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Why are "covers" looked down on?

#241
ZenG said:
Just because a song/item sold lots of copies doesn't mean it's good.

It just means people liked it. Which doesn't mean it's good.

Take the early Blues for example.

That stuff sold (and still does) lots of records.

Is it technically "Good" music?

No it isn't.

The early Blues was/is based on 3 chords...that's it.

Thousands of uneducated workers learned to play the Blues. no problem.

In essence.......Blues is atrociously easy/simple to play. (Over the year they've dolled up the blues in all sorts of ways to give it more appeal and technicality.......especially in the realms of jazz.....but at the end of the day it's a simple format and technically lacking........even though many buy it and consider it "good" music)

Had Mozart been living on the Delta at the time....he could have knocked off any blues tune you threw at him.

However........extremely few blues players of that time could play anything done by Mozart.

Because the works of Mozart are technically more difficult than banging off a blues song.

Technically, Mozart's work is better than simple blues.

In the same sense that a 10 x 20 ft shack built out of plywood is technically inferior to the Taj Mahal.
Click to expand...

If you think technique is what makes music "good" then I think you have missed a great deal of what music is about. ;)
 
#243
Sales does not equal quality, DW.
I'm going to take the high road here and drop the "good and bad" argument- music is subjective. However just because a few million people bought the mp3s does not guarantee quality.
PT Barnum said "never underestimate the taste of the American public".
Just because millions purchased a diddy by Gwen Staphani about bananas doesn't mean the song had quality- it means it had pop saleability!
 
#245
ZenG said:
Just because a song/item sold lots of copies doesn't mean it's good.

It just means people liked it. Which doesn't mean it's good.

Take the early Blues for example.

That stuff sold (and still does) lots of records.

Is it technically "Good" music?

No it isn't.

The early Blues was/is based on 3 chords...that's it.

Thousands of uneducated workers learned to play the Blues. no problem.

In essence.......Blues is atrociously easy/simple to play. (Over the year they've dolled up the blues in all sorts of ways to give it more appeal and technicality.......especially in the realms of jazz.....but at the end of the day it's a simple format and technically lacking........even though many buy it and consider it "good" music)

Had Mozart been living on the Delta at the time....he could have knocked off any blues tune you threw at him.

However........extremely few blues players of that time could play anything done by Mozart.

Because the works of Mozart are technically more difficult than banging off a blues song.

Technically, Mozart's work is better than simple blues.

In the same sense that a 10 x 20 ft shack built out of plywood is technically inferior to the Taj Mahal.
Click to expand...

The Taj Mahal is incredibly hard to heat, and even harder to defend.
 
#246
There's a difference between "playing technique" and "technically good music".


Brian Wilson was once being interviewed about the "technicality" of music where he opined that technicality wasn't a major issue in selling music. He said that "She Loves You" by The Beatles wasn't technically all that good....but it sold a lot of copies.

Much of Brian's work was technically good.........as in "Pet Sounds"......which at the time it came out did not make the impact that it does now in music history.

Let's take another album ........."London Calling" by the Clash.

It has the distinction (or did) of being the longest running number one album on Billboard in it's genre.

I once owned that album to satisfy my curiosity as to what all the kerfuffle was about.

A week after I bought it was donated to the local thrift shop collection.


Technically good?........not by half a mile....

Good just because...well....it sounds good?
Not for me......nothing on it at all that made me turn my head....

Explanation:- there's just no accounting for taste. People like what they like because they like it. No problem there...to each his/her own.......

But don't confuse acceptance by the masses as a marker to determine whether a work is technically good or not.
 
#248
ZenG said:
Take the early Blues for example.

That stuff sold (and still does) lots of records.

Is it technically "Good" music?

No it isn't.

The early Blues was/is based on 3 chords...that's it.

Thousands of uneducated workers learned to play the Blues. no problem.

In essence.......Blues is atrociously easy/simple to play. (Over the year they've dolled up the blues in all sorts of ways to give it more appeal and technicality.......especially in the realms of jazz.....but at the end of the day it's a simple format and technically lacking........even though many buy it and consider it "good" music)

Had Mozart been living on the Delta at the time....he could have knocked off any blues tune you threw at him.

However........extremely few blues players of that time could play anything done by Mozart.

Because the works of Mozart are technically more difficult than banging off a blues song.

