Let me tell you why I love covers...
I love covers. I absolutely adore them. From horrible live covers to ridiculously inventive studio covers - it's all good. Granted, I do tire of versions that sound exactly like the original. But for every one of those, you'll find at least one good one, one that really does something different.
Mainly I just love the possibility that comes with doing covers. People spin off into totally different styles and genres. At one point, this set of posts was going to be organized by sub-genres that I think of the covers I have in. Some examples:
• the electronic/techo cover
• the acoustic guitar cover
• covers of Britney Spears songs
• the ironic cover (there's a lot of overlap with the Britney catagory)
• the symphonic orchestra cover
• covers of rap songs
...and so on. I love the genre-bending that goes with covers, because there's so much potential. Admittedly, I'm especially fan of rock bands covering pop songs. Many of the pop songs that can drive us crazy were actually written by very talented musicians who make great music in their off time (case in point: Butch Walker). And sometimes when you mess with the type of music, you bring out some of the quality that you might not have heard originally.
Then there are the covers that are wonderful simply because they are so bad.
To me, the best cover does something different with the song, but still holds onto the core of the original. They make it their own without forgetting where it came from. It's not always easy, but when I come across a good one - nothing makes me happier. Which you've probably figured out by now if you've seen some of my posts.
There were going to be sections devoted to talk about pep band (particularly playing contemporary music in) and those "string tribute" albums that are constantly being churned out, but it ended up being too much. If you are interested in hearing my thoughts on such things, let me know and I might write some stuff up at some point.
Posts that will be coming over the next while (I'll link them as they go up):
• Lounge lizards doing covers.
• "Hallelujah" & "Stairway To Heaven"
• "Umbrella" & "Jolene"
• The Dresden Dolls doing covers, and the Nightmare Before Christmas rerelease
• and a collection of (assuming I ever get them all uploaded) about 100 others.
I've had (and am having) a lot of fun with this, so hopefully you will as well!
Mainly I just love the possibility that comes with doing covers. People spin off into totally different styles and genres. At one point, this set of posts was going to be organized by sub-genres that I think of the covers I have in. Some examples:
• the electronic/techo cover
• the acoustic guitar cover
• covers of Britney Spears songs
• the ironic cover (there's a lot of overlap with the Britney catagory)
• the symphonic orchestra cover
• covers of rap songs
...and so on. I love the genre-bending that goes with covers, because there's so much potential. Admittedly, I'm especially fan of rock bands covering pop songs. Many of the pop songs that can drive us crazy were actually written by very talented musicians who make great music in their off time (case in point: Butch Walker). And sometimes when you mess with the type of music, you bring out some of the quality that you might not have heard originally.
Then there are the covers that are wonderful simply because they are so bad.
To me, the best cover does something different with the song, but still holds onto the core of the original. They make it their own without forgetting where it came from. It's not always easy, but when I come across a good one - nothing makes me happier. Which you've probably figured out by now if you've seen some of my posts.
There were going to be sections devoted to talk about pep band (particularly playing contemporary music in) and those "string tribute" albums that are constantly being churned out, but it ended up being too much. If you are interested in hearing my thoughts on such things, let me know and I might write some stuff up at some point.
Posts that will be coming over the next while (I'll link them as they go up):
• Lounge lizards doing covers.
• "Hallelujah" & "Stairway To Heaven"
• "Umbrella" & "Jolene"
• The Dresden Dolls doing covers, and the Nightmare Before Christmas rerelease
• and a collection of (assuming I ever get them all uploaded) about 100 others.
I've had (and am having) a lot of fun with this, so hopefully you will as well!