The Danger of Cover Songs

[Anderton]

I like doing the occasional cover, but I feel there's no point in being a slave to the original - I like to make a song my own, and put a totally different twist on it.

 

But every time I've done so, and posted the song on YouTube, people pretty much savage it. I did an EDM version of "Can't Explain" by the Who and a heavy metal version of Buddy Holly's "Words of Love." I took them down because the reaction was so negative...it's not so much that people hated the music, they hated that I was defiling an iconic song by taking it completely out of its comfort zone. I don't think people were willing to see the songs as so good, they could survive anything

 

Come to think of it, the only person who's really liked my covers is BMD, for the covers I've done of his songs...

 

However, I never learn! So I just posted a cover version of "Walking on the Moon" that sounds more like Led Zeppelin than faux reggae. At least this time, I warned people to expect something different. Let's see how long it lasts before I have to take it down.

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

[Mike Rivers]

I've heard quite a few "reconstructed" pop songs by jazz vocalists. I haven't heard any that I particularly liked, but it's not because I've felt that the singer has defiled the song, It's just that I didn't think that the reconstruction went well with the lyrics.

[dboomer]

Don"t understand that. If I wanted to hear the original, I"d listen to the original.

[zeronyne]

Personally, I love covers. I love the ones that are note-for-note perfect, and I love the ones that are completely out of the box. I don't like the ones that are obvious half-assed attempts, and I HATE medleys. I even hated when Rush did a medley of about 30 of their songs.

 

But in terms of YouTube, I think you are looking at the this the wrong way, Craig. Let those gatekeepers, virtue signalers, and trolls have their say, YouTube doesn't track dislikes in any meaningful way...I think they understand that eyeballs are eyeballs, and you should take advantage of that.

[Joe Muscara]

I would also advocate letting the trolls have their way. It can lead to more hits and more fans. Some people might accuse you of trying to get attention/being a sellout by doing a cover instead of your own things. I've seen people accuse artists of doing that (when Joey De did his Michael Jackson tribute album or The Bad Plus' take on classic tunes). But if it's your artistic statement, put it out there and keep it out there.

 

I don't know if I've ever listened to your stuff, but I dug this. The only complaint I might have is the ending. It seemed to just stop. But other than that, pretty cool.

[Dave Bryce]

I adore doing covers. I"ve done three records full of them. Sometimes I do them sort of like the originals, but more than not I don"t. It"s amazing how much you can learn from a tune by taking it apart and putting it back together again.

 

I don"t much care what haters have to say on the subject - my stock response is that most classical music is covers...lotta jazz, too - see 'standards', figure A.

 

Also, covers let me go play with my studio without having to also worry about being a songwriter.

 

dB

[Muad’Dib]

I have heard good covers of songs and i have heard bad covers.

 

I like Joan Baez"s cover of The Night they drove old Dixie Down, compared to The Band"s Version. No disrespect to The Band.

 

However I don"t like Aerosmith"s version of 'Come Together'

[Muad’Dib]

Not bad cover Craig!

[Dave Bryce]

I like Joan Baez"s cover of The Night they drove old Dixie Down, compared to The Band"s Version. No disrespect to The Band.

 

However I don"t like Aerosmith"s version of 'Come Together'

Idea for a new topic.

 

dB

 

 

 

[Muad’Dib]

I like Joan Baez"s cover of The Night they drove old Dixie Down, compared to The Band"s Version. No disrespect to The Band.

 

However I don"t like Aerosmith"s version of 'Come Together'

Idea for a new topic.

 

dB

 

 

 

Ok!

 

[Notes_Norton]

I think the general public prefers memories to originals.

 

We all listen with musician ears, so our opinion is colored by that.

 

In our live shows, we are a slave to the original in some songs, others we drift away but carry the same feel, and some others we totally reconstruct.

 

How far away we drift from the cover depends on the song and our audience. With decades of experience with these beautiful people, we usually, but not always get it right.

