Covers.
I can understand why bands cover songs by other bands. If I had any sort of talent with a guitar or a microphone the first thing i'd do is learn Fake Plastic Trees by Radiohead for one thing, but what I can't understand is why bands cover songs that are above them so much that any way they play it they will seem completely out of their depth. Some bands seem to think that because they play the same instruments that they can play anything. Take a cover of Radiohead's Exit Music (For a Film) by Vampire Weekend. Yes, I can feel your derision mounting already and it's not without reason. Aside from Exit Music being from one of the few albums that should be considered as such, and not for individual songs, it is far and away better than anything Vampire Weekend have ever produced. The result? Something that loses all the sense of darkness and grandeur that the original was supposed to do. I couldn't finish listening to it after the drums came in fully for the end, and I had to go and listen to the original directly after to cleanse myself. I wont link it here because I don't want anyone reading to be put through the misery, but trust me, it is dreadful. It has no redeeming features at all. Neither does their cover of Fleetwood Mac's Everywhere, another band and song that far eclipse the wide-eyed noobs that are trying to cover it.
Various other songs have been covered that annoy me, such as Leona Lewis covering Snow Patrol's Run : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0rjfGvwMdE (If you never saw Cheryl Cole's telly programme, then you're welcome for me telling you who originally sang that) which is equally dreadful, that wee squirt from the Orange Unsigned Act programme doing Mr. Brightside by The Killers, and trying to transform it and succeeding amazingly well, except it wasn't a good transformation: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BecAdYGGLC0
Now those artists are vaguely similar musically, but then along came Hot Chip. A fairly decent dance act, but one that I never really got into. Now who would they cover? Surely a big dance act such as Daft Punk? No they pushed the boat right out and covered Joy Division's Transmission: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FWJFBcDiWg I was always going to listen to this in something bordering on the fine line between trepidation and disgust, but I tried to be fair. My being fair however didn't last the play icon on the youtube screen changing, and I was blown away how one of the most energetic songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZwMs2fLoVE (ignore the John Cooper Clarke at the beginning) by one of the most energetic bands ever could be stripped and left devoid of anything that Joy Division were famous for. This cover has absolutely nothing. It feels like diluting juice made by someone who's really cheap and wants it to go so far that they dilute it so much it tastes of nothing but blandness, and ends up being worse for it.
There are however, a few decent covers out there. One I only found yesterday, another Radiohead cover, this time of Reckoner by Gnarls Barkley: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUmmsMeHAaE More covers should be link that. Nothing too fancy, but still sounding decent while doing it. Something similar was done when The Killers done Shadowplay for the soundtrack to Closer, the Ian Curtis biopic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrbKvxGgFfg This is a cover that is the centre of much "debate" on youtube comments, but it's certainly not terrible. Keane do a not bad version of Under Pressure too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0061JWWmQg
There are bands who put covers on albums, and while this may seem like it would be out of place, sometimes the cover can be so unexpected and still good it makes no difference. Muse doing the Nina Simone song Feeling Good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlbFJANujaU on their second album Origin of Symmetry seems at first glance that it'd stick out like the Pope at Ibrox, but it still sounds brilliant. So to does an even unlikelier crossover, by the queens of gay pop and the kings of prog rock, that is Scissor Sisters doing Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lsCEgcRozY Here is something which shouldn't work on any level whatsoever, but does. Maybe because I heard the SS.... Scissor Sisters, bad acronym for them there, version first, but it doesn't make me want to vomit in rage. So long as bands doing covers can pull that out then I hold no grudges against them.
When you hear bad covers, it makes you wonder why the band who so obviously have some sort of idolisation over the original artist put out their offering. If I was behind half of the bad covers i've heard I wouldn't let them see the light of day out of sheer shame over the atrocity i'd created. A special mention in that respect goes to Arcade Fire, covering Age of Consent by New Order: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlB9CykCjuw I will also say to not forget this abhorration by them and Bono http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGQWnbfFB6o
Covers shouldn't be allowed. Ever. Unless they're good.
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