here's my rant about "cover songs"...
for quite a while there seems to be a growing phobia about so-called "cover songs" among music critics, musical artists, and even music fans....not only does it seem crazy to me but I think it is a contributing factor to the low quality of so much music being released today....in recent times I have heard or seen comments such as "don't want to order a lot of that album because it is all cover songs" (said by the buyer of major French retail chain about new album of R & B artist--even though the #1 selling album in France at the time was Seals album of cover songs!)...."an artist's second album is way too early to be doing an album of cover songs" (said by random fan in Amazon post)...."I don't want to do any cover songs" (said by artist who was first rate signer but mediocre songwriter)...."we don't want to play too many cover songs" (said by radio programmer who nevertheless ended up picking a cover song to play from the artists latest album).....
What lies behind all these comments? There is a feeling that an artist doing someone else's song is somehow being uncreative, less serious and less interesting. And that is ridiculous.
But first, a little history. What is a "a cover song"? As far as I know the term came into being sixty or more years ago. If a song become a hit by a given artist, dozens--if not hundreds--of other artists from various genres would rush to "cover it" , that is do their own version of the song. The logic was simple--it was a hit song, a great song and people love to hear great songs. So the smart artist, wanting to be heard and please their audience, did their own version of what had been proven to be a great song, according to the audience. In the popular music realm, more often than not, songs tended to be written by professional songwriters--i.e. people who devoted themselves to the craft of songwriting and attained a certain level of skill. Yes, there were always performers who wrote some or even most of their own songs but they tended to be the exception. Then what happened? In short order: The Beatles, Stevie Wonder and singer-songwriters. The astonishing popularity--and mystique as cultural leaders-- of the Beatles, a self-contained band that wrote their own songs (though even the Beatles did a fair number of cover songs in their first two years of recording) inspired large numbers of young people to form bands and write songs; quite a number of such bands became very popular in the rock explosion of the Sixties. Meanwhile, by the end of the Sixties Stevie Wonder was writing most if not all of his material and he wrote, recorded and largely played four masterpiece albums in a row. So for the R & B world, Stevie Wonder (and Marvin Gaye) became role models for artists. Finally, the success of singer-songwriters such as Carole King (who started as a Brill Building songwriter), Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Paul Simon etc sparked an explosion of sensitive singer-songwriters expressing themselves in the 70's.
What's wrong with this? Well, the problem is that a great singer might not be a great songwriter. A great producer might not be a great songwriter. A great songwriter might not be a great singer. Most people are lucky to write one or two great songs in their life, maybe a handful of good ones in a year or two. Not everyone is John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Stevie Wonder or Carole King. But all of a sudden the ideal of a musical artist became one who wrote his or her own songs. That was considered the ultimate expressiveness, the ultimate originality. And that become the norm. But most really good singers or musicians were not great songwriters. So when they filled their albums with their own songs or their producers filled their albums with their own songs, the quality suffered. But they felt the needed to do it in order to be taken seriously.
Clive Davis made the following comment about this trend: "did Frank Sinatra or Billie Holiday need to write songs in order to be taken seroiusly?" Obviously not. Think of all the great artists who made great recordings with cover songs: Aretha Franklin "Respect" (written by Otis Redding")(her singature song), Nina Simone, "I Loves You Porgy"(her signature song) , John Coltrane "My Favorite Things" (arguably his breakthrough), Otis Redding "Satisfaction", Jimmy Hendrix, "All Along The Watchtower", Chaka Khan "My Funny Valentine" and on and on. These artists were great singers or players who to a great song and made an original expression with it. That's something any great singer or player can do. They don't need to have written the song.
The weird thing is the "cover song" label is now often applied to ANY song not written by the performer, even if it was never recorded before or not well known. Somehow it is considered better for an artist to record a cd's worth of medicore original songs, with maybe one standout, than a cd with a bunch of great songs mostly written by others. And that's a shame. It's one reason people don't buy cd's like they used to. And artists don't develop their interpretative skills. Let's hope we can get over "cover song phobia" soon!
Mr. Grass is entirely correct. I especially like when the NY Philharmonic covers Bach during the Christman season!
Posted by: D. Weiss | 08/14/2009 at 01:52 PM