Songs That Shouldn't Be Covered

[bcwheelriderguyhehehehehe]

Oh I know! I hate what lenny kravitz did to american woman or what rascal flats did to life is a highway, some bastard coverd white room and I was soooo mad cause that's like my favorite song.

[john_childs]

Originally Posted by DK

No songs should be covered, IMO.

None of my favorite songs should be covered poorly.

Sometimes you hear a cover and you just sit back and say "yeah, that was good". Sometime someone or a band will have a new interpretation that makes the song interesting again. Sometimes someone will just do the song really well. That's all good.

If there were no covers then we would never have Johnny Cash's version of Hurt (originally by Nine Inch Nails).

I used to consider Pink Floyd songs off limits to covers. Then I heard the Australian Pink Floyd Show (and saw them live) and I changed my mind. They didn't reinterpret the songs or play them differently. They just played them very well. It was as if Pink Floyd was performing. It was good.

When Queen did the reunion tour with Paul Rodgers doing the singing I didn't go. I didn't buy the album and not sure that I want to listen to it. I'm not saying that the tour should not have been done. The reviews said it was all done very well and Paul Rodgers did an excellent job. But I didn't want to see the tour. Plus the show was in Key Arena in Seattle and the thought of the acoustics in there makes me cringe.

[leo]

- Sinead O'Connor - Troy
- Eric Clapton - Circus leaves town / Heaven
are songs not to be covered!

But the best cover I heared is Johnny Cash doing U2's "One". I did'nt know his history. But from his voice I clearly extracted that he hitted his wife, while when I hear U2 singing it I never have the feeling Bono hits his wife.

[Mikefule]

The idea of "ownership" of a song is a fairly new one. At one time, there were songs and there were performers. The good songs became "standards" and lots of the performers did them - sometimes well, sometimes badly.

Chuck Berry was/is one of the greatest lyricists of the rock era, a great "performer" but a fairly mediocre "technician" on the guitar. At one time, everyone did Chuck Berry's songs, and most of them did them as well as or better than the man himself. Status Quo did a great version of Bye Bye Johnny; The Rolling Stones did a great version of Carol.

Eddie Cochran was one of the greatest of the early rock and roll singer songwriters - a great singer and talented blues guitarist. Sid Vicious, who had rather limited technical ability, did iconic versions of Cochran's C'mon Everybody and Somethin' Else. (Ironically, as Sid's stage persona was based on nihilism, whereas Somethin' Else may be the most aspirational rock and roll song ever written.

Elvis Presley did a passable version of Carl Perkins' Blue Suede Shoes. There are plenty of people who think of it as an Elvis song. Motorhead did a reasonable version of Dion and the Belmonts' The Wanderer and of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' Please Don't Touch.

However, there are certain songs that I can't help feeling should be sacrosanct. I remember cringing then walking out of a shop where they were playing an easy listening muzak version of Freebird. Elton John's version of Honky Tonk Women is similarly unconvincing for a number of reasons.

[Naomi]

Originally Posted by Mikefule

. However, there are certain songs that I can't help feeling should be sacrosanct. I remember cringing then walking out of a shop where they were playing an easy listening muzak version of Freebird. Elton John's version of Honky Tonk Women is similarly unconvincing for a number of reasons.

That I entirely agree with. Some major "classics" should really be untouchable. I was horrified when a couple of my all time favourite songs were covered, and made the top ten. The cover versions had been tweaked, and "updated" to a shudderingly dreadful degree. That said, this will always be subjective, and anyone who had not heard the originals, or who did not hold them as special would have been fairly well impressed by the covers.( in my view because the songs were so damn good to begin with.)
Covers can improve on the original, but probably do so less often than they fail.

I certainly don't understand why Elton J needed to cover anyone's music.

Nao

[JJuggle]

Originally Posted by Mikefule

The idea of "ownership" of a song is a fairly new one.

Are you talking about when Greensleeves was written or the at the birth of rock and roll? It's not clear from what you've written which you mean. Here's the history of ASCAP, for example. (From it's own point of view.)

[domesticated ape]

Originally Posted by Mikefule

However, there are certain songs that I can't help feeling should be sacrosanct. I remember cringing then walking out of a shop where they were playing an easy listening muzak version of Freebird. Elton John's version of Honky Tonk Women is similarly unconvincing for a number of reasons.

Someone else could probably do a good cover of one of those songs. Britney Spears did an awful version of Satisfaction, but Otis Redding's version is great. If a song was never covered how would anyone know whether a cover would be good or not?

[monkeyman]

I think that all songs should be covered...for example, I learned guitar by learning how to play other songs that I liked.

Some songs, though, are extremely hard to pull off...mostly because the artist has a very distinctive voice.

[treepotato]

any Beatles song because their musical genius cannot possibly be matched by anyone else ever (well bob marley but he just wouldn't suit a beatles song anyway!)

[GILD]

I'm with John.

I used to be firmly in the 'No Covers' camp (unless you could've talked Einsturzende Neubauten into doing a cover of Battle of Evermore with Cindy Lauper, I would've bought that).

Then I saw/heard Cash do Hurt.
I used to be a fan.
Now I worship.

And I don't dismiss covers out of hand.

I'm waiting for Pink to do Joplin.

[pinefresh]

Originally Posted by jamespotter

Quote:
Originally Posted by zfreak220
no girl should ever cover a nirvana song.
Hahah, true that. Obviously referring to Tori Amos doing Smells Like Teen Spirit....
to DK: think about the fact that The Beatles didn't write Twist and Shout, but its one of their most famous, or at least well known songs. It was written by the Isley Brothers, but the Beatles covered it and it was so freakin' awesome that everyone forgets the Isley Brothers version....

hows this for a nirvana cover?

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by pinefresh

hows this for a nirvana cover?

I'd rate it between "Tomcats fighting" and "I want to gouge out my eardrums"

[BluntRM]

Art imitating art: Bands playing covers based on Phish songs that were only covers.


Wasn't rock and roll a ripoff of American blues music? Can you "cover" a style?

[BluntRM]

Digital music, recorded music, creates a hermetically sealed environment; art is seperated from the contextual reality that forged it and what does it become? Shouldn't everything be disassembled? Lived in? "Human. All too human."?

[john_childs]

Originally Posted by BluntRM

Can you "cover" a style?

Ask Weird Al.

Covers can change the style and arrangement of a song. For example turning a ballad into a grungy or metal song. I have heard covers of rock songs done reggae style. There is room for creativity and complete rearrangement when doing a cover.