Why I Hate Cover Songs and Movie Remakes

The next time you want to tell me that you found a great cover version of the Beatles' Two of Us (or whatever song, for that matter), please keep it to yourself. Cover songs have always been annoying to me but now with You Tube giving every clown out there the ability to post a video of him sitting in his underwear strumming a guitar, it's gotten out of control.

Let's face it - cover versions are, for the most part, borne out of laziness. Writing a hit song isn't easy, so why not just take a song that's already been a hit and sing that one? I am not exaggerating when I say that 99 out of 100 covers are inferior to the originals. Heck, the originals most likely would not have been hits had it not been for the artist who sang the song in the first place.

Every now and then you'll come across a cover that is actually better than the original, such as Nikki French's 1992 hit Total Eclipse of the Heart (pun intended, if you know the lyrics). Of course, it is worth noting that shortly after that hit, Ms. French has fallen off the face of the earth. Heck, I'm still waiting for her second hit, but I am not holding my breath.

But for every good cover, there are hundreds that are nothing short of disastrous. If you want to see what I mean, pick up a tribute album where various artists sing one singer or one band's hit.

The worst is when the cover doesn't even do anything different than the original! An example of this is Uncle Kracker's 2001 single Drift Away. The music is the same, but the vocals are missing the soulfulness of the Dobie Gray version. (To be completely accurate, the original was first sung by John Henry Kurtz, making Uncle Kracker's a cover of a cover!)

And movies are even more incredulous because a classic movie needs no update ever. And you would think that the Hollywood crowd would have learned their lesson by now. What happened with 1998's Psycho? And now they think that an updated version of the 1980 classic Arthur is going to be a box office success? These people are out of their minds. Why desecrate the memory of Dudley Moore's brilliant performance?

What ever happened to the policy of leaving well enough alone? These covers serve absolutely no purpose - other than making you appreciate the original even more.