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

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.

Musical equivalent of the zillion remakes of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
 
Do you think people go to Starbucks to get gritty renditions of original gems with their coffee and wi-fi?  
 
I am personally underwhelmed by Tony Bennett trying to reinvent himself, and hoping no one will notice his constricted range, by partnering with only recently has-been megastars like Gaga. If I wanted Tony singing schmaltz, there is an impressive discography made when he still had a voice.

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.
 

This will probably show how "current" I am as far as the top of the pops these days (not very) but the one cover that used to drive me nuts was Lenny Kravitz' "American Woman". I liked Lenny's early stuff and "AW" wasn't even a song I REALLY liked but it was pretty decent and gritty but that version? Oh man... it was so uninspired. It was like a crummy studio afterthought or a line check or something yet it got played on the radio CONSTANTLY. Of course I was working in a retail joint at the time that blasted the rock station during business hours so I had to suffer through it half a dozen times a day. Yeesh.
 
Edit: You know... I just realized why that darned tune was played all the time. It was probably a CanCon (Canadian Content law) thing. Same reason, as much as I love Rush, I had to suffer through Tom Sawyer and whatnot multiple times a day. Still better than freaking Patio Lanterns by Kim Mitchell I guess. PLAY SOME FREAKING WEBSTER ONCE IN A WHILE YOU TURDS!!!
 
/Canucker rant...

I think that if you are going to the trouble of recording a cover, you should live with the song and internalize it. So that when you perform it, it becomes your song. Totally re-imagine it, if you can. A good song deserves no less.
 
Here is an all-time favorite cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RnjWLVyMps
 
 
Bert

Another example that springs to mind is Maxwell's cover of Kate Bush's "A Woman's Work." The guy has a great voice and the production is great, but it seems to me he took so much of the subtle nuance of the original melody in his translation into a modern vocal style. But this is my beef with the modem vocal style - the melody takes a back seat to the embellishment and decoration instead of the other way around. Vocalists are trying too hard to add emotion and feeling to their tracks and it comes across as manufactured. Instead of feeling the song, they're squinting their eyes and looking pained and doing that thing with their hands that looks like a tennis elbow exercise. Reminds me of a guitarist I used to know who would tilt his head upwards with closed eyes during a solo, yet what he was playing was decidedly mediocre.

But this is all symptomatic of the philosophical failure of modern times. People have it all backwards. They think that success is the product of an inflated self esteem rather than the other way around.

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. :-/

If you're anything like me Beepster, you love being riled 
 

Ah yes... Wibbly Warbler syndrome. Everyone thinks they're a BLEEPin' R&B virtuoso these days.

 
To me it just sounds like they're practicing their scales.