti Smith's ""Gloria""

X(the band)'s ""Wild Thing""

Sex Pistols' ""My Way""




I stopped caring about the 'cutting edge' long ago.
What's "popular" is instantly over played.

A hundred plus years of popular music since 'Rag Time' strode across the 88 keys,

Fifty plus years of Rock And Roll,

And every medium skips, and STICKS, on the same groove, the same 20 songs on fast rotation.

It becomes a rattling snare, as welcome as a dripping faucet at 3 A.M.

A future taste of hell, ... no doubt ....




4too
 
You know, it's kind of remarkable but if you even listen to Frank Sinatra standards, you can find that he's doing covers of songs done by earlier singers. So this business of covering is not as new as we'd wish.

Of course big band also ran itself into the ground.
 
welsh said:
Of course big band also ran itself into the ground.
Click to expand...

WHAT?! *tears up* Say it aint so! You mean to say the Cherry Poppin Daddys are never gonna come back! *runs off*
 
1: I hate Sinatra.
2: Frank Zappa was the MASTER of covers, and almost anything else. He died too young.
 
I think that the punk genere should make covers of songs, since they always make good covers of old songs.

But general covers who are made to make bux usually suck.
 
Thought for the thread:

Do tributes suck? Robbie William's tribute to Frankie S wasn't all that bad. I'm hard pressed to think of another example right now, but I'm sure you can.

The question is: Do tribute covers suck less than bux covers?
 
The only example that I know of where a cover makes an old, good song sound like crap is Santa Esmerelda's cover of Gary Moores (?) "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood". Taking a bluesey song and putting a jazzy/latin vibe to it is genius. I'd never have though those two types of music could gel like that. You know what I'm talking about. It was in Kill Bill 1.

Your thoughs/Any other examples?
 
Covers can be interesting if they add something to the song. Or just make it hilarious.
Having a German who can't pronounce the th grunt R.E.M.'s 'Losing My Religion' in a death-metal song is brilliant, for instance (Graveworm).
 
I'd missed this thread due to inactivity, but I would like to point out two things:

Dragonetti said:
Robbie William's tribute to Frankie S wasn't all that bad. I'm hard pressed to think of another example right now, but I'm sure you can.
Click to expand...
Yes, it was entirely bad, but so was the source material.

and:
These, recently, have upset me greatly. McFly have proved their incompetence by being:
1: Shit
2: Bad coverers of 'Pinball Wizard'.
Click to expand...
Please note that it is impossible to cover that song badly, as it was a great, steaming pile of faeces in the first place.

/gravedig

That is all.

Drunken Post - Ignore all contents. Somewhat.
 
Covers I can't tolerate:
Save Ferris: "Come On Eileen"

...shit... that's the only one I can think of right now.

Ah, but then there are the covers that turn out to be better than the original (in my opinion):

GnR's cover of "Live and Let Die"... mostly because the original had a xylophone.

Another would be Johnny Cash's version of NIN's "Hurt".

Any time Marilyn Manson covers an 80's song.

Rasputina covering Marilyn Manson's "Tourniquet".

It even happens with country music: Sawyer Brown's version of George Jones' "The Race is On".
 
I've always liked Cake's covers. Their cover of "I Will Survive" was pretty hilarious, and "The Guitar Man" from their most recent album was a nice low-key jam.
 
LazyGnome said:
Another would be Johnny Cash's version of NIN's "Hurt".
Click to expand...
Now this I agree with, damn, the Man sounded like he was dying when he sang it.

I never liked the original tho'.

Drunken Post - I love you, man! Hic!
 
The Scorpions doing "Dust in the Wind" is probably one of the best covers I've heard.

That, and a Death Metal band doing a cover of Britney Spears' "Oops I did it again". :lol:
 
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