 

Now for listening to others, it depends. If I find it musically interesting according to my personal tastes in music, I don't care if it is note-for-note or completely re-imagined. But I listen with musician ears.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[Anderton]

I think the general public prefers memories to originals.

 

That is an excellent point. Music is so tied in with memory, and given that the average audience member wants to hear "the hits," to hear something that contradicts your memory could definitely produce a WTF moment.

 

[Notes_Norton]

He says, "Son, can you play me a memory

I'm not really sure how it goes

But it's sad and it's sweet and I knew it complete

When I wore a younger man's clothes"

 

Billy Joel - Piano Man

 

As I often say: "You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians, or you can play for the general public --- if you are good enough, you'll get the audience you asked for."

 

I've always played for the general public, and they haven't let me down yet. I've worked two day jobs in my life, while testing what it is like to be normal (which IMHO is sooooo over rated). Neither lasted that long. Other than that, I've made my living doing music and nothing but music. No boss-man or boss-lady representing some faceless corporation telling me to do somebody else's bidding. I take the gigs I want, turn down the ones I don't, and look forward to every gig.

 

There are musicians who refuse to play covers, and some who look down at others who do. I don't mind. There is an art to playing covers, how much of your own personality to inject, which tunes to be strict or loose with, when to call them according to the needs of the audience and so on.

 

Music memories are strong. When I visited my mother was in a nursing home I saw the musicians come in to entertain, and people who couldn't speak, were singing along to memories word for word in their wheelchairs.

 

I'll mix in some songs for myself every gig, but most of the time I'm playing the audience. We have a good time together, I get applause every 5 minutes or so, they thank me for giving them a nice evening, and at the end of the night they pay me money. Life is good.

 

Insights and incites by Notes

[harmonizer]

Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" is a jazz album consisting solely of instrumental covers of 4 very famous pop songs, and he made this only about a year after the "Giant Steps" LP which consisted of all original compositions.

 

I can think of 2 cases with pop songs where I end up appreciating a cover better than the original - either the original wasn't really fully realized, or the cover does something very different.

[Anderton]

Coltrane's "My Favorite Things" is a jazz album consisting solely of instrumental covers of 4 very famous pop songs, and he made this only about a year after the "Giant Steps" LP which consisted of all original compositions.

 

A most excellent choice!

[nursers]

I think the general public prefers memories to originals.

 

That is an excellent point. Music is so tied in with memory, and given that the average audience member wants to hear "the hits," to hear something that contradicts your memory could definitely produce a WTF moment.

 

Absolutely. We have people come to our gigs, not just because we play from specific eras, but for specific songs. There's 2 or 3 songs, that if we didn't play them, at least one person will have had their night wrecked. That's one of the joys of social media - specific song preferences are made VERY clear

 

[RABid]

For the most part, jazz covers are the ones I dislike most. I hate when they restructure the melody and put too much effort into the "look what I can do" aspect of the song rather than making good music. If you are going to do a cover, respect the original. You can change it, just have some respect. I loved what Vinella Fudge would do with covers back in the 60's. They put their on voice to the songs while respecting the writer. Was shocked and happy to find a clip of them on the Jimmy Fallon show. They made a real career of doing covers and doing them with their own voice.

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

[Stephen Fortner]

First things first: Craig, this rocks ass.

 

I've approached covers in two ways. (Note: Everything I'm saying is outside of the jazz world, which of course is a whole other thing...) There's being in a cover band and trying to get as close as you can to the sound of the original. I came up in a lot of corporate/wedding bands and did this going back to my teenage years, because having synths and knowing how to program them is a huge "make it like the record" factor. It's undoubtedly fun when you're with good musicians (and if you have a horn section and can cover Tower and EWF it's a total blast), and can be lucrative. Then there's approaching a cover artistically and trying to make it your own. When I see major acts doing this, I feel like they really need to add something beyond just an homage, however well-intentioned that may be. Not to rip on Counting Crows specifically, but their cover of Joni's "Big Yellow Taxi" popped into my head in the "why bother" category. So Craig, what you're doing is super cool in my book. I'm currently working on a robotic, Devo-like arrangement of Billy Squier's "Everybody Wants You" for a synthpop duo a friend of mine and I may put together. But yeah, you're gonna have the haters.

