So many bland cover versions being released

And they all seem to be sung by the same girl with a painfully bland American Idol style singing voice. A little while earlier I heard her singing an almost inconceivably boring version of Wham's "Last Christmas" (hardly a great song to begin with although an Xmas classic). Just now in Starbucks I heard what sounded like the exact same girl singing a Joni Mitchell classic with the same bland instrumentation behind her. What's the point? Apart from selling a few downloads that is.

The sad thing is the thought of kids thinking these are original songs and never having heard the original. I remember years ago shocking someone by playing them the original Fleetwood Mac "Dreams," which they assumed was a cover of a Corrs song.

Agreed. It's lazy and self indulgent. It partciularly annoys me when artists who have established their own little public "personalities" and takes on life and shoved them down everyones throat through the media then cover songs with specific meanings that are counter to their vapid nonsense without any irony whatsoever.
 
Not really related to that rant but this made me think of the intro sequences to that show Weeds where they had various artists do their own versions of "Little Boxes". Many were crap but some were quite interesting. Most of even the good ones though, IMO, weren't as soulful, impactful and fulfilling as the original(s) performed with simply an acoustic guitar and an angsty vocalist really believing in what was being sung.
 
I like doing covers and used to make decent money doing so live but if I were a popular artist signed to a major label releasing one for broad human consumption I would make darned sure it was at least somewhat as interesting and artistic as the original... if not more so. Cripes... they WROTE THE SONG FOR YOU!! The least you could do is make it sparkle.
 
Like I said... lazy and self indulgent. Keep that crap in your bedroom/shower if you aren't even gonna try.

I've always dug doing covers, but there needs to be some kind of artistic purpose, they have to be something that helps express a broader "vision". 
 
But nowadays, people don't even have enough imagination to find their own cover - they all cover the same songs.
 

Ah yes... Wibbly Warbler syndrome. Everyone thinks they're a BLEEPin' R&B virtuoso these days.
 
There is a fine line between soulful motown inspired wails/vibratos and vocal masturbation.
 
I'm no vocal genius but anything I've read on the subject clearly states excessive vibrato is usually a sign of hackery and covering up the inability to hit and properly sustain a note. It is discouraged until the performer can actually sing and then, and only then, it should be employed sparingly and tastefully.
 
The saddest part is many of these poptart clownos STILL need their shiz autotuned out the wazooli.
 
Completely unlistenable.
 
Ya' dun got me all riled up, sharke. :-/

All Along the Watchtower, covered by Hendrix. To me, that still sets the bar...
 
But out there, when a cover is hot, every one and their brother will have their shot at it. There is essentially very little difference between the established artists and karaoke night in terms of originality or repertoire.
 
Bottom feeders from top to bottom...
 
 
 
 

Maybe there's an opportunity here....   a cover version contest maybe?
 
Or maybe just a poll to find the most obscure song that's not known to have been covered but should (or could) be...

Karyn
 
Or maybe just a poll to find the most obscure song that's not known to have been covered but should (or could) be...

That's like trying to find a band name - if you can google it, there's 99,999999999% chances that someone's thought of it before. 
 
I've given up hope of coming up with a cover that no one else has done. I do my own thing. Once I'm done with the basics, I check out what's been done, and cross my finger that nothing is in the same ball park as my version, and make my decision to go on or archive the cover based on that.
 
But maybe the difference is in that simple reflex of trying to find out- when I tried to come up with name for my projects, I'd google that name in as many variations as possible. One of them I was pretty sure was clear, and it worked perfectly with one of my projects.
 
I registered using that name on most social medias at the time, created profiles, uploaded music, pics and all. From then on, a simple Google search immediately made it obvious that there was somebody very actively making music under that name, along with media and all.
 
A couple of years later, for whatever reason, I googled my project's name and realized that a kid had started making some (very crappy I must say, even objectively) music under the same name.
 
Obviously, that fellow either didn't bother to Google the name before he used it - or, more likely, simply didn't care.
 
In fact, a lot of "artists" nowadays seem to think that it's essential to benefit from the traffic generated by search for known artists, so they'll use obvious ones like Rocky or Hulk. Every time you do a search for those established brand names, the parasites are dragged along....
 
And there's a bunch of "upcoming artists" in a couple of very specific genre who obviously have no notion of intellectual property and are absolutely clueless about names that have been used by rock bands.
 
I mean, it's one thing to be clueless about pop music of the previous decades if you're not into rock, but to call your project by the name of a well known and established rock band that's still making music? 
 
It's no longer a shame to suck up and sell out.

It's probably being driven by the [insert country of choice] Idol phenomena which is creating blandness and conformity in the music business.
 
Of course thinking a cover is original is nothing new. Lots of the blues rock of the late 60's and early 70's were covers of classic blues tracks but widely thought to be originals. But you can't say that Led Zeppelin and others did not add their own style and character to those songs.
 
I think live cover bands are a different issue. There are some very talented Filipino cover bands working here in Dubai. I really enjoy going to see them but I would not buy a record except as a token of appreciation for the live entertainment.
 
And one further thought. There is the concept of a Jazz Standard, songs regularly preformed by jazz singers. We are in the age of the rock standard. Its hard to find a rock cover band that does not have "Hotel California", "Sweet Child 'o mine", "All Right Now", "Wonder Wall" and "Another Brick in the Wall" as part of their repertoire.

There's a version of Billy Jean by Jose Feliciano, solo, not a full band, that's quite old. I've never found it on Youtube, it seems quite obscure, even though Jose Feliciano isn't and Billy Jean is as famous as a pop song can be. His rendition is simply stunning, the way he plays with the timing and moves the phrasing around, even throws in a Beatle's bridge, it's great. I don't understand why it's not so available.
 
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KJjVMqNIgA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aF9AJm0RFc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM2177pHMT0
 

Spacey,
I am only speaking for myself and my values. The only reason I would try to closely imitate an original version of a song would be the situation where I was playing in a tribute band, or something like that. But to actually go to the trouble of spending hours in a studio to try and produce an almost identical version of 'Every Breath You Take'. I honestly don't see the point of such an exercise (why would anyone want to listen to it?), unless you are simply trying to figure out exactly how the Police recorded such an amazing track.
 
Bert