Why are groups doing whole albums of cover tunes?

magnus wrote: Certif1ed wrote: Some are quite good - Dub Side of the Moon, for example. oh my god, that album is brilliant! Who wooda thunk that Dark Side of the Moon was the perfect album to make a reggae cover of? and this is just a guess, but by Allen - Lande, does markosherrera possibly mean Jorn Lande? Because he released a couple albums this year with cover songs, previously unreleased songs and different versions of songs he had already done etc...

Edited by markosherrera - December 07 2007 at 23:52

The idea of the writer/performer is not universal - most classical musicians spend their entire careers performing music written by other people, and nobody ever criticised Frank Sinatra or Luciano Pavarotti for not writing their own songs. Folk music relies heavily on traditional material, and a lot of jazz is based on reinterpretations of the Great American Songbook (and I'm not talking about Rod Stewart's ill-advised foray into crooning). Ultimately it comes down to interpretation; a good cover version should not replicate the original but should ideally remain faithful to its spirit, which is why Dub Side Of The Moon works so well.