Covers versus Standards

I've always hated the ridicule that covers get in the pop/rock world.

I am fine with all covers.

I am infuriated by lazy hip-hop artists stealing good songwriting, changing the title and calling it their own song.

I've always liked the Bone Thugs N' Harmony cover of Phil Collins' "Take Me Home" almost as much as the original.

You know the weirdest one I've heard was Lil' Jon sampling "Raining Blood" & "Mandatory Suicide" by Slayer.

As long as the over doesn't sound like shit, I'm fine with them.

I think that some songs have such staying power that they become part of the American Songbook. We call those songs "standards," and we welcome different takes on them.

How does a given tune cross over to the realm of the standard? I'm not really sure. An album came out a few years ago that tried to do this with Elvis's recordings, and it didn't quite succeed. Have any of the rock 'n roll eras songs made the transition?

I think that if a song is covered enough times by enough bands in enough genres, it becomes a standard. I would absolutely put "Yesterday" in the "American" songbook.

That's as good an explanation as any, but I think there are two ways to look at standards - there are standards within genre, and standards that transcend genre.

For instance, "Yesterday" has transcended genre - it's not that unusual to hear a rock artist, a jazz artist, or even a classical artist play it. "Louie Louie" is a standard within rock. It's a cliche for a rock band play it, but it's a novelty for a string quartet play it. There have been tons and tons of standards established within rock music (just think of your average bar band's set, and you've pretty much got it). There have been a few that probably transcend genre.

Most blues standards became standards within that genre. This makes sense, since blues has traditionally been defined by fairly strict parameters as far as styles go. As soon as you start playing in blues-identified scales, it becomes blues almost by default. I suppose some blues songs have sort of transcended genre by virtue of the fact that the Stones and Zeppelin have covered them, but even in those cases, it's usually a matter of rock bands playing a blues song.

Another thing to consider is that an ideal standard, whether within a genre or outside of a genre, is adaptable to multiple interpretations and doesn't rely on imitation to get it across. This is why Rush isn't a great provider of potential standards (you need to be a certain type of musician to even get across the rhythms and chord changes), but Leonard Cohen is (all you need to do is get the basic melody and words down).

As much as I'm sick of it, yeah, "Hallelujah" is a modern "standard." I like your point about songs being able to transcend genre -- I think that's pretty much it. One of the reasons why the classic standards (and I'm thinking of Porter/Gershwin/Rogers & Hart and Hammerstein here) became "standards" is they were open to easy interpretation.

Totally. They have really strong melodies and great lyrics that sound good coming out of almost anybody's mouth (yet the melodies are so good that the words often aren't even required).

Something interesting to ponder - this notion of standards and covers is sort of unique to the 20th (and 21st) century and mostly to the rock era. Before that, there was just music. Someone wrote it, other people played it. In terms of folk, it wasn't generally all that important who wrote it. In terms of classical, it was very important who wrote it, and important who played it, but definitely not important that the writer have anything to do with the performance beyond providing the material.

I would add "All Along the Watchtower" to the standards. I have six different versions of it on my iPod.

Including the Battlestar Galactica version?!

Bob Dylan's early stuff came under scrutiny with this argument. I think (translation: I'm not googling my facts here) "The House of the Rising Sun" was an issue because he was crediting it to himself despite it's clearly standard status. That again became an issue with that Biz Markie court case from awhile back and I really don't like the way sampling was derided in that case as if it was a new thing. Steve Reich, Terry Riley, The Beatles - these guys were all doing it long before music sampling even had a name.

The issue for most people seems to boil down to this: is recording a standard (or in hip-hop) or heavy sampling an indication of limited artistic ability? I don't think so. It can be a crutch, that's for sure. But bands like the Rolling Stones used covers or standards as a launching pad to find their style quite extensively. Covers don't have to be starkly different reinterpretations to work either; like DaveB said about the novelty bit, sometimes hearing a band doing a cue for cue recording of an original piece sometimes provides a unique listening experience, with regards to the latter band's primary genre in which they play.

Speaking of awesome covers: http://youtube.com/watch?v=8tmOOzhXrlU.

Grant Lee Phillips did an album full of acoustic covers called nineteeneighties that the older folks might like.

One of the weirdest things about sampling is that it forces us to look at responsibility for a song's success differently. It's standard practice that royalties are paid to songwriters, not performers. When a performance is sampled, though, it's tricky territory because it might not be the song, per se, that's at issue, but a specific performance of it. For instance, James Brown may have the writing credit on "Funky Drummer," but it's Clyde Stubblefield's drum pattern (presumably not written by Brown, but improvised by Stubblefield) that gets sampled. According to Wikipedia, Stubblefield has never been compensated for his work being used over and over again; I'm not sure if Brown has been.

This emphasis on the writer always struck me as a little strange, and I think sampling provides us with a situation in which we have to acknowledge the system's failings. Sometimes (not always), what makes a song indelible is the performance, not the writing. When it comes to sampling, it seems that performers would have more at stake than songwriters.