Technically, Mozart's work is better than simple blues.

In the same sense that a 10 x 20 ft shack built out of plywood is technically inferior to the Taj Mahal.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes: Ok.
 
#249
Whatever that song I heard everybody at the beach playing last summer. I heard sold millions and I might be wrong but also one a Grammy. It is not good music. It is not good anything but perhaps marketing.
 
#250
If musicians didn't write originals then cover bands would have 0 songs to cover. It's not looked down on necessarilly, but it if you play nothing but covers then how could you expect to be as valid as an original artist? You are getting paid to play songs someone else wrote and popularized. Also, most people will compare the band to the original artist and if it's not exactly the same or better (which is rare) it's kind of common sense it wouldn't be as well received.
 
#251
ZenG, you're missing the point.

"Technically good" is only a part of, in my opinion even just a small part of, what makes a particular song and performance "good". As mellowinman said, there are many guys out there that can play a thousand notes a minute technically perfect but leave most of us completely cold (of course depending on taste) while there are technically not so skillful artists that make up for that in spades by great lyrics, emotion and originality.
 
#254
I have wondered about the OP as well. I play jazz, classical, rock, metal, etc. When a classical musician records an album it is usually 90-100% somebody else's material. There is too little room for the individual there for my taste. When a rock or metal band records an album it is usually 90-100% original material - the downside of that is that the band tends to get very comfy with a certain writing style and their music becomes a sterile pond.

My personal preference is for the ratio that jazz musicians use. Their albums are usually 20-80% original/cover material. Some are more innovative and some are more interpretational, and each musician or group plays to their strengths without stigma. They usually end up being the most well-rounded musicians, able to both interpret and improvise. I wish this ratio was more common in the rock and metal worlds. I do remember noticing that in their heyday both Guns N Roses and Metallica did a LOT of cover material which I believe helped them grow ahead of their respective peers. Both of those bands put covers on their albums, both had "singles" that were covers, and both released at least two albums that consisted of almost entirely cover material.

A recipe for success that is consistently ignored, in my opinion...
 
#255
mancefine said:
If musicians didn't write originals then cover bands would have 0 songs to cover. It's not looked down on necessarilly, but it if you play nothing but covers then how could you expect to be as valid as an original artist? You are getting paid to play songs someone else wrote and popularized. Also, most people will compare the band to the original artist and if it's not exactly the same or better (which is rare) it's kind of common sense it wouldn't be as well received.
Click to expand...
Valid? Not valid? Valid as what? As a musician? Man, come on!!

Also, if a cover band sucks, they shouldn't be gigging! I don't want to be in any band that sucks.

By the way, what do you think professional sidemen are? They play covers for a living. The biggest 'cover' bassist in the world? Nathan East. Or how about Daryl Jones? Are they NOT valid as musicians? There's nothing wrong with playing covers my friend. Classical and Jazz musicians do it for a living as well.
 
#257
ZenG said:
Is it technically "Good" music?

No it isn't.

The early Blues was/is based on 3 chords...that's it.

Thousands of uneducated workers learned to play the Blues. no problem.

In essence.......Blues is atrociously easy/simple to play.
Click to expand...

There is a lot of ignorance in this quote by the way. Many of the earliest blues players were working in forms that went beyond the typical 12 bars, because all the "rules" that came later were yet to be codified.

Listen to Blind Lemon Jefferson from the 1920s. Besides the inferior sound quality, there are some superior musical factors: The music is NOT simple to play because he's hitting interesting counterpoints on one guitar, he's bending notes musically in a way that even some modern musicians that are limited to 12 tones per octave cannot reproduce, and he's using chords that were later popularized in jazz.

I'm guessing that ZenG needs to empty his cup, and that he's assuming that since Bo Diddley's music is simple the music that came before must be even simpler.
 
#258
mancefine said:
Also, most people will compare the band to the original artist and if it's not exactly the same or better (which is rare) it's kind of common sense it wouldn't be as well received.
Click to expand...

Does anyone remember a music show that Tom Jones used to have on VH1? He would ostensibly be profiling an artist or band each episode, then at the end of the show they'd play on his soundstage and he would join them and OWN their own song to the point that they looked amateurish in comparison. I found it fascinating and want the whole series!

Here, I found one of these featuring one of the best cover artists ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ioT2WUbf_g
 

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