What's The Point Of Cover Versions?

Can I clarify - are we discussing the purpose of cover versions now or historicaly?

ie do we discuss Elvis's Sun recordings - all covers and all brilliant or do we talk about Westlife's curious Jacques Brel cover?

And dow e keep the discussion within pop genres? Or can a greta performance of Weill be discussed?

God I need a spell check for forms - do you all write your thoughts in a word processor and then copy/paste or are you all great typists?

spell checked...

Can I clarify - are we discussing the purpose of cover versions now or historically?

ie do we discuss Elvis's Sun recordings - all covers and all brilliant or do we talk about Westlife's curious Jacques Brel cover?

And do we keep the discussion within pop genres? Or can a great performance of Weill be discussed?

Yes. Yes. No. Yes.

I was feeling quite cowed at this Weill interpreter called Greta who was so ace and well-known you could refer to her casually by her first name.

Good covers explore different angles to the song - 'Gigantic' by Reel Big Fish sexualises the song further - and alot of Pixiefans loathe it's sounds - it is a lovely 'violent' tribute to the song. We all hear a lot of different things in songs and a good cover lets us play with the original writers intentions. That 'Respect' cover by Wheatus is lame because it's too straightforward - it's not enough to say it's good 'cause it gets buttfuck,Carolina (diddley,doodlay day Chris Moyles) dancing to uk gaydisco.The Jesus and Mary Chain should've done 'Nathan Jones' but it wouldn't have been as much fun as Bananarama and Pete Waterman doing 'Upside Down'.

Hrrmmm, I can't help but answer this question from the musician's point of view. (I think I'm uniquely qualified to take this approach, being the perpetrator of the "Only listenable Travis song ever recorded" - Ned Raggett)

Most times we cover a song through sheer egoism, in terms of hearing a song I really like, but think "By god, I could do better than that. The arrangement is crap, the performance is limp, but it's a *brilliant* song and deserves better". (NO, that was not the impetus behind the Travis cover, believe it or not. I genuinely love the song.)

Other times, it's because you find a song which expresses a sentiment in exactly the way you *wanted* to, so why bother writing your own song about it, when the medium already exists?

I don't know what it brings to the listener, I tend to think of it purely as a selfish thing of "what can *I* do to the song."

In terms of *listening* to a cover, this goes back to the Tribute Album thread. I always listen for a breath of originality. I *hate* picture perfect xerox versions of songs- I mean, why bother? Why waste the studio time? I far prefer people who make songs their own. I've not heard the "Gigantic" version, but I used to know a local band back in NY who did a xerox version which just annoyed me.

This doesn't excuse abominations like that trance version of Duran Duran's Ordinary World, but I suppose they deserve it after their own covers record.

I have just officially changed my mind. Paul is playing "Mi Chica Latina" by Baxendale, and this erradicates every good thing I have ever said about cover versions. GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF!!! THIS IS WORSE THAN ABBA AND GENTLE WAVES PLAYING AT ONCE!!!

Cover versions can be a good way for covering up lack of song writing ability...On the otherhand, they may introduce the covered musicians to a new audience, they are good for the original songwriter in terms of royalties as well. I can't really think of any concreate arguement for cover versions other than that it's always an experience to hear them.

take Galaxie 500 doing New Order's Ceremony: it added a majesty and pace to the song that was thrilling, but they had such a peculiar sound that they made whatever they did their own, anyway. This, curiously, is in line with Elvis - his covers are all pure Elvis cos he was bursting with his own sound and identity.

In conclusion, you have to be damn special to do covers.

Was there a "dream covers" thread already? if so I nominate ESG to cover "My Wonderful One". I haven't heard the Television covers of "Satisfaction" etc. on "the blow up" CD yet any good anyone?

I wish really big superstar people would cover songs by less well-off bands they like more often, it would be a nice redistribution of pop wealth. That would seem a good reason for doing a cover.