That said, classical composers have always borrowed from each other, and it's not like people who copped cues from Strauss' Salome were all sued for any sort of infringement.*

Really, it all comes down to context. When Public Enemy or Steve Reich sample something, it's generally a matter of recontextualization. The original isn't being used simply to evoke the original song, but to present a new idea. So help me, I can't believe I'm doing this, but even Vanilla Ice only used "Under Pressure" as a base, not as a main component of his song. You could actually have "Ice Ice Baby" with a different bassline and drumbeat. The real offenders are those artists who use existing material as a chrorus or main hook of a song. I'm still not sure whether I like the idea of lawsuits coming into play, since it's opens the doors for lawsuits against truly creative artists, though.

* I'm reading Alex Ross' The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century, and, according to him, Salome quotes are all over the place, even in works by composers who purported to hate Strauss.

You're absolutely right Dave. Sampling can be about more than just bringing these songs into a different genre, but recontextualizing the material to the point of where's it's nothing more than another instrument in the latter artist's studio.

The re-release of Michael Jackson's Thriller for it's 26th anniversary included a handful of shitty rap covers at the end that did nothing more than layer a more bass-friendly drum loop and some subpar flows over the originals. Which is fine, since I guess they're technically being touted as remixes rather than covers (despite the liner notes crediting the respective emcees as the sole artist with Michael getting the ft.) because none of that changes the fact that they still suck dick. What is disheartening is that this is only the most recent example of songs getting sampled with little thought or effort going into bringing something new to the table. That's not to say DJ's shouldn't touch someone else's material if they can't reinvent the wheel or anything. it's just that when people like DJ Shadow can elevate sampling into an artform on Endtroducing, you really wish people like him didn't have so many hurdles to cross in order to clear licenses and stuff. If only sampling could be made easier on a qualitative basis.

*Edit: Coincidentally, my friend recommended that Ross book too. I'm gonna have to check that out.

I almost hate to admit how much I enjoy a good punk cover of an older song, but my Me First and the Gimme Gimmes CDs sort of give that away. I think what I enjoy is how well some songs you think would never fit into that mold actually do fit -- Me First's version of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" is light years away from what S&G intended, and in fact the point of the song is pretty much lost as they speed their way through it, but it's just so goddamn much fun.

Punk covers of pop songs are almost uniformly terrible, though. I'll give you the Gimmie Gimmies, but even they are pretty fucking uneven.

Their last few albums have seen the bloom come off the rose quite a bit.

They did a punk cover of Hava Naglia. For this, I cannot totally hate them.

I've been thinking about this, and I guess this ties into Ryan's original post, but it seems like that when it comes to modern covers, the artists that get covered again and again tend to have roots in folk and/or mainstream pop. Dylan, for example. Joni Mitchell. I'm listening to a totally kick ass version of Turning of the Tide by Bob Mould right now -- Richard Thompson seems to be covered quite a bit.

Although anyone who wants a great example of how these songs can become "standards" should check out Nanci Griffith's Other Voices, Other Rooms.

It makes a lot of sense because folk songs are designed to be easily memorized and performed. They tend to be simple for this reason, which also leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation - thus "All Along the Watchtower" can be reworked significantly and still be recognizable (yes, even on Battlestar Galactica).

Now what's interesting about Thompson (and Mitchell, actually) is that he's a master songwriter and interpreter. Many of his songs are simple enough to learn in their most basic forms, but the way that he arranges and plays them are distinctly his. I'm not a particularly good guitarist and I know very little about formal music theory, but even I've been able to play through some of his songs in their most basic forms. But when you listen to the recorded versions, he uses all of these insane chord structures and throws in all kinds of fills that can only be played by Richard Thompson.

There are a few Thompson tribute albums, but the only one I've picked up is Beat the Retreat, which is where the great Mould cover comes from (along with other fantastic Thompson covers by R.E.M., Dinosaur Jr., David Byrne, etc.). Mould also used to do a massive-sounding "Shoot Out the Lights" live.

The Beach Boys covering "Times They Are A Changin'?" So, so weird.

Even though I'm the last person to respond in this thread, I'll bump it because I've been thinking about cover songs and standards recently:

1. While I agree that a great cover song/standard means that it can be covered by pretty much anyone, I do think there are songs that -- if you're going to sing them traditionally -- need to be covered by a specific vocal type. For example, I was listening to an Audra McDonald version of the often covered Randy Newman's "I Think It's Going to Rain Today." McDonald has a beautiful, traditional voice, but she has a much higher voice than Newman, and it doesn't fit. The song seems to require a deeper, slower voice than hers. I'm wondering if this is true across the board. (Keep in mind I'm not saying that there are songs only men should sing and vice versa -- Dusty Springfield's cover is fuckin' awesome.)

2. Speaking of Audra McDonald, in terms of "modern standards," it does seem like the Jonathan Larson generation of musical theatre composers (Jason Robert Brown, Andrew Lippa, etc.) have managed to write a few songs that have become standards for the torch song set. Brown's "Stars and the Moon" is one that I see a lot on the CD covers of female vocalists who sing in a traditional style. Not many of these songs have really "crossed over" but it's still nice to see that

3. I was asked to put together a compilation "photo reel" in iPhoto at work set to music. The music? "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" My response was a firm, astonished "Really?" but I've been thinking about it and it would be nice to include a version of it (only about a minute, though). iTunes is pretty useless -- is there a decent yet appropriate cover of this song that doesn't sound exactly like the original?

For that I suggest you Google "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)" cover version and see if you hear anything good.

I've already listened to about 20. I was hoping to narrow the pack. I'm the last guy who asks for help with his homework. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt.