damn country music "covers"

So this morning I was driving to work and thought I would turn the radio on and give it another chance. (I constantly get annoyed with the talk show hosts and callers being so close minded, prompting me to have avoided the radio for months now.) However, after flipping thru stations, I stumbled upon something that totally irritated me and again prompted me to turn it off and plug in my ipod.

As I was flipping around, I happened to stop long enough on one station to hear a HORRIBLE country rendition of Hinder’s Lips of an Angel. (I later looked online to see the country version is by Jack Ingram.) Why do country music artists feel it necessary to constantly redo hit pop and rock songs?! It’s fucking annoying. Is it necessary to redo a huge hit pop song with a bit of twang in your voice at a slower tempo to sell more of your records? Can’t you write your own fucking songs?! I find it even more annoying that it’s obvious Jack Ingram quickly threw together this song to simply capitalize on Hinder’s current success. Way to ride someone else’s coattails buddy.

Sure, you can all point out inconsistencies within the music business to use against me in this argument. Of course rap music is constantly using old beats to rework into modern hits… but that’s called sampling. It’s still just a piece of old music redone creatively – not just lifted word for word. And yes, some artists are even flattered when another musician decides to cover their hit, such as Nine Inch Nails praising Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt. But again, it was at least a completely different version to be made Cash’s own... plus it was done eight years after the original. Mark Chesnutt’s cover of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing was less than a year after Aerosmith’s original and it sounded horrible with only difference a southern drawl. Whoop de fucking do.

Plus, rarely does the song get promoted as a cover. It is simply put into the radio play list and portrayed as the new artist’s original work. Unless the listener has heard the original version, they would have no clue it is a carbon copy song. Credit is not given where credit is due. It’s frustrating. (And yes, you would be surprised how many people probably haven’t heard the originals; as I have discovered while living here in Alabama, people really live in a sheltered bubble.)

Of course, not every cover should be considered negative. Gary Allan’s cover of Vertical Horizon’s Best I Ever Had was not made quickly and put out to capitalize on Vertical Horizon’s success. Gary Allan actually redid the song six years later because it perfectly embodied a personal hardship in his own life at the time (his wife had recently committed suicide). Plus, he changed just one song lyric but it in fact changed the entire meaning of the song. This is a good example of a justifiable country cover of a pop song… but this is overshadowed but the consistent crappy covers otherwise given radio play.

So in conclusion, could the country music artists please stop trying to capitalize on pop and rock single’s success and come up with their own music… or at least do it creatively or even well?! It is hard for me to respect you at as artist otherwise. Thank you.

P.S. – Because I love the original Lips of an Angel song, I will post a link to Hinder’s version here. Fuck you Jack Ingram.