 

For the inflexible purists, I suggest tribute bands. If they're good, their live experience is often more like seeing a "concert of the record" than the original acts are live.

[Anderton]

I've approached covers in two ways. There's being in a cover band and trying to get as close as you can to the sound of the original...Then there's approaching a cover artistically and trying to make it your own

 

Yes, excellent point - I wasn't really thinking of traditional cover bands. But in that case, if you don't hew to the original, people might throw things. On YouTube, they can't do that.

 

I've never played in a cover band, so I don't know that experience. I bet it would be fun, especially if it was a tribute band for a band you really liked. Then again, I also like when a band reframes their own hits. I saw Steve Winwood awhile ago, and even though the material was ancient, it was fresh because he changed the arrangements around. Interestingly, he got a great response from a much younger demographic than his original fan base. I'm sure for many of them, it was the first time they'd heard the songs, and they just plain liked the songs. It was pretty cool seeing an "old guy" like that have the audience in the palm of his hand at an effing arena as he opened for Tom Petty.

[Notes_Norton]

My first cover band was when I was in junior high school.

 

My friends and I worked out the pop songs of the day to the best of our ability, trying to play them "exactly like the record". We were terrible, but everybody else was back then.

 

The school hired us to play a dance in the gym. So there I was on the stage with my very best fiends, we were playing those songs we worked so hard to reproduce, people were dancing, people were applauding, and that cute girl who wouldn't even acknowledge my existence in English class was "making eyes" at me!!! And at the end of the night they paid me money for that experience!!!! That's when I said, "This is what I want to do for the rest of my life"

 

I played local clubs and when I graduated high school I applied for the Air Force Band, but failed the physical (bronchitis). So I went on the road with a rock band. At that time, before disco, all rock bands in singles clubs were expected to be cover bands and cover everything as close to the record as humanly possible. It was actually a great learning experience. There is a real art to being in a cover band: what songs to learn as soon as they are released so you get the most mileage out of them before they are passe, how to recreate what you can with different instrumentation, how much of your own personality you can put in (usually improv solos), when to call which songs, how to pace the audience, etc.

 

We were duplicating what great session musicians like The Wrecking Crew, Muscle Shoals, Stax and others created. We learned the licks, rhythms, chord progressions and all we learned became part of our personal musical vocabularies. It was like music university.

 

We traveled from town to town (mostly college towns) month to month playing cover songs, learning new ones as they were released, having an adventure with a group of other musicians, making money, scoring with as many girls as we could, and gaining entertainment experience and wisdom.

 

Eventually we started mixing in originals when the time was right, developed a fan club, and became an opening act for the headliners in the day in concert. The record deal dangled in front of us, but negotiations between our manager, his lawyers, and Motown broke down over money.

 

It was an exciting time of my life, and I wouldn't trade those experiences for anything.

 

I did jazz for a while. The guitarist taught at U of Miami and played with Ira Sullivan so heavyweight jazzers came to visit and sit in. Both inspiring and intimidating. But I needed a "day job" to support the one day per week jazz habit, and eventually I thought that was the ultimate 'sell out' for art's sake. A bad day at playing cover songs is better than the best day at a day job.

 

So I went into the yacht club, country club, condominium, retirement community end of the business here in Florida. It's a big market and pays better than the clubs. By that time I was with the lady I eventually married so young girls were no longer a necessary part of the gig At that time the gigs consisted mostly of "The Great American Songbook", tunes by Duke Ellington, Sinatra, Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, Count Basie, and a few very early rock songs. But the good thing is in this market you don't have to play them note-for-note and sometimes can stray quite a bit.

 

Well the audiences still look the same, but instead of Duke Ellington and Cole Porter songs, now they want Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and a few contemporary cross-overs like Uptown Funk.

