Cover version

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In popular music, a cover version, or simply cover, is a new rendition (performance or recording) of a previously recorded song.

In the 19th and early to mid 20th century popular tunes were released to the public as sheet music. These publications, whether songs or instrumentals, were offered to a variety of the star artists of the day in the hope they would present them to their audiences, on stage, radio or film. So it was in the interest of the tune's writer(s) and the companies that issued their work to get as much public coverage as possible. This inevitably let to more than one version of a tune being made as recorded music became more widespread and popular, in particular when radio and the notion of a popular music "Hit Parade" became a major commercial and entertainments force. The wider the audience the greater the sales of the sheet music, although the various recordings reduced the number of sales made by any one recording artist. The term "cover version" originally implied rival versions of a tune aimed at different tastes, or, just as frequently, a direct copy of a tune introduced by one artist or artists but imitated by others to meet the demands of their record company's targent audiences. So popular musicians might play covers as a tribute to the original performer or group, to win audiences who like to hear a familiar tune, or to increase their chance of success by using a proven hit or to gain credibility by its comparison with a previous version of the song. Using familiar material is an important method in learning various styles of music. Artists may also perform "covers" of a favourite artists hit tunes for the simple pleasure of playing a familiar song. A cover band plays such "cover versions" exclusively.

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[edit] Early cover versions and the origin of the term

From early in the 20th century it was common practice among phonograph record labels, if any company had a record that was a significant commercial success, that other record companies would have singers or musicians "cover" the "hit" tune by recording a version for their own label in hopes of cashing in on the tune's success. Since there was little promotion or advertising involved, when the average record buyer went out to purchase a new record, they usually asked for the tune, not the artist; additionally, distribution of records was highly localized so a quickly-recorded version of a hit song from another area could reach an audience before the artist(s) who first introduced the tune in a particular format - the "original" artist - was widely available, and the highly competitive record companies were quick to take advantage of these facts.

This began to change in the later 1930s, when the average age of the now greatly increased record-buying public began to expand to include a younger age group. During the Swing Era, when a bobby soxer went looking for a recorded tune, say "In the Mood", typically she wanted the version popularized by her favourite artist(s), e.g. the Glenn Miller version (on RCA Victor's cheaper Bluebird label), not someone else's (often presented on a more expensive record company's label). This trend was marked closely by the charting of record sales by the different artists, not just hit tunes, on the music industry's Hit Parades. However, for sound commercial reasons, record companies still continued to record different versions of tunes that sold well. Most audiences until the mid-1950s still heard there favourite artists playing live music on stage or via the radio. And since radio shows were for the most part aimed at local audiences, it was still rare for an artist in one area to reach a mass audience. Also radio stations tended to cater of broad audience markets, so an artist in one vain might not get broadcast on other stations geared to a set audience. So popular versions of Jazz, Country and Western or Rhythm and Blues tunes, and vice versa, were frequent. Europe's Radio Luxembourg, like many commercial stations, also sold "air time"; so record companies and others bought air time to promote their own artists or products, thus increasing the number of recorded versions of any tune then available. Add to this the fact that many radio stations were limited in their permitted "needle time" (the amount of recorded music they were allowed to play), or were regulated on the amount of local talent they had to promote in live broadcasts, as with most national stations like the BBC in the UK.

In the early days of rock and roll, many tunes originally recorded by musicians were re-recorded in a more popular vain by other artists with a more toned-down style. Given the reluctance of radio stations to play formats outside their own target audience group's taste, this was inevitable. By far the most popular style of music in the mid-1950s / mid-1960s was still the professional light orchestral unit, so that was the format sought by popular recording artists. For many purists these popular versions lacked both the raw, often amateurish, earthiness of the original introducing artists. But mostly they did not have the added kudos craved by many rebellious teenagers, the social stigma - or street crediblity - of rock and roll music; as most of these were performed by the type of black artists not heard on the popular mass entertainment markets, some having also been written by them. The bowdlerized popular cover versions were considered by most audiences at the time to be more palatable for the mass audience of both parents and children as a group audience. Therefore the artists targeting the white-majority family audience were more acceptable to programmers at most radio and TV stations. For this reason singer-songwriter Don McLean has called the cover version a "racist tool.")[1]. Many parents in the 1950s - 60s, whether intentionally racists or not, felt deeply threatened by the rapid pace of social change. After all they had for the most part shared entertainments with their parents in ways that their own children had become reluctant to do. The jukebox and the personal record disc player were still relatively expensive pieces of machinery - and the portable radio a great novelty, allowing truculant teenagers to shut themselves off. Tunes by introducing artists which were then successful on the mass audience Hit Parade charts are called crossovers as they "crossed over" from the targeted Country, Jazz or Rhythm audience. Also, many songs originally recorded by male artists were rerecorded by female artists, and vice versa. Such a cover version is sometimes called a cross cover version. . Incidentally, up to the mid-1930s male vocalists often sang the female lyrics to popular songs, though this faded rapidly after it was deemed decadent in Nazi Germany.

