Aug 18, 2003 08:31 am Personally, I think it's a fine line to ride. I hate going to see cover bands, or people that do ALL covers, but I love to see any band do one or two well chosen covers that they put their own style into.
cover versions? good bad or indiferent?
Posted on Aug 18, 2003 08:10 am
flame
...bringing sexy back
Member Since: Jul 01, 2002
what does anyone round here feel about cover versions? are they a great way to breath new life into an old song, be it familiar or forgotten...or should songs by the original artists be left that way?
are there certain songs or artists who should never be covered, or have you got a favourite cover version thats miles better than the original?
its been bugging me...
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Aug 18, 2003 08:31 am Personally, I think it's a fine line to ride. I hate going to see cover bands, or people that do ALL covers, but I love to see any band do one or two well chosen covers that they put their own style into.
Aug 18, 2003 08:36 am it made me think when i heard johnny cash's version of 'hurt' against NIN's version - the cash version was really frail and moving i thought, definately brought something to the song...
Aug 18, 2003 12:03 pm Covers are cool. I like seeing a new perspective on an artist's work. My favorite cover of all time has to be the new version of George Michael's "Faith" by that heavy metal band - I don't know their name, unfortunately, wish I did though. Also, I once saw a bar band cover "Message in a Bottle" by the Police - they turned it into a 10 minute jam that just blew me away - awesome.
Aug 18, 2003 12:16 pm limp bizkit did a cover of faith...that the one?
Aug 18, 2003 12:59 pm limp bizkit - I bet that's the one. Thanks!
Aug 18, 2003 01:01 pm i think it is...i think thats proper funny that tune!
Aug 18, 2003 02:39 pm is it true that the flaming lips did a whole album just of cover songs? that's what we seemed to be listening to at a party last week. and the beck and the radiohead songs they were covering were so dead-on that they made no new contribution--they were going for 'exact copy.'
why? a whole album of that--what's the point? i'll just listen to the artists' versions.
Aug 18, 2003 03:52 pm fortymile, I agree... why cover something if you're not going to put your own spin on it? I don't understand why artists do this. It doesn't necessarily have to be wildly different from the original, like the "Faith" cover we discussed, but it should add interest and allow listeners to see a different side of the song.
Aug 18, 2003 10:39 pm I think well done covers are great. It's very interesting to hear other artists interpretation of another artist.
Very few artists IMO improve upon the original though and therefore I prefer covers that stay pretty true to the original. Thats not to say one can't/shouldn't put their own stamp on it, but I personally am going to be alot more critical of it.
I don't personally see alot of point in covering current music unless it's a band playing clubs, parties etc. I also don't think there are any bands/artists that shouldn't be covered, at least not from the technical aspect, now they might not be *worth* covering but that's another story. <g>
My favorite covers are from along time ago but would be ones like the The Beatles : Twist & Shout, Slowdown, Roll Over Beethoven etc. They stayed pretty close to the originals yet brought alot more energy to the songs. Some others I thought were done well and as good or better than the original were Smith : Baby It's You, Aerosmith : Come Together.
Aug 18, 2003 11:06 pm my favorite is when bands who normally wouldn't get airplay cover a song that was a hit in order to catch some of the wake. examples:
alien ant farm - smooth criminal
the ataris - boys of summer (i don't remember autotuning in the original)
and yup,
limp bizkit - faith
i think that's generally smart business sense, but it scores negatively in respect points!
Aug 19, 2003 01:09 am forty, one of the coolest cover's i've ever heard was an attempt at a "dead on" cover, and a damn good one at that. Fear Factory covered Gary Newman's Cars and man they did it so much like the original it's just mind-numbing.
and flame, i gotta agree on the Johnny Cash version of Hurt. No one could've done it better than the Man in Black himself. And that's tough to say coming from a hardcore NIN fan like myself.
Aug 19, 2003 05:49 am wow that's surprising, jamie. but i can buy it, especially if you like the song a lot. i guess what bothered me about the flaming lips thing--and i havent really listened to it--but at least two songs on there are 'dead on' covers. they're songs that are out now! they did radiohead's knives out (only fairly recent, but still seems too new to bother with) and a song from beck's new album, which came out last fall. i'm not even used to beck doing that song yet.
i've been hearing boys of summer on the local popular stations recently. is that the ataris?
johnny cash is great.
