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The music industry would be a vastly different place if cover versions of popular songs didn't exist. Imagine for a moment that covers were prohibited. This in itself would create a paradox; for how would any aspiring musician perfect his/her craft? Everyone, from the six-year-old child who takes up violin lessons to the seventeen-year-old rock star hopeful who just talked Mom and Dad into financing his first guitar or drum kit to perhaps a senior citizen who wishes to spend his/her retirement years learning to play a chosen musical instrument would have no basis with which to get started. Once the notes themselves and their respective locations on the specified instrument were mastered, all that would remain is learning the diatonic and modal variations of the scales. After that, they would be on their own. In the literal sense, how would one be able to judge the six-year-old violin player without hearing a bit of Beethoven or Mozart, or if you prefer, Charlie Daniels? How would the teenager with dreams of becoming a rock star be evaluated without learning a few riffs from Jimmy Page or Keith Richards, or if he plays drums, something like the solo from Wipeout or In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida? Likewise, the hypothetical senior citizen would would be severely limited with no songbooks. Cover tunes are a necessary element of becoming a professional musician, whether your goals are to sell out at Madison Square Garden or to play down at the local VFW hall.

Now that this has been established, there are good covers of songs and horrid ones as well. Some covers are so well done that they far outshine the originals. Some of these include Joe Cocker's interpretation of A Little Help From My Friends written by those mop-tops from Liverpool. Van Halen's version of Pretty Woman rips Roy Orbison's to shreds. Just about anything written by Bob Dylan is better done by others. While an excellent and prolific songwriter, Robert Zimmerman couldn't carry a tune if it had two handles, let alone one. Respect was originally written and performed by Otis Redding, but we all know Aretha Franklin OWNS that song. Speaking of Aretha, she did a much better version of the Stones' Jumping Jack Flash for the soundtrack of the movie with the same title. Reggae artists in particular do some very unique and interesting treatments to a wide variety of established tunes. Of course, country performers also rely on covers.
Believe it. There are bad covers, too. Purple Haze was covered by Dion and was an absolutely wretched version of this rock classic. To my knowledge, it was the worst recorded cover I have ever heard. In addition, there are thousands of bands out there in your local bar. Some will be good and some will not. As a former musician, I cringe when somebody sings off key or when wrong notes and/or chords are used in established songs. If you want to know how good a bar-band singer actually is, take a bathroom break. All of the ambient crowd noise will be masked and you can hear every note with crystal clarity. You'll discover that many singers at this level are quite poor.
The absolute best cover I have heard to date is All Along the Watchtower. But it wasn't Jimi Hendrix's version. It was Prince. He performed it within a medley of tunes at last year's Super Bowl halftime show. He slowed the tempo way down and turned it into a blues. I still get goosebumps thinking about it.

Learn more about this author, Patrick Sills.
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