While it is now all but impossible to trace the actual history of the term "cover version," it was used from the late 1940s to indicate rival versions of a tune competing for placement on the popular Hit Parade charts. It is likely the term also began to be used by record collectors once the early rock'n'roll records had become collectible. A widely-accepted origin of the term is that it relates to the record company "covering a bet" by placing a bet on a song someone else has already bet on, hoping to ride the coattails of their good luck. It has also been suggested that the term "cover" may have its origins in an attempt by the artist who recorded the newer version of the song to have his/her version literally "cover" the original version in the sales racks. Woolworth, a discount chain store, even had its own label (Embassy) specializing in low-price copies of popular tunes. Another commonly-suggested origin, also apocryphal, is that a new recording by a white artist was intended to "cover up the blackness" of the original and make it acceptable to white listeners.

[edit] Cover version versus remake

"Cover version" is now commonly used to mean any recording of a song previously recorded by another artist (see, for example, the emergence of such websites as The Covers Project and Coverversionen.de).

Some collectors and researchers, however, distinguish between a "cover version" and a "remake:" "cover version" means one made soon after the original to cash in on its success, while "remake" means one made much later, usually at least partially for artistic reasons or as an homage. The performance and recording of evergreen or standard hit tunes was one of the most common forms of artisitic expression prior to the "concept" album tour and the fad for "singer / songwriters" took hold of popular music in the late-1960s / early-1970s.

Using these definitions, the 1956 versions of "Why Do Fools Fall In Love" by The Diamonds and by Gale Storm would be genuine cover versions of Frankie Lymon's original, but Diana Ross's 1981 version would be called a remake or artistic homage.

There are some, especially on Usenet, who have strong opinions on this: see, for example a discussion at rec.music.rock-pop-r+b.1960s. [2].

[edit] Modern cover versions

Over the years, cover versions of many popular songs have been recorded, sometimes with a radically different style, sometimes virtually indistinguishable from the original. For example, Jose Feliciano's version of "Light My Fire" was utterly distinct from the The Doors' version, but Carl Carlton's 1974 cover of Robert Knight's 1967 hit single "Everlasting Love" sounds almost identical to the original (the main difference being the horn fills added to Carlton's version).

Cover versions can also cross language barriers. For example, Falco's 1982 German-language hit "Der Kommissar" was covered in English by After the Fire, although the German title was retained. The English version, which was not a direct translation of Falco's original but retained much of its spirit, reached the Top 5 on the US charts. The Lion Sleeps Tonight evolved over several decades and versions from a 1939 Zulu a cappella song. Many of singer Laura Branigan's 1980s hits were English-language remakes of songs already successful in Europe, for the American record market.

Although modern cover versions are often produced for artistic reasons, some aspects of the disingenuous spirit of early cover versions remain. In the album-buying heyday of the 1970s albums of sound-alike covers were created, commonly released to fill bargain bins in the music section of supermarkets and even specialized music stores, where uninformed customers might easily confuse them with original recordings (especially since the packaging of such discs was often intentionally confusing, combining the name of the original artist in large letters with a tiny disclaimer like as originally sung by or as made popular by). More recently, albums such as the Kidz Bop series of Compact discs, which feature occasionally bowlderized versions of contemporary songs sung by children, have been sales successes.

[edit] Contemporising older songs

Cover versions are often used to make familiar songs contemporary. For example "Singin' In The Rain" was originally introduced in the film The Hollywood Revue of 1929. The famous Gene Kelly version was a revision that brought it up to date for a 1950s Hollywood musical, and was used in the 1952 film Singin' in the Rain. In 1978 it was covered by French singer Sheila accompanied by the B. Devotion group, as a disco song, once more updating it to suit the musical taste of the era. During the disco era there was a brief trend of taking well known songs and recording them in the disco style. More recently "Singin' In the Rain" has been covered and remixed by British act Mint Royale for a televison commercial for Volkswagen.

Director Baz Luhrmann has contemporised and stylised older songs for use in his films. New or cover versions such as John Paul Young's "Love Is in the Air" occur in Strictly Ballroom, Candi Staton's "Young Hearts Run Free" appear in Romeo and Juliet, and adaptations of artists such as Nat King Cole, Nirvana, KISS, Thelma Houston, Marilyn Monroe, Madonna, T. Rex, David Bowie, Queen and The Police are used in Moulin Rouge! The covers are carefully designed to fit into the structure of each film and suit the taste of the intended audience.