Aug 19, 2003 05:57 am check out 'she said she said' by the black keys...they take a classic beatles tune and put a real dirty garage blues groovy to it...its briliant, grinding guitars, slide guitar and distorted vocals. top!
also, in pop news...speedway's cover of 'genie in a bottle'...they take a cheesy pop tune and make it sound like the strokes crossed with blondie or someone - class!
Aug 19, 2003 05:14 pm i am going to look for that, flame. she said she said is one of my favorite beatles songs.
Aug 19, 2003 06:43 pm Good ones and bad ones,
I love Joan Osbourne's "I'll be around". Pretty faithful to the original. But I don't think covers have to be.
Someone did "Funky town" a while back that was cool.
But Uncle Cracker should be arrested for his cover of Dobey Grey's "Drift Away".
Oh wait, I take that back. They should arrest the powers that said, "Cool, let's take this one to the masses" Yuck
Aug 19, 2003 08:13 pm j, gary numan produced fear factory's cover of his song. that's why it's dead on and rad.
Aug 19, 2003 10:30 pm occurred to me today that aside from the evil of "can hardly tell the difference" covers..
local bands doing covers is for their growth and learning as musicians and should therefore be supported...being able to play the songs we love is why most start playing....originality comes later after the skills are honed to play on others...much like art school copying masters' works.
Aug 19, 2003 11:39 pm well i don't know anyone who didn't start playing in bands by playing cover tunes. that's like a rite of passage. i think the issue here is whether or not (and if so, the conditions) it is cool if "pro" bands do it.
Aug 20, 2003 05:18 am My first music ventures were all writing music. Not good music mind you but we had a lot of fun. I didn't start playing covers until I realized it might get me some chicks in high school.
Aug 20, 2003 11:41 am some tunes however, should never be played by bar bands...i'll start a list:
paranoid - black sabbath
born to be wild - steppenwolf
both great songs but ruined by bar bands for years.
Aug 20, 2003 11:42 am Add this to that list:
Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Aug 20, 2003 01:02 pm Quote:
Minkus: j, gary numan produced fear factory's cover of his song. that's why it's dead on and rad.
right on. i dint know tat
Aug 20, 2003 04:15 pm I think it all depends on the artist and how it's done. I've heard cover remakes that sound great and some not so great. Like Metallica's garage albums; I have heard the originals...I'd rather hear Metallicas remakes. Their powerful and full of energy. But I agree with pixelpixie & dB Masters...some songs should never be touched.
I would like to add most of AC/DC's songs to that list. Very few capture that raw, intense Angus Young playing.
Aug 21, 2003 06:22 pm Long ago in a galaxie far away..... Devo did a cover of Satisfaction ...... I know, I know, Devo? but I thought the cover was great.
Aug 21, 2003 09:51 pm I like it when bands take older songs and put a punk or hardcore spin on them. Whatever is the exact opposite of what the original song's style it. It's always interesting to hear what they come up with and it can also be very humorous :) I think cover albums are cool, as long as they aren't treated like a whole new record. I also think it's cool when heavy songs are done acoustically. One punk band I listen to put out a little EP of some of their own songs done with just acoustic guitar, drums, and acoustic bass. It was great, too. Neat to hear some of those wild solos on a classical guitar :-) If a song isn't well know in the first place, a band making a cover of it can kind of become known for playing that song and eventually people think of it as their own. I don't know if that's good or bad, but I personally enjoy covers.
Aug 21, 2003 10:36 pm has anyone mentioned parodies? sometimes these are the most fun, where you're not trying to flatter the orginal artist but just trying to be silly. A local band in my area called Strawman does REM - It's The End Of The World only they sing tons and tons of 90' band names really fast in the verse and sing in the chorus "It's the end of al - ter - native music" it's the end of alternateive music, and I feel fine. I almost lost it the first time I heard that.
