I'm not too proud to say that I'm ok

[venta]

OK.

I love Belle & Sebastian.
I love Crash.

Please will someone tell me where I stand on this:

I'm quite confused. I really liked it when I heard it yesterday, but today I'm not so sure...

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Oh I see, it's a cover! I don't know the original.

I do think that anybody recording a cover version needs to bring something new to it. The Scissor Sisters did that with Comfortably Numb and I like their version. Later, I heard, Pink Floyd took the stage at a festival and calmly showed the youngsters how that song was made to sound.

Have you heard The Enemy version of Father and Son? That's another cover in which I find that there's something new and good.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Totally agree with you that covers should bring something new to the party - if it sounds just like the original, why are they bothering?

I have a huge number of opinions on covers (I did a series of mp3 posts (http://venta.livejournal.com/tag/underneath%20the%20covers) about them a couple of years ago, but sadly limited webspace means the downloads aren't there any more). I also think that something can be a good cover version but still not be as good as the original - something which commenters on those posts frequently disagreed with!

I'm not sure I know Father and Son, and one of my rules is that you can't consider something as a cover unless you already knew the original at the time you heard the cover :) I'll go and have a listen, though.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

if it sounds just like the original, why are they bothering?

I suspect in a lot of cases because they played it live (where the rules for whether a cover is worthwhile are different), and their fans liked it enough that it became worth recording too. Maybe a live bonus track on an album would work better.