I told a friend who wasn’t as musically-inclined this once and he didn’t necessarily agree. But he was into neither Punk, nor Grunge.
I had this conversation on Twitter which is really a waste of my time. It would have been easier to put these thoughts here. No one will see them there.
https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCXQR-Q_kJvgEzsCxPUuWRLw?si=btbujnzSedIdH_9l
If you want to expand your musical horizon, ignore genre. So many people get programmed into a genre of music. My favorite songs are by Delta Blues artists who were Native Americans who grew up on Reservations. I cannot be lied to. When I see someone trying to deceive me in media I just giggle at this point.
We’ve talked about the Occult significance of the number 33 extensively here. Guess how old Chris Farley was when he died? I’m not going to insult you by answering that.
Listen to good music. You can identify good music in any genre. Listen to Bob Marley. That stuff is soul food. Jimi Hendrix is too, but how wildly different did they sound. What did they share in common? They transcended genre. Jimi was as comfortable penning and covering Blues songs as he was covering Bob Dylan.
But also notice that All Along the Watchtower stopped belonging to Bob Dylan when Jimi did it.
Think about this: did Tracy Chapman’s Fast Car stop belonging to her when Luke Combs covered it? How about when Rascal Flatts covered Steve Cochran’s Life is a Highway? And that was in a Disney film and received huge promotion.
Listen to The White Stripes cover Jolene. I covered this song too. I’ll post both. It’s no longer a Dolly Parton song when you put a brand new interpretation on it no one’s seen before. I know it might sound hyperbolic, but it’s like seeing an Impressionist painting anytime since Monet and just labeling it a Monet, giving no credit to the artist.
Now if you copy a Monet stroke-for-stroke, that’s not the same thing at all. There’s no value at all in that. We have copies. We can make photos, do prints.
At that point (And if you don’t. know what I’m talking about listen to the covers I mentioned. The ones that are bad are note-for-note attempts at replicating the original. The others are their own thing entirely separate from the original.) you’re not honoring the original at all in any way. What you are doing is stealing.
But also: Dolly Parton built a fortune off the money she made when Whitney Houston made a song she wrote a smash pop hit. So you don’t cover a song with any expectations of financial benefit. You do it for artistic purposes and to pay respect to music you enjoy.
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