The issue of transcription and arrangement has been in my head recently (working on the Yes and Who songs, listening to Petra Hayden's remake of Who songs, and listening to Yes's different versions of their own songs), so Confidential Report's recent entry on cover songs was a timely coincidence. He points to a CBC article that attempts to come to terms with the concept.
I'm not sure what to think about covers. The original article makes a few sweeping statements indicting bands that become known only for a cover song but then absolves The Beatles and and The Rolling Stones. The author defends them first by saying they were at least open about their sources
(which other bands aren't?) and then by labeling those songs as handled with genuine reverence and respect.
What's a disrespectful handling? Satirizing is defended earlier in the article; his only complaints are either lack of originality or originality manifest in the form of irony (Cake's "I Will Survive"). His final statement, [a] cover makes for a convenient stop-gap until inspiration strikes again,
seems to me ultimately unfair. What band releases more than a few covers throughout their career? How does he know that those covers are a result of writers' block?
Calling Cake's "I Will Survive" belittling
ignores the absurdity of the original. I don't care how popular it was or is: has he not listened recently to the rhapsodic soliloquy at the beginning that just let's-face-it cannot be taken seriously. Its over-the-top-ness paired with the studio sheen of disco was ironic before the so called scourge of irony hit the publics' consciousness.
All bands start out as cover bands. You learn by quoting, and you quote those artists you most respect. Just as painters study and copy the masters, bands learn by copying the music they most appreciate. In The Beatles' era, those copies would more often make it to bands' initial releases, but many have found inspiration in others' music regardless of whether it's their first or tenth release. Where does the comparison across the arts break down? Mature painters or sculptors generally don't copy others' works--the closest they come is with the re-interpretation of mythological scenes. The same goes for authors. Film directors create "remakes" that can be seen as an equivalent to musical covers. Personally, I always wanted to see filmmakers create movies based on the exact script of other films (a la Gus Van Sant's Psycho [IMDB], which I unfortunately have not yet seen). This would bring them more in line with theater directors who must wrestle with Shakespeare's or Miller's exact words in order to find their own voice. What is different about pop music?
Pop musicians straddle creation and performance. They can be forgiven for uninspired material if they are charismatic performers, or they can be praised for their skillful songwriting if they have no stage presence. The fact that they're both composer and performer makes them unique (what percentage of directors write 100% of their movies?). It's odd that the other gods of our culture--actors--are never criticized because they don't also write plays or movies.
I'm still not sure what to think about covers.
Sorry, "I Will Survive" can be taken seriously. In my post, I made a note of Chantay Savage's cover, recorded about ten years ago, which is entirely unironic. There's nothing about the "over-the-top-ness" or the disco sound that renders the song inherently facetious any more than the "over-the-top-ness" of "Close to the Edge" renders it inherently ridiculous. Read another way, "I Will Survive" is celebratory in much the same way as Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" or "I'm Every Woman" (by Chaka Khan, please, Whitney is thankfully NOT every woman) is celebratory. For every person who finds Gloria Gaynor's song absurd on its face, there's at least one person who thinks Yes songs of the 70s are pompous and preposterous. I should note that I'm not one of them, but I've met plenty.
The overly-ironized present tends to look back at the sincerity of the past from a vantage of conceited superiority, especially when the ambitions and form of expression of the artifact haven't aged well. Rather than choosing their commitments with care in an attempt not to seem naively sincere, lots of artists in music, film, literature, etc. feel more comfortable mocking the sincerity of others.
I agree that several of the statements in the CBC article are conclusory, though. I don't know exactly how to evaluate whether the Beatles and Rolling Stones were "open about their sources" more than Alien Ant Farm (whose cover of "Smooth Criminal" I didn't like.) I guess in comparison with Led Zepplin, who stole "The Lemon Song" shamelessly from Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor", they're being open.
At some level, it's a matter of judgment. I had the same reaction to Cake's cover of "I Will Survive" as the CBC writer, but I'm a fan of disco.
Posted by: MrArkadin at April 25, 2005 1:45 PMOver-the-top-ness is over-the-top-ness: it's difficult to defend much of what Yes did, so I try to focus on their defensible aspects: e.g. large-scale structure, arrangement, or harmonic progression. Let's just try to forget their lyrics and some of their more clumsy songs. Criticism will always sound like "conceited superiority." Labeling older styles as quaint doesn't have to be the result of arrogance or even historical ignorance. Late romantic composers were too often melodramatic. Neo-expressionist art of the 70s and 80s was often clumsy in it's nihilism. Criticizing a style's over-emotionalism is a valid critical approach and doesn't have to have come from decadent irony.
Posted by: sstrader at April 25, 2005 4:30 PMCriticism won't always sound like conceited superiority. Some of it will (because it is) and some won't, but the case has to be made, not asserted with a claim along the lines that "any reasonable person instantly recognizes this as (insert characterization here.)" There are lots of reasonable people out there and they tend to disagree.
I'm not saying that our judgments about the past can't be trusted, just that they should be made with care, especially when alternative assessments can be found. People in the here and now are just as capable of having erroneous critical faculties as those in the past (as our descendents will no doubt believe.) Faith in monotonic progress, especially in the arts, is just as misplaced as belief in a lost golden age of which the present is merely a fallen shadow.
Speaking of pomposity...
Posted by: MrArkadin at April 25, 2005 4:53 PM