An unfashionable opinion I suspect but I'm a huge fan of danced-up cover versions of things, if done well. The whole Klone records thing of getting dreary rock records with OK hooks and turning them into Hi- NRG stompers was ace - possibly my favourite cover version of the 90s was ADAM & Amy's version of the Cranberries' "Zombie". I'm listening to Blur's "Tender" right now and the hook needs disco.

I hate it when people say that cover versions - especially those ones - "ruin the original". The original is usually still around, after all. This doesn't apply to covers of really obscure soul tunes etc. where the original might well be lost to history thanks to a big well-known cover. But then I'd never have heard Gloria Jones' "Tainted Love" were it not for the Soft Cell version.

Great covers are things of joy and wonder

The Associates cover of ‘Love Hangover’ takes the sensuous, confident Diana Ross original and heats it up into a gorgeous excessive luxurious wonder of a track where the emotions are excessive, camp, fragile, uncertain. The hystericising of Ross’s disco classic, driven by McKenzies tenuous sexual identity, is both a tribute to the original’s place in dance culture and a successful attempt to outdo its energy.

Westlife’s ‘Seasons in the sun’ remains one of my favourites. The starting point was almost definitely the Cat Stevens version rather than the Brel original ‘Le Moribond’, but somebody had the brilliant idea not to explain the lyrics to the band who sing it like a homage to family values. It has to be the sweetest suicide note in pop and the chirpy innocence makes it unbearably poignent. It certainly beats Bowies and Almond’s Brel covers, though not perhaps as great as Alex Harvey’s manic cover of ‘Au Suivant’ - ‘Next’.

Because the BBC are anticipating your every whim, Tom, Ronan did a cover of 'Tender' on Emma B's 'Live Lounge' a couple of days ago. Sadly it was abysmal.

Cat Stevens's version? Nah - Terry Jacks's surely.

I love cover versions generally (who cares who wrote the song you bunch of closet singer-songwriter nazis) *BUT* supposedly ironic indie rock takes on pop classics might have been funny for about five minutes in 1978 but should now be outlawed.

Is this an Urban Myth? G'n'R's cover of long-vanished punkers the UK Subs [insert songtitle here: am at work and can't be expected to remember EVERYTHING] allowed Sub frontman Charlie Harper (then 60-odd) to retire and buy a house in the country?

Or if not Terry Jack's version perhaps Westlife had been thinking of the version by its english translator/writer Rod McKuen. Incidentally his website - www.mckuen.com - is pretty special.

Sometimes cover versions are record co. marketing strategy, eg. a new band can get accepted for radio play via recycling an already familiar tune (ie. one already research-approved not to cause 'switch over'). This was Steps route to worldwide semi-fame via the Bee Gees' "Tragedy".

But I'd say most covers are just done for fun - best reason of all.

Tom, you've heard the Cornelius "re-mix" of Blur's Tender, which was basically him stripping the tape and re-doing it as disco. Your wish is answered. ;-)

And perhaps the greatest covers band is The Residents - their covers (eg. 'satisfaction' , 'hello dolly' (hello skinny), and 'kaw liga') are sublime.

By 'violent' I think I meant stripping it to it's essence, petals from a flower, and rebuilding it - I don't know if RBF's own stuff is bollux. Kate is so right about xerox stuff and it's good to hear a musician's point of view. I reckon Lulu could do a great version of 'Girl,you'll be a woman soon' but then . . .I is a dreamer.

i just got the new bristols record and it mostly covers(two originals) but i had never before been conscious of the songs covered so i suppose, to me, they are only covers in name. funny thing is that the aforementioned originals seem to have been written so that fair listener might suspect they too were originally lost gems from someone's 1960's garage. new topic? bands who write songs hoping you will mistake them for someone else.

Somehow the need to cover songs reminds me of the need to trranslate poems. Especially, from the angle that some of the most well known poems, originally not in English, are translated time and time again by different writers. Typically it's not because they think the original version is utter shite, it more has to do with a respect for the work and a desire to shed more light on it. The flaw being in my argument is that Rilke's Torso of Apollo would be comparable to Tainted Love...