And what about remixes in electronic music? Does that count as a cover? Alot of times a hiphop or dance artist will add something new (or entirely re-do it) and call it a remix. Take a listen to the orginal song by Assemblage 23 - Disappoint like it is on the Failure album which is already a great song, and then listen to the "Funker Vogt remix" and you'll see what long time pros like Funker bring to the plate.
Aug 26, 2003 09:36 am I play in a covers band and yes, we do 'Paranoid' AND 'Smoke on the Water' - I know of another local covers band that do Freebird really well!
I've also heard some covers bands ruin all these songs, depends on the band I guess. I'd like to think that we have our own style and stamp our personality on each of the covers, but that's not for me to judge.
Bear in mind that The Beatles and other famous acts played mainly covers in the early days with the occasional original thrown in.
Truth is some covers bands are just not very good (often let down by a poor sound and/or no stage presence/charisma) and give all covers bands a bad name.
In my area (small town England) as a musician you have a choice - you can either do all your own material and as a result play live just once in a blue moon and on a pay-to-play basis at that (sell tickets and hope to break even). Or, you can play covers and play live every weekend, get paid AND come out of it with a few £ in your pocket to buy guitar strings and pay petrol AND you may even have a GREAT time too depending on the crowd. So, being old guys, we decided on the latter. We must be doing something right as we could gig every Friday & Saturday of the year if we wanted to.
We could play a few originals but the type of people that go to the cover bands bars aren't interested in anything they don't already know and the reaction tends to drop off and you have to work really hard to get them back, so what's the point.
I write and record a lot of stuff(originals) at home and plan to put out a solo CD next year. Strangely, I wouldn't dream of spending my time recording a cover of someone else's song as there are so many of my own i haven't had time to record yet.
If I'm honest though, there aren't many covers bands I'd bother going to see and they are always second class in my eyes compared to a band that does GOOD original material.
Now then, Tribute bands are a different thing entirely. I mean PRETENDING to be someone else for money, I wouldn't want to do that, thats cabaret. But that's just my opinion.
Aug 26, 2003 09:43 am Ya, I did the cover band thing quite a bit, after a while the fact I made money, got free drinks and all that just wasn't worth it...I personally found no reward in playing other peoples music.
I totally agree on the tribute thing, an old friend of mine is "Geddy" in a Rush tribute band (like there aren't enough of THOSE in the world) and I keep telling him to move to Las Vegas where he belongs... LOL
Aug 26, 2003 02:07 pm glynb: Some good points, though I don't really agree that you can't do original songs along with the covers.
I think most bands forget that as a cover band they are playing the hits of the biggest names in the business, and as much we'd all like to think that our original music is as good as, or has "hit" potential, the hard reality of it is most of it doesn't.
I've always liked listening to cover bands myself and on the occasions that one would "sneak" some originals in many times the reaction was much like you say, but every now and then one would stand out and the place would keep on rockin' without missing a beat. :) When a song has that "magic ingredient" whatever it is, that makes it a hit, an audience is gonna take notice!
Aug 26, 2003 11:21 pm one of my favorite songs is a cover: Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower
And Led Zepplin did not write half the lyrics to whole lotta love, it was a john lee hooker song by a name i dont remember. Many of George Thorogood's more famous songs were covers too.
Aug 27, 2003 06:13 am Yeh, there have been many examples where the 'cover' by a great artist has become the definitive best known version of the song.
For example....Off the top of my head I can think of 'Black Magic Woman' by Santana (which i understand is a Fleetwood Mac song), 'I Fought The Law' by The Clash (which my covers band play ;-) ) and 'Addicted To Love' by Tina Turner. I suppose we could all think of further examples.
One good thing about covers is that they do bring the songs to the attention of a new generation, who may be interested enough to check out the original recordings and the work of the original composer, which has got to be a good thing IMO.
With regard to the tribute band thing, I guess a musician who wanted to earn a living from music and still write and compose his/her own material could justify it as a way of paying the bills. Nothing wrong with that, except the covers/tribute band thing can take up so much energy and time that your own stuff can suffer as a result - I know from experience!
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