Cover Me Bad

(Singing) "Oooo, ooooo!" A famous riff from 90"s band Color Me Badd's hit "I Wanna Sex You Up".  Now if you're under the age of 25, you may still be looking at the screen with a blank stare.   If you don't know who they are you can take a trip down Youtube's memory lane, type in their name and listen.  Today my friend tweeted a link for a video posted by "Karmin Covers".  I'm not sure if it's just the one woman or it's the woman and the man that's in all the videos, but they are cover artists.  For those who may not be familiar with the term "cover artist" or "cover band", that's simply a singer or band who sings or plays songs originally recorded by someone else.  As an artist myself, I have done plenty of covers in shows and enjoy singing some of my favorite tunes.  In my opinion I think the only way to do a good cover is to make sure your version is better or at least as good as the original.  It should not make the original artist upset at the fact you are playing their song and not doing it justice. Most artists take a song and put their own spin on it, either updating it or giving it some flair that reflects their personal artistry.  I mean really, if you've ever done karaoke or performed at an open mic, then you have covered a song before.  Being a performer I've heard some BAD (not "bad" meaning good), covers that almost make you forget how much you loved the original song, ew!  I hear a lot of mixed reviews when it comes to covering a song. Some people feel that if you say you're an "artist" why can't you just create your own stuff?  Others feel like covering another artist's tune is paying homage to that person.  There's truth to both sides.  As an artist, you don't want to only sing other people's music, it doesn't leave any room for you to have your own voice.  It can appear like you're lazy or lacking creativity.  Like you're just a voice, not an artist.  On the flip side, deciding that you want to cover a song and make it your own is completely creative.  Sometimes covers are better than the original, making them feel more relevant.  Some artists styles are so distinctive that even if you know it's not originally their work, they have flipped it so, that you don't notice.  Almost like they are two different songs entirely.  I believe there's an art to the "cover".  Take for instance D'Angelo, wonderful, multi talented artist.  He decided to cover the Prince tune, "She's Always in My Head".  Now we all know Prince is a musical genius, brilliant! His style is so distinctive that most artists would stray away from re-recording one of his songs.  Being a Prince fan, I am very familiar with that song, so when I heard D'Angelo's version, I was more than pleased.  Although I am a D'Angelo fan as well, I am partial to the original (not knocking D'Angelo's version AT ALL!).  But what D'Angelo was able to do is take a classic Prince tune and make it his own.  You could hear the Prince influence, but it didn't sound like he was imitating him either.  Then there are bad covers, like (don't get mad at me but...) Alycia Keys covering one of my favorite songs in the world, "Never Felt This Way" by Brian McKnight.  I know Alycia is great on keys and she's good at doing her own tunes, but she should have left this one alone.  There was nothing new or refreshing about her version, as a matter of fact, it made me a little angry.  Partly because I feel like some songs should be left alone and because this is one of my favorites, this is one of those songs!  Again not knocking Alycia, like I said, I like her doing her music.  I digress.  I love my hip hop and most hip hop producers use samples in their beats.  It could be a drum roll or background vocals or anything.  Look at Kanye, when he made "Through the Fire", he sampled Chaka Khan's words and voice for the hook on that song.  He sped it up to make it work for his song, but it's a sample nonetheless.  New artists pull from their roots all the time.  New soul is not all that new!  Everyone has influences, but you can't mask what you call influence with lack of creativity.  Take that good music that you listen to and make it work for who you are.  Create some new ideas so the generation after you will look to your music as their influence and maybe one day your record will be be someones cover.  Whether for good or bad!  See you on the stage!