These are small group tours
Posted: Sun Dec 22, 2024 6:18 am
As a musicologist, Weezer's successful foray into cover songs got me thinking about the general trajectory of the practice.
They are often a fun way to commemorate an existing song and pass it down through the generations. But the practice is not without controversy.
Enriching our collective musical memory
The editor of a book on cover songs, communication scholar George Plasketes, writes that covers are “about favorite songs and great songs. Classics and standards.” They show how “musical artifacts stay culturally alive, repeating themselves like echoes.”
For Plasketes, regardless of what a musician may add or subtract in the process, cover songs capture and convey a collective musical story.
The concept of covering has been around as long as number in indonesia music has been written. Early choirs for Catholic masses often sang versions of earlier Gregorian chants. These “covers” were intended to teach and entertain, to attract the faithful and to spread Christianity. Then, as now, coverings circulated culture.
Scholars have identified many categories of cover songs, but people are probably most familiar with two of them: the “straight cover” and the “transformative cover.”
The former, also known as a “karaoke cover,” sounds almost exactly like the original, which is the route taken by Weezer. Such an approach could pay homage to a musical influence, such as the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout,” which had been popularized by The Isley Brothers but was originally recorded by The Top Notes.
They are often a fun way to commemorate an existing song and pass it down through the generations. But the practice is not without controversy.
Enriching our collective musical memory
The editor of a book on cover songs, communication scholar George Plasketes, writes that covers are “about favorite songs and great songs. Classics and standards.” They show how “musical artifacts stay culturally alive, repeating themselves like echoes.”
For Plasketes, regardless of what a musician may add or subtract in the process, cover songs capture and convey a collective musical story.
The concept of covering has been around as long as number in indonesia music has been written. Early choirs for Catholic masses often sang versions of earlier Gregorian chants. These “covers” were intended to teach and entertain, to attract the faithful and to spread Christianity. Then, as now, coverings circulated culture.
Scholars have identified many categories of cover songs, but people are probably most familiar with two of them: the “straight cover” and the “transformative cover.”
The former, also known as a “karaoke cover,” sounds almost exactly like the original, which is the route taken by Weezer. Such an approach could pay homage to a musical influence, such as the Beatles’ “Twist and Shout,” which had been popularized by The Isley Brothers but was originally recorded by The Top Notes.