[edit] Introduction of new artists

New artists are often introduced to the record buying public with performances of well known, "safe" songs as evidenced in Pop Idol and its international counterparts. It is also a means by which the public can more easily concentrate upon the new performer without the need to judge the quality of the songwriting skills.

However, some new artists have chosen to radically rework a popular song to exemplify their approach and philosophy to music. A prime example is the band Devo's radical reconstruction of the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction". Many musicians have other goals, such as to create publicity as in Sid Vicious' notorious rendition of "My Way".

[edit] Tributes, tribute albums and cover albums

Established artists often pay homage to artists or songs that inspired them before they started their careers by recording cover versions, or performing unrecorded cover versions in their live performances for variety. For example U2 has performed ABBA's "Dancing Queen" live, and Kylie Minogue has performed The Clash's "Should I Stay Or Should I Go" - songs that would be completely out of character for them to record, but which allow them artistic freedom when performing live. These performances are often released as part of authorised "live recordings" and thus become legitimate cover versions.

In recent years unrelated contemporary artists have contributed individual cover versions to tribute albums for well established artists who are considered to be influential and inspiring. This trend was spawned by Hal Willner's Amarcord Nino Rota in 1981. Typically, each project has resulted in a collection of the particular artist's best recognised or most highly regarded songs reworked by more current performers. Among the artists to receive this form of recognition are Joy Division, New Order, Rush, Faith No More, Tom Waits, Oingo Boingo, The Bee Gees, ABBA, Fleetwood Mac, Cher, Shania Twain, Kate Bush, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Rammstein, The Carpenters, Dolly Parton, Nirvana, Leonard Cohen, U2, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Duran Duran, Carole King, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Sublime, Weezer, and the Finn brothers.

The soundtrack to the film I Am Sam is an example of this: it consisted of Beatles songs redone by various modern artists. Some more notable examples are Conception: The Interpretation of Stevie Wonder Songs; Common Thread an album of contemporary country artists performing hit singles by The Eagles; the Rhythm, Country and Blues album where a country artist duets with a Rhythm and blues artist on a standard of either genre. Two notable tribute albums to the Grateful Dead are Wake the Dead, with Celtic-style covers, and Might As Well, by The Persuasions.

In some cases this proves to be popular enough to spawn a series of cover albums being released for a band, either under a consistent branding such as the two Black Sabbath "Navity in Black" cover albums and the Industrial themed "Blackest Album" cover albums of Metallica songs, or in the form of releases from a number of different companies cashing in on the trend such as the slew of Metallica cover albums released in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Metallica itself is known for doing covers; their original album Kill Em All included a couple of covers (Diamond Head's Am I Evil and Blitzkrieg's Blitzkrieg), the original Garage Days Re-Revisited was a collection of covers paying homage to a number of mostly obscure bands, which were later combined with additional new covers on the 2 disc Garage Inc., which among other things included covers of Black Sabbath, Bob Seger, Blue Öyster Cult, Mercyful Fate, and numerous Motörhead tracks. In an interesting turn around there were even a couple of releases of The Metallic-Era CD's collecting tracks from bands that Metallica had covered, both the original versions of the covered songs, and some additional songs by the same artist.

A different type of all-covers album occurs when one artist creates a release of covers of songs originally by many other artists, as a way to recognize their influences or simply as a change of pace or direction. An early example of this was David Bowie's album "Pin Ups", featuring songs from groups with which he had shared venues in the 1960s. Since these bands included The Who and The Kinks many of the tracks would have been at least familiar to his audience. Other more recent examples of this type of album include Renegades by Rage Against The Machine featuring covers of songs originally performed by diverse artists including Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones, Afrikaa Bambaataa, and Erik B and Rakim, as well as the EP Feedback by Canadian rock band Rush. Tori Amos's album Strange Little Girls features covers of songs originally performed by male artists sung from the perspective of thirteen female characters she created. More rarely, bands will do an entire album of cover songs originally by a particular artist, such as The The's Hanky Panky, which consists entirely of Hank Williams songs, or Booker T. and the MGs' album McElmore Avenue which was a cover of The Beatles' Abbey Road, or Russ Pay's tribute to Madchester legends Joy Division.

There are also bands who create entire albums out of covers, but unlike Tin Pan Alley-style traditional pop singers, they often perform the songs in a genre completely unlike the original songs. Examples include the Moog Cookbook (alternative and classic rock songs done on Moog synthesizers), Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine (top 40, including punk, heavy metal, teen pop and indie rock performed in a Vegas lounge lizard style), and Hayseed Dixie (a play on the name AC/DC, they started covering AC/DC songs and progressed to other classic rock, playing them as bluegrass songs, similar to The Gourds' version of "Gin and Juice.") Also notable are Nine Inch Elvis, who take Elvis Presley songs and rework them in an industrial fashion similar to Nine Inch Nails; Beatallica, who perform tracks by The Beatles in the style of Metallica.

