Whatever happened to the covers?

Throughout the history of soul music, covers of other artists’ songs have played an important role. Otis Redding’s first hit, ‘Pain in my heart’, was a new version of Irma Thomas’s ‘Ruler of my heart’. And Redding’s own ‘Respect’ was made into a hit song by Aretha Franklin and a soundtrack to the civil rights movement. Marvin Gaye’s ‘I heard it through the grapevine’ was originally sung by Gladys Knight & The Pips, and Isaac Hayes’s monumental ‘The Look of Love’ was a Bacharach/David pop song, which was also the case for ‘A House is Not a Home’ until Luther Vandross made a great soul version of it. And so on and so on. Even in the 90’s, when the new rnb music had emerged, covers were still important: Mary J Blige released both ‘I’m going down’ (originally by Rose Royce) and ‘(You make me feel like a) Natural Woman’ as singles, and TLC made a cover of Prince’s ‘If I was your girlfriend’, neatly twisting the original’s gender issues yet another turn. One of the best covers, if you ask me, is ‘Georgy Porgy’ by Eric Benet and Faith Evans – it was originally a song by the super-slick rock group Toto. And let us not forget ‘Can’t take my eyes off of you’, the legendary bonus track from Lauryn Hill’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill album. Originally an early 60’s hit song by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, it was one of the greatest moments on Lauryn’s debut album.

But since the late 90’s, covers have more or less disappeared from the rnb scene. Why? Because samples have taken their place – a consequence of the hiphop influence on soul music. A cornerstone in this shift was The Score, the ultra-successful Fugees album of 1996. It contained both hiphop song using samples of old soul music (’Zealots’) as well as covers of old songs but with new beats (’Killing me softly’, ‘Ready or not’). The following year, Missy Elliott did the same thing on her debut album Supa Dupa Fly – again, The Delfonics’ “Ready or not, here I come” was re-used, but now as a sample for a beat (’Sock it 2 me’), with the vocal melody completely ignored. Instead, Missy sang a new melody for the chorus – she turning the old soul song into a new rnb song, by using hiphop technique. That trend has grown steadily stronger ever since.

Apart from a short period between 1999 and 2001 – the period between Puff Daddy and Kanye West – hiphop music has always relied heavily on samples. As rnb has approached hiphop toughness, likewise has hiphop approached rnb accessibility, and nowadays the samples used in hiphop songs are considerably longer and more melodious than what they used to be. In the older days, it was tricky for a soul singer to sing melodiously on a hiphop track, and vice versa. Nowadays, the respective sounds of the two genres are so similar that a new track can be made either into a hiphop song or an rnb joint. The most successful producers are those who work in both fields. It is never surprising when a rapper appears on an rnb song – not only because it is a proved formula for a hit, but because the song sounds like something in which a rapper would fit in naturally.

But as much as I love the cool, tough, hiphop-inspired rnb of today, I can’t help but wondering what happened to the covers. It has not only got to do with nostalgia: making a cover signifies something for the artist, it is a way of saying “this song I love, this is my ideal, when I look for songs to record I want them to sound like this”. Indeed, it is a way of paying homage to a strong melody, a good lyric and a show-stopping chorus. The thing is, an R&B singer can make a show-stopping chorus without great melodies and lyrics. It’s simple: just do what the rappers do. The rnb hits of today all more or less use the same formula: use a looped beat with nice chords on it, sing something catchy over it with a melody that fits the chords, and bingo, you have a song. Well, of course it’s just the chorus of a song, but that’s fine, that’s enough. For the verses, just used the same beat with the same chords, and just sing something that is not as attractive and powerful as the chorus. Two verses are enough – you don’t need a bridge, just hire a rapper and he’ll fix the space between the second chorus and the last one. Over the same beat, of course.

Now I don’t want to come off as cynical or negative towards today’s music. I mean, I love rnb from the bottom of my heart. It’s just that I see a problem in the fact that a lot of artists try to make hit songs instead of great songs. Of course, we have melody-writing whiz kids like Ne-Yo or The-Dream who make songs that are more complex than the average. And we have R. Kelly, who would never be where he is if it wasn’t for his ability (and his deep desire of the ability) to write great songs.

Maybe it doesn’t matter whether today’s songs will live as long as those of older times or not, whether they will be re-made a dozen times or not at all. If we like them today and they mean something to us here and now, that’s all that matters, right? Well, this might be true. But I would still like some more cover songs on new rnb albums – they don’t have to be singles, they don’t even have to be among the best songs on the album. But just the fact that they are there, that the artist want them to be there, would be nice. Because it shows that the artist in question is someone who is aware of where he or she is coming from and where he or she wants to go. It shows that the artist is someone with taste, preferences, personality. Making a cover is a way of telling the audience something about yourself. I quite disliked Beyoncé’s version of Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ from her recent album, but if she recorded it because the original song meant something to her, then I think it’s cool that she recorded it and put it there. I wish more artists would do a thing like that. But not many artists dare, or they don’t care. What a shame.

By the way, wasn’t Beyoncé’s performance of Etta James’s ‘At Last’ – the song she sang during Barack and Michelle Obama’s dance on the inauguration night – the most touching she has done in years? I rest my case.