Today on Library Underground a conversation started in which many started bitching about bad cover songs. Rod Stewart’s cover of Tom Waits’ Downtown Train being one of the many examples. Trouble is, all of the examples were from the rock genre; which got me thinking — Is bitching about bad cover songs, limited to Rock? (There’s a country version of Queen’s Crazy Little Thing Called Love which totally sucks, but the original is still a rock song.)
(The following point has been made without actually verifying the facts agains my CD collection.) What about American standards? I swear I must have at least a dozen different version of “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” in my collection and each as their own flavor depending of the singer; Sinatra, Bennett, Ella, Diana Krall (someone very current) just to name a few. Why don’t people ever complain that Bennett’s version of a song sucks while, ol’ blue eyes’ was spectacular?
Michael Sauers is the Director of Logan Library in Logan, UT. Prior to this he was one of the founding staff and Technology Manager for Do Space in Omaha, NE. After earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany's School of Information Science and Policy Michael spent his first 20 years as a librarian training other librarians in technology along with time as a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, a technology consultant, and a bookseller. He has written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and has published 14 books ranging from library technology, blogging, Web design, and an index to a popular horror magazine. In his spare time, he blogs at TravelinLibrarian.info, runs The Collector's Guide to Dean Koontz website at CollectingKoontz.com, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
Unless otherwise stated, all opinions are my own and are not to be considered those of the City of Logan, UT.
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