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We've Got You Covered
Jan. 12th, 2009 09:19 amWe were playing Rockband this weekend and I brought up the Coldplay/Joe Satriani plagiarism dispute. Basically, Joe Satriani accused Coldplay of lifting the melody in Viva la Vida from his song If I Could Fly. I encourage you all to give the two songs a listen.
Is Satriani's claim legitimate? The melody is in both songs, but they're both good for completely different reasons. If I Could Fly exists to showcase Satriani's guitar playing. The piece is over six minutes long and is completely instrumental. If you were to play it in Rockband, the guitar would have five stars and the bass and drums would each have one. The main melody is used only in the first two minutes of the song and it's used sparingly. If you judge both pieces solely by the guitar work, then Satriani has written Hamlet's soliloquy and Coldplay just says "to be or not to be" over and over again.
Viva la Vida on the other hand is a more "complete" song in the sense that it's trying to accomplish more. First, there's lyrics, and they're pretty good, evoking an image of a paranoid monarch looking back with regret on his life. There's no real mention of it being metaphorical, but I always thought of it that way - like someone trying to put into word's their feelings about losing a romantic lover. It is pure pop from the wall of sound school.
Which brings us to the larger world of cover versions, plagiarism, sampling and homages. Cecil Adams and Wikipedia both have good discussions of cover versions and how they apply to permission. What I find fascinating is the murky borderline cases as well as whether any of the music is "good" or not. Good of course being entirely subjective.
A lot of hip-hop and rap songs have samples. That's no problem, they use them as basically a new instrument, though it does occasionally annoy me. I'll hear the start of the song with the sample and get all psyched to listen to the original. For example, "Ice Ice Baby" will start and I'll want to hear "Under Pressure".
Then you get homages - songs that are clearly inspired by and use large parts of the original music. The most recent obvious example being Kid Rock's "All Summer Long", which homages "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Werewolves of London" something awful. "Sunrise" by Simply Red is another example, using large portions of "I Can't Go For That".
I've always been curious about these. They're obviously not plagiarism because there is no attempt at subterfuge - the artists will happily admit to using the original versions. They are also new compositions, so they're not covers. Do they have to pay royalties? At what point does a song go from sampling to homage? When does the original artist get paid?
Plagiarism, or copyright infringement is sometimes subjective (as in "Ghostbusters"/"I Want a New Drug") and sometimes obvious (as in "Be a Clown"/"Make 'em Laugh"). It's also not always a deliberate attempt at theft either. Sometimes the artists are relying a little too much on faulty memory and their subconscious. Meh. If you think you can do the song better, make an obvious cover - it's not like anyone can stop you, just be prepared to fork over some cash.
Earlier in my life I had what I thought of as a "definitive version" idea of covers. There was one platonic ideal for each song and for the most part the cover song wasn't it. There were exceptions for when the earlier version sucked compared to the new version. "Blinded by the Light" is a good example of this.
I amended this later because I kept finding exceptions. I figured a good cover should be one in which the new artist makes the song their own. That is, do a version with your own sound rather then slavishly reproducing the original. I still mostly feel this way, but I've found covers I like despite being near-note-for-note copies. The Goo Goo Dolls version of "Give a Little Bit" is like this, but I attribute this to the fact that I like the song and both the Dolls and the original artist Supertramp. Make the song your own, or at least show that you get the song.
Are you a good musician? Do you grok the song? Then by all means, cover it.
Another example is "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley. I think it's the ideal version of the song, but at the same time I like some of the covers I've heard. DJ Sammy does a good version of this because he get's the underlying sense of melancholy. The Ataris, on the other hand, don't. Their version suffers for that and I think it's simply a flat rendition that's not really noteworthy. I also heard an acoustic version by Chantal Kreviazuk on the radio during an interview years ago which I think got it. I'd love to hear it again, but it defies my considerable google-fu. Possibly she's only played it live in the radio studio.
Some songs pass beyond this stage and become part of the cultural playbook. In the past all songs were like that because all music was live music. A copy of a song meant having the sheet music.
