The Oxford American has a pretty good article on covers. It's a bit long, but has some interesting observations on what covers do that makes them so endearing (or, in some cases, so lame).
But it's also spectacularly useful. The author manages to name-drop almost every cover song I'd consider "essential" or "mandatory."
For her folksy acoustic cover of “Straight Outta Compton” by N.W.A., Nina Gordon (formerly of Veruca Salt) sings the lyrics as written, using the n-word, dropping the MF-bomb, and referring to herself in the third person as Ice Cube, as in: “Straight outta Compton, crazy motherf–cker named Ice Cube...” It’s a joke, and it’s not. Gordon’s “Straight Outta Compton” on the one hand asks, “Remember the ’80s and all the gangsta rap, wasn’t that weird?” while also feeling sad that guys were driving around shooting one another in pursuit of respect. Austin’s Dynamite Hack covered “Boyz-N-The Hood,” another N.W.A. song extolling the pleasures of auto theft, forty-ounce beers, and automatic weapons. They sing softly, providing strong contrast to the violence of the lyrics. Like Gordon’s performance, it’s a postmodern joke that stretches the limits of facetiousness. The strategy is to drain the song of urgency by performing it in a nonthreatening, laconic style. The discrepancy between the hostile lyrics and their gentle delivery provides a space for the listener to inhabit.
...I hear affection in these versions, even if they are tongue-in-cheek. What’s the alternative? If the artists performed these songs in their original hip-hop or rap milieu, different charges might be leveled: wannabe, pretender, fake—criticisms flung at artists such as Vanilla Ice, who may have deserved them, and Eminem, who probably didn’t. How should a performer cover a self-referential song? Do you have to be Jerry Lee Lewis to sing: “My name is Jerry Lee Lewis from Louisiana/I’m gonna do you a little boogie on this here piano,” as he does on “Lewis Boogie”? Should the cover artist substitute his or her own name or use Jerry’s? Does this mean some songs are uncoverable and thus untouchable by anyone but their originators? Many hip-hop narratives feature a persona who may not represent the artist, such as the speaker of “Cop Killer” by Body Count. Wouldn’t that suggest that other artists can adopt that persona? Just as Johnny Cash never did hard time at Folsom Prison, Public Enemy never carried real machine guns, even if they did have a song entitled “Miuzi Weighs a Ton.”
I really want to hear a whole bunch of these songs. |
