Mark Mothersbaugh on Classic Hardware vs Software Emulations

[andrelafosse]

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[Seafire Mk2]

Playing covers is a cop out. It's also ethically and morally wrong.

Be the best version of yourself, not a poor imitation of someone else.

[legendCNCD]

Bones IS the Senate!

[Voxon]

Good band that, Devo.

Sorry, wrong thread

[Bunny_boy]

Playing covers is a cop out. It's also ethically and morally wrong.

Be the best version of yourself, not a poor imitation of someone else.

While I tend to agree, I think there are exceptions in jazz and folk. And of course classical music, although that's not exactly playing covers!

[mambo888]

Playing covers is perfectly normal. Most musicians in 1950-60s used to play covers. Michael Jackson used to sing songs from other bands. There was no big licensing issue in the past until the corporations and lawyers started copyrighting every note and chord progression. By the way playing classical music is playing covers too. Stop playing other people’s music. Play your own sucky songs that nobody wants to hear.

Playing covers is normal, it used to be called entertainment industry and musician used to entertain people and play what people would like to hear.

[zerocrossing]

Playing covers is a cop out. It's also ethically and morally wrong.

Be the best version of yourself, not a poor imitation of someone else.

Are you serious?

The tradition of playing other people’s music is a lot longer than the idea that each musician should write all their own music. Centuries older. People love it, and some people love doing it, so what’s the problem? It’s not for us, but I don’t think there’s any reason to declare some phony moral superiority over others.

[TechHaus]

Devo covered some songs.

[BBFG#]

Covers...

[Jim Roseberry]

Playing covers is a cop out. It's also ethically and morally wrong.

Be the best version of yourself, not a poor imitation of someone else.

Let's say you're at a venue at a popular lake... and the place is packed.
Unless you're a big-name artist with large draw, nobody in that audience is going to want to hear your original material. They want to hear songs they know/love... and dance/party/sing-along.

I just played this type of gig (this past Saturday).
There was an afternoon band 2-6pm and we played the headline slot 7-11pm.
This particular venue has a massive pool with swim-up bar.
At 2pm, the venue was packed... and the afternoon band was playing "dude" rock songs... and included a couple originals. Completely blown opportunity... crowd not engaged, nobody dancing. That place should have been hopping... with folks having the time of their lives.

At 7pm, we started... and we play all covers.
All major hits, crowd friendly, songs that are nostalgic and that folks love to hear/sing.
Here's the thing about cover bands (some get it... some don't), the show isn't about you (the musician), it's about the audience.
The venue hires a band to bring in a crowd... and keep/entertain them.
The band's job is to ultimately sell admission/food/drinks.

Here in OH, unknown original acts don't get paid much if anything. In fact, they often have to pay-to-play. If they don't sell all of their tickets to the show, they eat the cost of unsold tickets.
Top-tier cover bands can make significant money ($2-7k per show).

I've played to empty venues... and packed venues.
The later is a whole lot more fun.
That means playing cover songs well, singing them well, doing what's necessary to cultivate/grow a draw/following, and learning to entertain/engage an audience.
It's also important to be professional (looks, behavior, and musicianship).
There's zero Ethical/Moral conflict.
As a cover band, if you're a "poor imitation", that's on you... and is reflected in both your pay and the crowd you draw.

Would I rather play original music?
Not if it means small crowds and little/no pay.
How many original artists actually write strong material?
Our guitar player is one of the best in OH. Graduated from Berklee.
He's an incredible player. He's "less incredible" when it comes to writing songs.
Vastly different skills.

I've had a great time lately collaborating (recording) with a local songwriter.
Totally different than playing live gigs.

Elvis (not really my cup of tea) was hugely successful here in the US.
He played mostly covers.

[S950]

Playing covers is a cop out. It's also ethically and morally wrong.

Be the best version of yourself, not a poor imitation of someone else.

Is that a Behringer 100 clone in your avatar?

[andrelafosse]

^^^^^^ Jim nails it here (two posts up).

The idea that musicians are supposed to write their own original material is a very mid- to late-20th century, rock and folk kind of idea. If you look at almost any other type of music - jazz, classical, blues, flamenco, whatever - there's no assumption that players also write the material they perform.

[dwringer]

The idea that musicians are supposed to write their own original material is a very mid- to late-20th century, rock and folk kind of idea. If you look at almost any other type of music - jazz, classical, blues, flamenco, whatever - there's no assumption that players also write the material they perform.

I would posit that backlash to covers emerges because that's the timeframe in which recordings became so ubiquitous that a lot of cover acts basically try to emulate another artist's recording almost exactly. I would say that's different from an artist performing their own interpretation of a piece, which was traditionally more the way it was done.

[machinesworking]

^^^^^^ Jim nails it here (two posts up).

The idea that musicians are supposed to write their own original material is a very mid- to late-20th century, rock and folk kind of idea. If you look at almost any other type of music - jazz, classical, blues, flamenco, whatever - there's no assumption that players also write the material they perform.

Look, I never jumped into this discussion to make fun of wedding bands, but the absolute ridiculousness of someone claiming that a cover band is more "authentic" than someone who wrote all their own material (and doesn't see the point in dragging a modular synth onstage to play the three note backing track, much less hire someone to do that) is too much to ignore.

There are as has been almost pointed out, two distinct talents in music: skill or mastery of an instrument and/or recording equipment, and ability to come up with original material. They are not the same, I mean it's literally why in the late 70's there were multiple genres of music that jettisoned classical training and went straight to writing, with varying degrees of success of course. What this opened up was the ability to write music, I mean literally. Your examples, jazz, classical, blues, flamenco. They're all almost dead art forms, not in the sense that people don't' listen to them, but in the sense that it's almost impossible to get past the gatekeepers and become even marginally successful unless you're doing all covers.

I don't even think people would be discussing this if it wasn't a subject started by someone claiming that any amount of recorded material onstage was cheating etc. who turned out to play in a cover band. There again are two main talents involved in music, skill at playing the instrument or mixing desk etc. and ability to come up with original material. One is a craft and the other is art. A cover band and a DJ spinning other peoples records are craft, a band playing it's own material or a DJ scratching is art. In my mind the original argument was hilarious because the closest thing to a cover band I can think of is a DJ, and what they were complaining about was that original artists sometimes used DJ techniques to present their music!

One other thing, Johnny Cash or Elvis having people write their music is pretty much an entirely different subject, if you think somehow that their voices aren't intrinsically more than just an instrument but a creative expression unto themselves then you're living on a different planet. Someone tried to say Devo covers were the same as cover bands which is ironically the most Devo thing in this thread so far. Calling Devos version of Satisfaction a cover...

[Bunny_boy]

Jazz is thriving at the moment (I think) and it's not really covers based