A friend of mine was expressing his thoughts on "true artistic" value of music on Facebook the other day. This issue has been haunting me and I decide to chime in on it.
When all is said and done I, personally, think that some songs should never, EVER be covered. To do so is blasphemous!
This came to mind when I heard a version of the holiday song "Hark How The Bells" by Destiny's Child. What the hell were they thinking? This is an old "a cappella" masterpiece that should hardly if ever be deviated from.
Some examples:
At Last by Etta James
What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong
Ain't That a Kick In The Head by Dean Martin
Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles
I Can't Help Falling In Love by Elvis Presley
Girl From Ipanema by Astrud Gilberto
Imagine by John Lennon
Maggie Mae by Rod Stewart
My Generation by The Who
Like A Rolling Stone by Bob Dylan
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen
Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
Rolling In The Deep by Adele
...there are many of these songs from all of history.
Some songs, arrangements, mixes, instrumentation, vocalists, etc. exude the timeliness of the piece. You can feel the artists pain and you can smell and taste the air from back in the day the recording was created. A good music aficionado can hear the differences in not only artistic value but the performance, nuances, sound look and feel of equipment used and the way it is presented. You can say "Wow, that recording was from 1968 because they used plate reverb too excessively," or, "Hey there is a typical 1970's 30-second fade-out," or "That track is from the 80's because (God help us) listen to all that unneeded reverb on the tom-toms!"
We are such an imperfect race: God shows us his face every once in a while and we still try to improve upon it. Let's just enjoy what we have been given.
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