 

I still have a great time making music with my best fend plus the audience still applauds every 5 minutes, they still dance, they still pay me money, and I still go home with the prettiest girl in the place, except we're married now and it's even better than before.

 

I love my life!!!!

 

Notes

 

 

[GovernorSilver]

Nice cover, Mr. Anderton! I really like how you changed it up.

 

I'm used to the level of discourse/maturity in Youtube comments being pretty low, so in your place I too would simply ignore the comments.

 

I've been listening to this cover a lot, of late.

 

[video:youtube]

 

 

 

 

[Anderton]

Nice cover, Mr. Anderton! I really like how you changed it up.

 

I'm used to the level of discourse/maturity in Youtube comments being pretty low, so in your place I too would simply ignore the comments.

 

It's always a concern that aliens will look at the comments on YouTube, decide there's no intelligent life on earth, and then just serve us for lunch while they build a rest stop for aliens who need a pit stop before leaving the milky way for another galaxy.

 

[Anderton]

I've been listening to this cover a lot, of late.

 

And that's one of the reasons I LOVE this forum. I would not have know about this otherwise. Thanks!

 

[Piktor]

While I understand the commercial decision to perform material such that it sounds like the original, personally I see little point in recording material that way. As far as I"m concerned, I want to hear what new things someone else can bring to a song. Sometimes I don"t realize how good a song is until I hear it reinterpreted in a completely new way.

e.g.

[video:youtube]

 

(It helps here that the backup singer on the chorus is pretty good too.)

 

[Notes_Norton]

For gigging I see an advantage to playing cover songs similar to the original.

 

For recording purposes, if you cover a song, either do it much, much, much better or change it entirely.

 

At least for my ears.

 

Notes

[Gus Lozada]

Also, covers let me go play with my studio without having to also worry about being a songwriter.

 

dB

 

... and people can immediately feel familiar with whatever you are doing. Yes, I make my own songs, but I haven't made more than 40, I think, so I'm mostly a "cover" musician.

[Gus Lozada]

However, I never learn! So I just posted a cover version of "Walking on the Moon" that sounds more like Led Zeppelin than faux reggae. At least this time, I warned people to expect something different. Let's see how long it lasts before I have to take it down.

 

Hey it has a great vibe. Liked it!!!

 

[GovernorSilver]

I've been listening to this cover a lot, of late.

 

And that's one of the reasons I LOVE this forum. I would not have know about this otherwise. Thanks!

 

I'm honored!

 

When I first saw that scene in the show BECK: Mongolian Chop Squad I was puzzled by the song not matching the reaction of the crowd, then I learned that the show producers had been forced to replace the Beatles cover with another song, purportedly by US copyright law. So I was glad to find that fan-produced version which edited the song back in.

 

BECK is about a boy whose life is changed by a chance encounter with an older boy who is already a skilled rock guitarist. The show follows his development from ordinary non-musician to rhythm guitarist and 2nd vocalist of the other boy's new band "Beck". It turns out that the best songs by "Beck" and other fictional bands in the show were actually covers of songs by real bands. For example I don't know which version of "Spice Of Life" I like more - the cover by the fictional band, or the original by the real one. I do like how the fictional band's version starts with the band members tuning up:

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

In the case of "Face", I like the original bit more because of the slightly greater harmonic variety.

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]

 

Apparently, the recordings by "Beck" were done by real-life band Beat Crusaders, with show cast members on the vocals. They also covered their own tunes in the soundtrack.

 

Cover:

[video:youtube]

 

Original:

[video:youtube]

[BMD]

Very nice cover, Craig

 

I hear what you say about it being Zeppelin-esque, but I also hear echoes (if you'll pardon the pun) of Pink Floyd in there, too

 

The reverb is very tastefully done, and as usual the musicianship is excellent

[Doerfler]

I also hear echoes (if you'll pardon the pun) of Pink Floyd in there, too

 

 

this