QueenZone discussion #1184993

Sheer Brass Neck wrote: I liked Queen because of their originality, and never saw the need for covers.  On the other hand, I know Brian was looking to do an album of covers when he did his second solo album.  I think songs like To Love Somebody by the Bee Gees, Yesterday and a Red Special version of Eleanor Rigby would have been a treat to hear. 

Sebastian wrote: And especially if you consider those covers you mention were all written or co-written by members of the band. But there are still more, some of which were also co-written by the band, some of which weren't: - Doing All Right - See What A Fool I've Been - God Save the Queen - The Wedding March Plus what they did on stage.

Sebastian wrote: >>> Up to 15 albums, and what, six or seven covers plus SWAFIB. They were stunningly original Yes but that's not a cause-effect thing: even if they had three covers per album, they'd still be 'stunningly original'.

      ThomasQuinn wrote:   Look, it's really very simple. There are three types of renditions/recordings: 1) Originals; the performer is also the author 2) Covers; the performer is not the author, the author is known 3) Traditionals; the performer is not the author; the author is unknown National anthems thus fall in either the second or third category, depending on knowledge of the authorship.  

ThomasQuinn wrote: Look, it's really very simple. There are three types of renditions/recordings: 1) Originals; the performer is also the author 2) Covers; the performer is not the author, the author is known 3) Traditionals; the performer is not the author; the author is unknown National anthems thus fall in either the second or third category, depending on knowledge of the authorship.

Sebastian wrote:

ThomasQuinn wrote: Look, it's really very simple. There are three types of renditions/recordings: 1) Originals; the performer is also the author 2) Covers; the performer is not the author, the author is known 3) Traditionals; the performer is not the author; the author is unknown National anthems thus fall in either the second or third category, depending on knowledge of the authorship.

I don't think it's like that. Again, Britney Spears' Baby One More Time is not a cover although she's not the author,

Roger Taylor's live Ride the Wild Wind is a cover although he's the author.

Now, a traditional is also a cover because, simply, the person who's doing it isn't the original performer. If there's no original performer, then it still applies: the person who's doing it isn't the original performer.

As for knowing what the original version sounds like, we've often got sheets and stuff. God Save the Queen had been composed, adapted and recorded many times before May (& Taylor, by the way) covered it, doing a new arrangement, etc, etc... but the fact is still: they didn't write it, they're not the original perfomers: they're covering it. Same for Wedding March (which is also May + Taylor only).

 Yara wrote:

ThomasQuinn wrote: Look, it's really very simple. There are three types of renditions/recordings: 1) Originals; the performer is also the author 2) Covers; the performer is not the author, the author is known 3) Traditionals; the performer is not the author; the author is unknown National anthems thus fall in either the second or third category, depending on knowledge of the authorship.

Hi, Thomas! How are you?

These are very helpful criteria. They're good enough, I guess. Congrats for the short, but spot-on post.

I'd like you to help me suggest a 4th category - yes, I know we have to be as economical as possible and avoid the use of unnecessary definitions, but I think there's an important one which hasn't been...covered! :op 4) Authorship is known, or there are strong signs for its authenticity, but we never managed to listen to the original and have little idea of how it would have sounded like for the author. This may enlighten the questions surrounding some, though not all, national anthems.

Scores and sheets don't speak for themselves. Lying inert on a table or bookshelf, the scores mean nothing for us - the music they aim to represent only exists for us, in the "present", insofar as a human being reads it, interprets it and gives it a rendition that other people may listen to. That's when the music emerges. Because of the lack of chance of comparing one's reading of the score with what the original could have been - sometimes it's music fromcenturies ago - I think it's weird to classify such a different situation as a "cover".

You take your guitar and plays one of Bach's partitas. You feel good. You know we're almost clueless about how it sounded like in Bach's time and how Bach wanted it to sound and how it may have sounded like under his direction or orientation to people he taught in general. There are huge gaps in the historical record to make things worse. Then, before you play the song your way, you know there have been plenty of schools arguing for this or that interpretation of a certain Bach's partita. You're aware of that: it seems, you think, that years of people handling it weren't sufficient to solve the problem. Or else: it's a partita which has even been very seldom played and there are just a few "modern" recordings of it.  You say to yourself: "Geez. But I just want to play the song! Why do I have to know about X's school of...".  And you're right. You want to play the song, you have the score there, the score alone means very little but yet, it does mean something if you try to tackle it and elicit music therefrom.  But your version is so DAMN GOOD (:op) that you decide to release it: "Bach's musical landscapes - partitas X and Y interpreted by prominent (guitar, piano, flute...) player Thomas Quinn". To make it even more fancy - "transcribed for and played with acoustic guitar by Thomas Quinn!"       I forgot about the topic now. Isn't it fancy? I hope you enjoy the titles. ;-) BACK TO TOPIC: (pulling my shirt and forcing myself into the topic) Does "Bach's musical landscapes - partitas X and Y played by Thomas Quinn" belong to the same category of "The Who's" take on Summertime Blues (to mention just one of the many wonderful covers out there)? Can we say: "Gleen Gould did a wonderful cover of the Goldberg Variations" in the same way we say that The Who made a brilliant cover of Summertime Blues or Hendrix of All Along The Watchtower?  We are entitled to - but it sounds absolutely weird. Then, my point: there should be a distinction between the cover as a term most often used to mean renditions of songs we know (more or less) how the original sound like as we have a recording of it (as lame as it might be) and the reading and interpretation of a piece of paper.  People cover sound. People do readings of the written remains of the musical past.   Callas covered Verdi? Not in the same way that Céline Dion covered The Show Must Go On or Synead O'Connor covered Elton's Sacrifice! So, I come before you, Thomas Quinn, with anxiety in my heart!, asking you to make sense of this! Would this category be useful? Could we put some - not all! - national anthems under this category?  La Marseillaise, for instance: we know the author - Claude Rouget - but we don't have a recording of revolutionaries singing it before storming into a Monastery. lol  :-)))) Always great to read your posts and "have you" around - you're a Queenzone asset already. ;-)))  Hug!!! Yara 

Yara wrote: Does "Bach's musical landscapes - partitas X and Y played by Thomas Quinn" belong to the same category of "The Who's" take on Summertime Blues (to mention just one of the many wonderful covers out there)? Can we say: "Gleen Gould did a wonderful cover of the Goldberg Variations" in the same way we say that The Who made a brilliant cover of Summertime Blues or Hendrix of All Along The Watchtower?  We are entitled to - but it sounds absolutely weird. Then, my point: there should be a distinction between the cover as a term most often used to mean renditions of songs we know (more or less) how the original sound like as we have a recording of it (as lame as it might be) and the reading and interpretation of a piece of paper.  People cover sound. People do readings of the written remains of the musical past.   Callas covered Verdi? Not in the same way that Céline Dion covered The Show Must Go On or Synead O'Connor covered Elton's Sacrifice!