Everybody else is doing it. When someone does not have enough creative juices to fill in the last few tracks to sell a full length cd, make a cover of a classic from 10 years back or further.
Boy bands (I'm so happy they're no longer in the music scene if they still are don't tell me I prefer to be ignorant of them), have blended and harmonized the feeling out of songs they remake. They sound smooth and cool but the poetry is lost. What everyone will be listening for will be how many curls and slides of the notes one can get away with before proceeding to the next word. I can't imagine a serenade to a lady where there are 5 soloists singing and trying to outsing (or outsuck) each other, how can that be romantic or flattering?
(Bay-ay-ay-ay-e-e-e-e-ey beee!)
RNB is a respectable music tradition, but how much RNB-ing can one song take? Just like the boy bands how many variations can you get away with until you continue singing (A-a-a-ahh-aahmmmmm ehehehey-ziiiiing gre-e-eys- huh-ow suuuweeeeeeet thu---------huhuh saaaaawwwwwnd).
Music isn't like what it used to be. Talent was the selling point to music but indeed "video killed the radio star." A so-so voice with a white bikini can give you an album now-a-days.
That's why I'm all for Simon Cowell. Hard to please but he gives credit when it's due. Gimicks don't get past him. As he once said to Jasmine Trias, "you're the cute smiling girl with the flower, of course they won't vote you out." And she made it to the top 3. No her voice isn't ugly but it's not a wow.
For everyone else, sing your range. Not everyone has the vocal cords of Celine Dion or Aerosmith. Not everyone can whistle with their mouths wide open like Mariah Carey if you can't do it, don't act like you can.
Tracy Chapman now there's a lady with a nice barritone voice. Even on her lonesome Boyzone had nothing on her on "Baby Can I Hold You"
Generally, I don't hate covers. "Bridge Over Troubled Waters" has been done by Elvis and Simon and Garfunkel but there's respect for the work done. There is intent to make a personal rendition, of how the song works in the singer. But to just get any song, to make a blast from the past and immiediately have a wide fanbase due to familarity with nothing positive added or emphasized in an old song just a remix, remake, that's just wrong.
How many James Bond films has there been? How many ways has the theme been rendered? They are all different but each rendition does not take away from the original feel of the first arrangement since Dr. No. Or else it wouldn't be the Bond Theme.
So why is it when new artists (if they can be called that) pick up an old song, they always think an update is in order, without first thinking about what makes that song the song that it is. Respect it's all about respect for the work already done.
This is why I love rock. Rockers have a respect for the history of a song. Rock is always based on emotion or a message. Rockers hold musicality and originality as a virtue.
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