Cover Songs: Some Thoughts
The TorygraphTelegraph has their list of the 50 best cover songs. Chris Cagle over at Left Center Left, where I first saw this, also has his take on some additional inclusions and his “hall of shame” list of worst covers.
I found the list interesting, because I really enjoy having different versions of a song to compare; the rise of “unplugged” or “acoustic” versions adds an additional dimension, and a good acoustic cover of a song really gets my attention. I’m also a sucker for strong Irish female vocalists, so you can guess how much I like the cover tracks on The Corrs’ “Unplugged”. (Lots.)
It’s also interesting to note how many of their top 50 I have; fully 14 of the 50 are in my iTunes music library, and a few of the others are in my iTunes Music Store shopping cart to think about buying.
The cover songs in my collection come from sources all over the place: movie soundtracks, tribute albums (including tributes to specific albums), cover albums, novelty albums, single-track purchases from the iTunes Music Store, and other places. (Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love”, far better known than the original, is on lots of 80s compilations, for example.)
Christmas (or other holiday-season) songs are sort of an odd case. In many cases, there isn’t a recorded “original” for them to be a cover of; there also tend to be many more versions of a given song, since it seems like everyone wants to have a Christmas album.
Not counting Christmas songs, I have somewhere over 200 cover songs in iTunes. In future blog posts, I’ll get into my best, worst, and weirdest.
