Covers

Hey everyone. And by everyone I mean those few people who actually read this damn thing. And by few people that read this damn thing I mean that guy who was just randomly searching for a band I mentioned on the internet and found my blog and said "Heh, that's cool" before moving onto the next website and not bookmarking me. That bastard.

But it's really no big deal. This is kind of a way for me to channel my thoughts for awhile and do something creative in my set-in-stone life. It's nice to be able to express myself through a means that really is different from the everyday routine. Yet by allowing myself this it also creates a bit of an expectation. An expectation to actually make myself to sit down and write something new and fresh every week so that I can keep my readers entertained. And by readers I mean myself and that bastard.

I guess it's the same way for bands. At the beginning it's fun, a way to express themselves and let loose. Spread a message and share feelings. Yet everytime they are forced to go back to the drawing board to write some fresh material, it gets harder and harder. This creates an interesting gap between musical passion and it actually being their "job". Then something frightening starts to occur, because when that passion is lost, there are times where the uniqueness and thrill of the music starts to go with it.

It's a wonder that more bands haven't tried covering things. It satisfies the fans of the band by giving them more material to salivate over, as well as giving the band themselves the new perspective of taking something already established and changing it around enough to make it something truly their own. It's a new challenge that can hopefully open the eyes to see what others have done in the past, as well as possibly breaking through barriers that had been pigeonholing a band into a certain genre. This is the sort of progression that bands need to see to stay relevant, as well as keep from becoming stuck in a routine.

If a cover is done right, the song should become a completely seperate entity. For example, when Johnny Cash did a cover of Nine Inch Nail's song "Hurt", people began to forget that it was even a cover at all, some going even as far to as claiming falsly that NIN's version was actually the cover. Then of course Christian hard rocker's RED covered "Ordinary World", the classic from Duran Duran, and brought in a sadness that wasn't really prevalent in the original, while still keeping close enough to its roots as to not forget them.

Some songs were just made to be covered over and over again. Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen has been covered by hundreds of artists over the years (most famously by Jeff Buckley), and has stood the test of time as one of the greatest songs ever written. This version is done acousticly by Alter Bridge's lead singer Myles Kennedy, and is my personal favorite.

Remixes are another thing entirely. I was never sold on them until recently, when Radiohead offered up their entire new LP to electronic artists to be remixed as they pleased. The results were astounding. I recently discovered that a song from last week's blog post was remixed by Polaris at Noon, to astounding results.

Are there any covers you guys adore? As always, please feel free to share anything with me as I would love to have any feedback at all. I'm on twitter @calebuseswords and feel free to add me on facebook. Oh, and if that bastard comes back, f#$%ing bookmark me.