Any thoughts on what makes a good cover? Any favorites? Ideas on songs that have transcended to that dubious higher plane of cultural favorite?
Is Satriani's claim legitimate? The melody is in both songs, but they're both good for completely different reasons. If I Could Fly exists to showcase Satriani's guitar playing. The piece is over six minutes long and is completely instrumental. If you were to play it in Rockband, the guitar would have five stars and the bass and drums would each have one. The main melody is used only in the first two minutes of the song and it's used sparingly. If you judge both pieces solely by the guitar work, then Satriani has written Hamlet's soliloquy and Coldplay just says "to be or not to be" over and over again.
Viva la Vida on the other hand is a more "complete" song in the sense that it's trying to accomplish more. First, there's lyrics, and they're pretty good, evoking an image of a paranoid monarch looking back with regret on his life. There's no real mention of it being metaphorical, but I always thought of it that way - like someone trying to put into word's their feelings about losing a romantic lover. It is pure pop from the wall of sound school.
Which brings us to the larger world of cover versions, plagiarism, sampling and homages. Cecil Adams and Wikipedia both have good discussions of cover versions and how they apply to permission. What I find fascinating is the murky borderline cases as well as whether any of the music is "good" or not. Good of course being entirely subjective.
A lot of hip-hop and rap songs have samples. That's no problem, they use them as basically a new instrument, though it does occasionally annoy me. I'll hear the start of the song with the sample and get all psyched to listen to the original. For example, "Ice Ice Baby" will start and I'll want to hear "Under Pressure".
Then you get homages - songs that are clearly inspired by and use large parts of the original music. The most recent obvious example being Kid Rock's "All Summer Long", which homages "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Werewolves of London" something awful. "Sunrise" by Simply Red is another example, using large portions of "I Can't Go For That".
I've always been curious about these. They're obviously not plagiarism because there is no attempt at subterfuge - the artists will happily admit to using the original versions. They are also new compositions, so they're not covers. Do they have to pay royalties? At what point does a song go from sampling to homage? When does the original artist get paid?
Plagiarism, or copyright infringement is sometimes subjective (as in "Ghostbusters"/"I Want a New Drug") and sometimes obvious (as in "Be a Clown"/"Make 'em Laugh"). It's also not always a deliberate attempt at theft either. Sometimes the artists are relying a little too much on faulty memory and their subconscious. Meh. If you think you can do the song better, make an obvious cover - it's not like anyone can stop you, just be prepared to fork over some cash.
Earlier in my life I had what I thought of as a "definitive version" idea of covers. There was one platonic ideal for each song and for the most part the cover song wasn't it. There were exceptions for when the earlier version sucked compared to the new version. "Blinded by the Light" is a good example of this.
I amended this later because I kept finding exceptions. I figured a good cover should be one in which the new artist makes the song their own. That is, do a version with your own sound rather then slavishly reproducing the original. I still mostly feel this way, but I've found covers I like despite being near-note-for-note copies. The Goo Goo Dolls version of "Give a Little Bit" is like this, but I attribute this to the fact that I like the song and both the Dolls and the original artist Supertramp. Make the song your own, or at least show that you get the song.
Are you a good musician? Do you grok the song? Then by all means, cover it.
Another example is "The Boys of Summer" by Don Henley. I think it's the ideal version of the song, but at the same time I like some of the covers I've heard. DJ Sammy does a good version of this because he get's the underlying sense of melancholy. The Ataris, on the other hand, don't. Their version suffers for that and I think it's simply a flat rendition that's not really noteworthy. I also heard an acoustic version by Chantal Kreviazuk on the radio during an interview years ago which I think got it. I'd love to hear it again, but it defies my considerable google-fu. Possibly she's only played it live in the radio studio.
Some songs pass beyond this stage and become part of the cultural playbook. In the past all songs were like that because all music was live music. A copy of a song meant having the sheet music.
Any thoughts on what makes a good cover? Any favorites? Ideas on songs that have transcended to that dubious higher plane of cultural favorite?
