Bob-Dubery Not. Not my sort of genre, but it's hardly disrespectful. Disrespectful/sacrilegious/provocative is when you take a redneck country hit called "Okie From Muskogee" and rewrite it (same tune, very different lyrics) as "Asshole From el Paso". And even then one man's sacrilege is another's satire. The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain do "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and do it as a bit of a joke - old farts in tuxedos doing grunge on ukes. (they also do "Anarchy in the UK" as a sort of campfire sing-along) The only problem here is if you have some basic objection about doing a dance mix of a grunge song. The one that bugged me a bit was a dance remix of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", but my unhappiness was due to a gentle country waltz being panel beaten into a robotic 4/4 thudder. But that wasn't sacrilege. Whoever did that song thought enough of it that they wanted to cover it and pay Neil some royalties.
Bob-Dubery PS: AIUI the owner of the track generally gets approached about recording a cover and has the right to refuse - though that seldom happens. This mechanism is there so that you can stop your tune being used in ad campaigns for products you dislike etc etc. So presumably Cobain's estate (I'm guessing Courtney Love) would have been able to stop this - assuming they still hold the copyright.
BMU Turn mass demographic consumer dreck into mass demographic consumer dreck? I don't see the sacrilege. Not to mention the guitar playing on this one is better. Har.
exsanguinator anyone heard the Metal Christmas album? The Metal Britney songs? Thats taking a dig..LOL
Bob-Dubery You know, from a certain POV a song is an asset you can trade or lease. Letting somebody do a cover is leasing an asset - at a negotiated rate. And it can help the bottom line. There are a number of songs that have been hits on the country charts in the USA and then the soul charts - or vice versa. This started with Ray Charles doing an album of C&W covers. Charles is an interesting study here. He was in hot water early in his career for taking songs that he'd written as spirituals and producing secular versions of them. Later, when he was much more famous, came the soul-country fusion which was not well received in some quarters. Ray had some big hits with those country recordings, and in doing so made good money for some good old boys down south. Elvis Presley was reviled in some quarters for singing nego music. He laughed all the way to the bank. Some folks, though not, as I recall, the song writer, were upset when UB40 did a reggae version of a Neil Diamond song. It's been going on for years. And, as I said earlier, I think that usually there's an implied complement in a cover. Not always, but usually.
chris77 Yes. To me (as an old grunge rock disciple), the only thing worse will be a metal version with some shredder dude playing a ten minute solo. ? But aagh well, as long as I don't have to listen to it they can maar do what they want with it.
singemonkey chris77 wrote But aagh well, as long as I don't have to listen to it they can maar do what they want with it. That's the spirit. In a democracy we fight for people's right to be dumb, tasteless a-holes, as long as they can't impose it on us.
