From: dmac@julia.math.ucla.edu (saki)
Subject: Re: Covers
Organization: UCLA Mathematics Department
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 23:45:20 GMT

In article <1992Oct5.030417.1@eagle.wesleyan.edu> kmagnacca@eagle.wesleyan.edu writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.072854.3975@syma.sussex.ac.uk>, stevedc@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Stephen Carter) writes:
>> I have to say this, but what's the difference between Tiffany doing
>> Beatles songs, and the Beatles doing Chuck Berry songs?
>
>   There isn't any; I can't stand any of the Beatles' covers except for 
>Twist and Shout.

Most of the time I think the Boys do awfully well with covers. There are
a few that, I think, they would have been better off leaving alone...
such as "Chains" or the just-on-the-edge-of-parody "Mr. Moonlight".
But as much as I enjoyed the originals by Barrett Strong, The Marvelletes,
Smokey Robinson et les Miracles, the Isleys (and I heard those versions
first, after all, so they were strongly imprinted), I think the Beatles
do a more than creditable job of making the songs their own. Even tackling
Buddy Holly wasn't the easiest task, yet the Fabs' "Words of Love" is
breathtakingly beautiful. And occasionally Chuck Berry himself benefitted
by being covered by a slightly more energetic band; the Boys' "Roll Over
Beethoven" improved the arrangement, IMHO, just as the Stones did ample
credit to "Around and Around".

Funny, though, that as much as the Beatles idolized Elvis, they refrained
from recording his songs officially in studio. Maybe they felt about
his music the way I feel about the Fabs'---that in most instances
covering the Ultimate Musical Entity was impossible. I know this is
the reason I don't warm up particularly well to covers of the Beatles'
work...though illogically I'm happy to hear covers of any other British
Invasion band. And I stress this is a personal thing. To me the Boys
verge on sacrosanct. Or maybe there's no verging involved. :-)
>
>> It is a way for subsequent generations to get to know the music of
>> earlier generations.  
>
>   No, actually most of the time it's a way for record companies to ensure
>that a new artist has some recognizable songs on an album.  When it's not
>it's generally a remaking of the song, different from the original.

Album tradition in the early sixties, in America, was less based on
filling up the blank vinyl with covers than with attempting to exhibit
lesser songs by anonymous composers. LPs were generally seen as throwaways,
only an adjunct to the primary artistic expression, the all-holy Single
(a.k.a. the 45 rpm). You had to release an album, to pick up potential
sales from the backwash of your hit single...but the pickings were
pretty slim. If there *had* been more covers, these LPs might have been
more bearable.

In England, frequently, singers would cover an American hit and have their
own success with it on the British charts. In general I think that British
singers covered more songs than American singers, but that was natural
in a musical milieu where all the moguls looked toward the States for
their marketing cues...that is till the Fabs hit it big.

The Boys changed this in a revolutionary way by actually writing listenable
music for their LPs. This inspired a host of others to try their own
creative wings. The Fabs' covers were never really filler. Their first
British LP "Please Please Me" was an attempt to capture the feel of their
live show, where covers were rampant; but their songwriting talent was
already beginning to edge out the cover-competition by their second album.
--
"The Lana Sisters, clad in pink, added a welcome feminine flavour.
'Much better than those Beatles' I heard one gentleman remark."
------------------------------------------------------------------
saki (dmac@math.ucla.edu)
Newsgroups: rec.music.beatles