Some cover albums take the unusual tack of doing classical versions of rock and metal songs. The unusual band Apocalyptica which comprises four classical cellists started out performing classical arrangements of Metallica songs. In a similar vein, there have also been several "String" tributes to popular rock and metal bands, most notably two albums of Tool songs, as well as Black Sabbath, New Order/Joy Division, the Cure, Muse, the Beatles, and even Coldplay among others.

One more type of cover album is when a cover of the entire album is done, rather than a collection of songs. A notable band to earn acclaim this way are the Easy Star All-Stars, who covered The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd in their album Dub Side of the Moon and OK Computer by Radiohead in their album Radiodread. Both albums were radical departures from the original albums, being redone in reggae/dub.

[edit] Most covered songs

Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" is often called the most covered song in popular music history; some allege there are over three thousand different versions, although no evidence has been provided. The Beatles' "Come Together" has also been covered numerous times. George Gershwin's "Summertime" (from Porgy and Bess) has had an estimated 2,600 versions recorded[citation needed], Irving Berlin's "White Christmas" (from the film Holiday Inn) is well known for having been covered numerous times.

Other songs which have been released many times as cover versions include "Blue Monday" (New Order), "White Christmas" (Bing Crosby) "Louie Louie" (Richard Berry), "Sunny" (Bobby Hebb), "Fever" (Otis Blackwell),"Across the Universe" (The Beatles),"Baby It's You" (The Shirelles) "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" (Jimmy Webb), "Helter Skelter" (The Beatles),"Twist And Shout" (Isley Brothers) "We Will Rock You" (Queen), "Free Bird" (Lynyrd Skynyrd), "When I Fall In Love" (Doris Day) "Love Will Tear Us Apart" (Joy Division),"Stardust" (Bing Crosby) "Garota de Ipanema" ,"No Woman No Cry" (Bob Marley & the Wailers), "Dirty Old Town" (Ewan MacColl), "I Fought the Law" (Sonny Curtis), "How Deep Is Your Love" (The Bee Gees), "Something" (The Beatles) and many of the less recent works of Bob Dylan (such as "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and "All Along the Watchtower") and Leonard Cohen (as of December 5, 2004, there were at least 940 published cover versions of Cohen songs [3]). The Australian television program The Money or the Gun featured for every episode a new cover of Stairway to Heaven, played in versions ranging from a Wagnerian opera to a Beatles melody. [citation needed]

[edit] Covers in particular genres

[edit] Metal

Many upcoming bands in the metal genre cover songs by their predecessors to gain public interest, although more established bands have also recorded covers. Some bands have taken this to an extreme, such as Metallica, Entombed, and Iced Earth who have released entire albums of covers. In specific subgenres of metal, covers generally reflect the genre the band is in. The Norwegian black metal band Mayhem have recorded several Venom covers, while Mayhem themselves have been covered many times, their song Deathcrush has been covered around 140 times, according to Encyclopedia Metallum.

[edit] Punk

Punk music is known for deconstructing classic rock or pop songs by reinterpreting them in punk form.

Some well known examples include:

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes is notable for performing only such covers.

[edit] Hip-hop

In recent years, artists have begun covering hip hop songs, most frequently in concert. A notable such cover recorded in a studio and released commercially is a bluegrass version of "Gin and Juice" by Snoop Doggy Dogg, as performed by The Gourds. Ben Folds, Tori Amos, Nina Gordon, Jonathan Coulton, Luka Bloom, Ben Kweller, Dynamite Hack, and Keller Williams have also recorded covers of hip-hop songs.

Many of these tracks rely on the incongruity of a white artist performing music normally thought of as "black" for comic effect or shock value, though some (such as Luka Bloom's acoustic version of LL Cool J's "I Need Love" and Tori Amos's harrowing remake of Eminem's "'97 Bonnie and Clyde") are played entirely "straight." The 2000 compilation Take a Bite Outta Rhyme consists entirely of covers of this type, performed by various artists to various degrees of seriousness.

Run-D.M.C.'s 1986 cover of Aerosmith's Walk This Way, which featured the original band, is a notable example of a hip-hop group remaking a popular song from another genre.

[edit] Swamp pop

A type of cover version that existed from the early 1950s to the late 1970s in Louisiana was known as swamp pop. Contemporary and classic rock, R&B, and country songs were re-recorded with Cajun audiences in mind. Some lyrics were translated to French, and some were recorded with traditional Cajun instrumentation. Several swamp pop songs charted nationally, but it was mostly a regional niche market.

[edit] New Age

[edit] Indie

As heard on the television series, The O.C., independent artists create covers for songs done by other independent artists. Petra Haden has done several song covers, most notably, the song Yellow by Coldplay. Youth Group did a cover for Alphaville with the song Forever Young.

[edit] Samples

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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