The Chatterbox, Random Music Discussion

Was listening to a lot of popular music to really narrow down what genres I like, because I really didn't have a solid answer for the longest time, and it mainly seems to be soft rock, pop, etc.

50s:

Elvis Presley - A Little Less Conversation, Hound Dog, All Shook Up

60s:

The Beatles – Twist & Shout, Hey Bulldog, Good Day Sunshine

Led Zeppelin – How Many More Times, Ramble On, Over the Hills and Far Away

The Rolling Stones - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

Frank Sinatra - Somethin' Stupid

The Doors - Light My Fire

The Beach Boys - I Get Around, Help Me, Rhonda, Heroes and Villains

70s:

Elton John – Rocket Man, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road

Queen – Bohemian Rhapsody, Another One Bites the Dust, Killer Queen

Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall, The Gunner's Dream, Brain Damage

The Eagles - Desperado

Billy Joel – My Life, Movin' Out (Anthony's Song), Allentown

ABBA - Dancing Queen, The Winner Takes It All, Waterloo

Bee Gees - Stayin' Alive, Night Fever, Jive Talkin'

Kenny Rogers - The Gambler

Chicago - If You Leave Me Now

Bob Dylan - Tangled Up In Blue

Meat Loaf - Paradise By The Dashboard Light

Stevie Wonder - I Wish

Linda Ronstadt - You're No Good

Donna Summer - On The Radio

80s:

Michael Jackson – Smooth Criminal, Bad, Leave Me Alone

Madonna – Like A Prayer

Whitney Houston - Saving All My Love For You

AC/DC - Back In Black

Bruce Springsteen - Glory Days

Phil Collins – Sussudio

Fleetwood Mac – Everywhere

Rod Stewart - Young Turks

Guns N' Roses - Sweet Child O' Mine, Patience, Estranged

Prince - Raspberry Beret

Journey - Faithfully

Janet Jackson - Miss You Much

Dire Straits - Walk Of Life

Foreigner - Waiting for a Girl like You

Earth, Wind & Fire - Let's Groove

David Bowie - Modern Love

Def Leppard - Armageddon It

Genesis - Mama

Tina Turner - The Best

90s:

Backstreet Boys - As Long As You Love Me

Cher - Believe

Gloria Estefan - Oye

2000s:

Kanye West - Flashing Lights, Homecoming, Paranoid

Maroon 5 - This Love

Coldplay - Adventure Of A Lifetime, Clocks, In My Place

Pink - Try, So What, U + Ur Hand

Eric Clapton - Anyway the Wind Blows, Got to Get Better in a Little While, Black Magic Woman

2010s:

Rihanna - We Found Love

Linkin Park - Castle Of Glass

Paul Mc Cartney - 'Come On To Me

Edited by SoaringStarman on Jan 12th 2024 at 10:14:47 AM

That’s a really cool, diverse list of musicians. It’s always hard to nail down all-time favourites of any kind, let alone music.

I wonder why there arent any rap cover songs. I dont mean artists in another genre covering rap songs or rappers covering songs in other genres, I'm talking about rappers covering other rap songs. I do understand that much rap is very self-referential so maybe thats why.

Snoop Dogg did a rendition of a Slick Rick track back in the day.

I heard in Spotify one or two covers from Kendrick Lamar and one quickly understands why...

Rapping is very different from singing, is not only saying the verse, is saying them with style, with some groove, what is the point to try to copy the groove unsuccessfully?

The one major, straight version of a rap cover song I know of is Def Squad (Redman, Erick Sermon, and Keith Murray) doing their take on "Rapper's Delight" in the late 1990s.

first one I think about is Tricky's rearrangement of "Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos".

Any, there's also the little trivia that the verses on "Rapper's Delight", the first hip-hp single, were actually technically a cover, as it was just some guy Sylvia Robinson knew doing a Casanova Fly verse he heard at a party.

But yeah, there's been a long-standing, in fact foundational, policy in hip-hop that rappers should write their own rhymes, and talk about things that are true to them, and the lyrics are in the first person most of the time. Rap is poetry (but not "Rythym And Poetry" or "Rythmically Applied Poetry" as some claim), and it wouldn't do for a poet to just publish someone else's poem, or for someone holding a speech to just copy someone else's speech (see Melania Trump). I would also compare it to Folk and Punk, where if you make a political song, it's also expected that those are your political opinions, unless textually the lyrics are satirical.

In other music genres, a cover version is still also expected to have some spin on it. one big criticism people had of Weezer's cover of "Africa" was that it was such a one-for-one remake.

[ed.] RE: Snoop Dogg covering Ladi Dadi, accoring to a reddit post I found, the story there was that Slick Rick was in jail at the time, and Snoop did the cover as a tribute, and I suspect, so that Rick would get a lions share of the royalties to help with his legal trouble. That's actually a thing that happens every now and then, where rappers deliberate quote or interpolate a song so that the original artist gets a writing credit and a share of the profits, usually for stuff where the artist originally go stiffed by their label or for other reasons didn't profit from the track when it came out.

Edited by JethroQWalrustitty on May 2nd 2024 at 10:38:23 PM