This addition to Ashgate's wide-ranging and valuable Popular and Folk Series is, argues editor George Plasketes, the first book-length collection of essays addressing the cover version in popular music. The book's 15 chapters are organised into seven sections – the first and last of these are single chapter thematic set-up and epilogue, respectively. The other five are: history, ideology and identity; a section on contextual analysis of a single song (The Pusher) and an album (Bowie's 1973 Pin-Ups); gender and identity in covers; the relationship between digital technology and covers; critical reflections on aesthetics and (of course) authenticity.
While the majority of the essays perhaps unavoidably address the Anglo-US world of recorded music, there are examples drawn from elsewhere. Sometimes these are incidental, as in Sheldon Shiffer's fascinating chapter on ideological transformation of songs wherein he observes that early 1990s NYC neo-lounge outfit Black Velvet Flag covered Jacques Brel in a farewell show. Elsewhere, in the only chapter that explicitly addresses non-Anglophone pop, Christine R. Yano intriguingly explores shifting authenticities in Japanese enka (or ‘performance song’), a genre in which covering denotes respect for, and tribute to, the original version. This is one of the clearest examples of the thread which ties this collection together. As Deena Weinstein quite correctly points out in the chapter which closes the book, an appreciation of covers requires liberation from rock's dismissal of the cover as intrinsically inferior to an ‘authentic’ original. Rather, we should move towards a sense of popular music as an expression of culture, instead of seeing it as the expression of a uniquely gifted musician. In other words, if we are to understand the power and significance of the cover, we need to abandon the romantic notions of authenticity which emerged from the Anglo-US rock milieu of the 1960s.
Another recurring theme is the way in which a cover will very often be heard as an ‘original’ by a significant portion of its listeners because they don't know (or care) that there was an ‘original’. This is most clearly addressed in Lee Barron's discussion of dance music covers of (mainly) rock originals. Clubbers and dance music fans more generally tend to be unburdened by notions of rock authenticity and so tend to not notice any perceived ‘sacrilege’ implicit in dance covers such as the Scissor Sisters' 2004 version of Pink Floyd's 1979 ‘Comfortably Numb’. I can't help thinking, though, that part of the pleasure of these covers, for both producer and a segment of the audience, is knowing that they piss off rock fans …
In many ways, this book is as much about the near impossibility of covering covers in a single volume as it is about cover songs and covering practice. Nevertheless, there is a breadth of theory and empiricism in here, addressing issues around the cover version in terms of cultural contexts, gender, social history, anthropology, political economy, and so on. And there are lists! B Lee Cooper's fascinating chapter on song assimilation lists selected songs from the Billboard Charts 1953–1957 illustrating his argument that covers and crossovers helped launch the rock era in American popular music. For example, it was news to me (although perhaps not to you) that Fats Domino's version of Blueberry Hill peaked at number 27 in 1956, 16 places below Louis Armstrong's hit cover. Or that Elvis Presley's Heartbreak Hotel topped out at number 27 in the same year, whereas Stan Freberg's comedy cover version got to number 2.
As a brief aside, Plasketes' own introductory chapter is thoroughly researched and showcases a deep knowledge and passion for his subject, but in places I feel he slightly overdoes the stylistic alliteration. I think it's an acquired taste, but it can be a little distracting. For example, see ‘The continuous coverage cultivated a cluttered climate, re-mix mentality within the music, mass media and marketplace triad’ (p. 12). On the other hand, it is interesting to see a bold departure from more mainstream academic writing conventions – messing with style is not necessarily a bad thing. In my own case, however, you will have noticed by now that my unintentional departure from useful conventions in writing is to overdo parenthetical clauses (with or without parentheses).
Plasketes has brought together a great selection of contributors, with diverse approaches and styles, and organised them into a logical progression of arguments. The book reads like many well-sequenced compilations albums sound – fine to work through from beginning to end, but equally rewarding a more random access approach to consuming the contents. The material here is valuable reading for any university undergraduate and postgraduate teaching of popular music, from David Tough (a professor of audio engineering technology) on mash-ups to Deena Weinstein on ‘stereophony’ as key to understanding covers (where ‘stereophony’ is about the inter-relationship between cover and original as part of the listening process). In one section, Weinstein uses Judas Priest's seminal ‘Breaking The Law’ and its various covers as a very useful exemplar, but I have to disagree with her assessment that Ramones studio recordings are less pleasing after seeing the band playing the songs live much faster. The studio originals (and the handful of very early live recordings) showcase the diamond-hard beauty of those songs far more than the breathless later renditions. Ramones covering themselves? In any case, I once recorded a solo cover of ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ at the same speed as the original … I'm sure the brothers would have loved it. Maybe.