Personally, I think Jeff Buckley's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah is one of the most stunning songs ever recorded.

I lost my virginity to John Cale's cover of Hallelujah. Though that really *is* a different thread.

I don't like the Beatles version of "Twist and Shout". The drums are better on the original. The song needs horns.

While I respect Tom E's position on this (as on most things), I don't really agree with him about covers 'ruining the original'. He reckons it doesn't matter, cos the original's still around. Hm... somehow that doesn't seem quite right. Yes, it's lucky that the original's still around, if you hate the cover. But if you hate the cover and it is ubiquitous, then it may feel like a kind of slight to the original. You might equally as well say 'insults don't matter, cos the people they're aimed at are still around after the insult has been made'. That is profoundly true, yet still in a sense inadequate. And if we think of possible equivalents in the other arts (eg film remakes?), I think we might again find ourselves feeling somehow affronted by bad 'covers'.

Of course, you might say that all this talk of feeling affronted and slighted sounds a bit namby-pamby. So they hurt your feelings, kid - so what? And that would be fair enough. But I think that on ILM we do talk about 'feelings' about pop, so I shall stick to my guns, even if they're only cap-guns.

I will say it one more time: Flying Saucer Attack, "Sally Free And Easy". There was a cover with a purpose. Folktronic be damned.

There are two sorts of cover versions (at least). One has been hammered to death on this thread - release a cover version when you can't be arsed to write a song or want to pick up some spurious credibility. The other is to subvert or otherwise fuck with a song, or to add something new to it that it didn't have before. Here are five examples of the latter:

Satisfaction by the Residents, Devo and Cat Power (not all at once, obviously). All take the Stones into new dimensions of alienation by losing the macho element of the original. I particularly like the way Cat Power drops the chorus (because she knows we've all got it in our heads anyway)

Lost in Music by the Fall - Mark on full mad old geezer setting, sending himself and the song up

Medley (Hallelujah/I Know It's Over) by Jeff Buckley - normally I can't stand him, but this adds something to both songs. I didn't lose my virginity to John Cale's version of Hallelujah, by the way, but wish I had...

all of El Baile Aleman by Senor Coconut - latin Kraftwerk songs. Wears a bit thin after a while, but a laugh just the same

The Red Flag by Robert Wyatt - probably the saddest lament for the lost ideals of communism that could be imagined. Robert is the king of covers, and none of it's down to laziness

Then there's Apocalypsis playing Metallica on 'cellos, Johnny Cash's mariachi Dylan, Boiled in Lead's polka version of "People are Strange" Edward II's lovers rock "Wild Mountain Thyme" and the greatest cover of them all - "Louie, Louie". None just take the piss - all just take some existing elements of the original and magnify or distort them.

I love covers in the same way I love different versions of the same picture or the same story told from different points of view. But then maybe that's just me...

Paul: what you say is - I think - intelligent and well-informed, but it's still too negative. Not all covers are about doing wildly different things, let alone 'fucking with' the originals (see above for my qualms on that), OR cynicism. They may just emerge out of a kind of devotion or fascination for the original.

The question was, what's the point of covers? Here goes:

1. To make the covering band happy, cos they get to be a bit like, or pay tribute to, their heroes for a moment (maybe).

2. To make the covered artist happy, cos it flatters them.

3. To please fans of either band, cos here's a new track coming out related to the band they like.

4. Doubly to please those who happen to like both bands, who swoon, - Aaah! At last, that match made in heaven has arrived in my life.

In a word: happiness.

Now - something i can agree with - head on the nail

a tribute to ac/dc album on cherry red = extrordinary

Btw, has anyone else seen the cover of Sade's "By Your Side" by Beachwood Sparks on MTV? WTF? The original is, what, barely a year old, if that? And they made a VIDEO for this cover? Which, btw, isn't very good at all (I mean both the cover and the video)--surely even burning the money would have been a better use than making a home video and then promoting on MTV. Yeesh.