It would seem that the Toys ‘R’ Us “radio” is slowly turning into a bastion of horrible, horrible cover songs. First it was 900 bad versions of every Christmas carol back in November and December, but I guess those are to be expected. But once the Christmas garbage went away, things didn’t get a whole lot better. At first, it was a Godawful version of Paul McCartney’s “Maybe I’m Amazed”, and that was enough to get me riled up, because nobody can sing that song as well as Paul. Nobody. Lately, it seems that a new offender has snuck onto the playlist, in the form of a mockery of U2’s “Pride”. And you know it’s gotta be bad, because I’ve never really liked U2 to begin with.
I can’t imagine that these bad covers will go away, and I know that more will amass in time, which leads me to my topic today: Women should not cover songs originally by men.
I know it sounds a little bit sexist, and it is, but you’ve got to respect that I actually have a somewhat valid point here. Beyond the two songs I’ve mentioned up there (which I forgot to explicitly explain were done by women), let’s take another example that hits pretty close to home. A while ago, Damone released a video of a cover of Billy Squier’s “Everybody Wants You“. Now, I love the original song, and as those who pay attention know, I generally like Damone. This is a problem because their cover sucks ass. Watch the video clip. Or better yet, just turn it on in another tab and keep reading this, because the video is even worse than the song. “But Ryan,” you say “It sounds exactly like the original!” You’re right, but that’s why it blows. There’s no inspiration here! They pretty much play the song note for note, and I cannot respect this type of cover. Even worse is that Noelle’s singing sounds so forced and disinterested, which is totally uncharacteristic of her. Half the reason I like Damone is because they have a vocalist who really seems to love what she does, but that doesn’t show at all here.
You could argue that this doesn’t fall into “covers by women” because the rest of the band is dudes, but it’s still kind of there. In fact, I bet if I hadn’t pointed that out, half of you would never have thought of it. Anyway, the point here is that in my experience, cover songs by women are sad husks of the songs they once were. I mean, it’s not like no women have any musical talent, but historically, men have been far more successful at crafting fine music, and when women try to emulate that music, it generally ends up as a garbled mess.
I actually had a lot more to say, with points and counterpoints and everything, but it turns out that if you want to say something and not look like a complete dumbass, you either have to know a lot about what you’re talking about, or do a lot of research. I have a pretty fair knowledge of music (taste being no factor), but I didn’t really feel like going the extra mile to make it really good. I hate research, unless I’m doing it for fun, and I don’t file “blogging” under “fun”. The really sad part about it all is that I was going to turn it around and get to the point where I would be discussing how the women who are really good at making music are overshadowed by prepackaged pop idol garbage, and my apparent sexual bias would be defeated, but no such luck. So let’s just say that any woman who’s achieved any degree of mainstream success in music sucks (except the girls from Heart), and that all the good ones are underground.
Also, uness you’re Paul McCartney, do the world a favour and don’t sing “Maybe I’m Amazed”.