Covers and Remakes

“Nothing Compares 2 U,” in Sinead O’Connor’s version, once grabbed the number 2 spot on a list of the Best Cover Songs Ever. It’s funny, therefore, that one theory of covers disqualifies it from even competing. A recording of a song, Theodore Gracyk says, is a remake, if the song has been recorded before; and “Nothing Compares 2 U” had. But more is needed for it to be a cover. For that status, the artist must have intended listeners to compare the new version with some particular recording of the song; and also have intended that the audience recognize (try not to get dizzy) that the artist intended this. It follows that a cover of a song cannot stand on its own as a vehicle of meaning. Fully appreciating a cover involves laying it against the original, and sussing out the significance of every departure and of every moment of faithfulness. I am old enough to testify that Sinead O’Connor’s first eager listeners did no such thing. Neither—almost certainly—were they intended to do so, by the singer or her producers.

On Gracyk’s view, cover song is a recent piece of cultural technology. No one could have made one before the mid-20th century, any more than one could have ridden a steamboat in ancient Rome—the difference in abstractness of the relevant technologies notwithstanding. Of course to call the cover song a piece of cultural technology is not to deny that innovations in material technologies were required for its development. You cannot cover a song unless a decent segment of your audience is familiar with the version you are covering—a prerequisite only met with the invention of the turntable, the radio, and in a crowning achievement, the eight-track tape player. O brave new world.

Also required is a musical culture that treats particular recordings of songs as the primary bearers of musical interest. That’s why the cover song is “a thing” in the world of rock and pop, but not in jazz or classical music, even though those forms of music may also be broadcast to the masses over the airwaves, or pumped one by one into bluetooth headphones. Tons of jazz musicians have recorded “My Funny Valentine,” but no recording of it is “canonical,” in the way that The Rolling Stones’ recording of “Satisfaction” is canonical. And only if something is canonical can, say, Cat Power’s recording of the song be a cover, rather than just another version.