Cover Song Syndrome

Cover songs today is all part and parcel of the music entertainment industry. Many times we hear different artists singing the same song, both fresh and old. Covers are not only bound to a region itself, but going international even and changed into different languages;English to Chinese or Spanish, and vice versa too. Most recent one I could remember was the same tune for Purest of Pain by Coco Lee in Chinese.

Lately I fumble across numerous numbers of covers. While some covers are good or not bad, the rest simply turn stale sour. What is it that drives some bands to sing covers over and over again 'til they sound like a new parrot?

Take the best example, Westlife.

First, the Uptown Girls. That was fine- it was catchy, energetic, and gave fresh air to the aging version by Billy Joel. Who knows, next came Seasons In The Sun. It was a hit too but if look down the memory lane from there, sniff around and you'd smell trouble. We have fun, we have joy, we have seasons in the sun. But the wine and the band, like the season have gone foul.

After a series of originals, they're at it again. You Raise Me Up, then Home. If you listen to the radio and reach the part they sang "I wanna go HOoOo-OoOo-OoOomMme!!!" you can somehow imagine the singers sang out to their hearts content, full of emotions with their forehead scrunched, like a wrung towel while going nearly on their knees, wanting to go home. I definitely prefer Michael Buble's over theirs.

Not that I dislike Westlife, but where has their originality gone to? Raised Up by them then met Uptown tune and went Home? I remember those good old days of If I Let You Go and Unbreakable- so sensational, so ooomph!, so Westlife-ish. Now they can change their name to WEST-PARROT-LIFE instead.

*Squawk* The Parrot Award goes to.....Westlife.

Covers sang properly are fine. Some even pulled off with a brand new twist and flavour to the song like Britney to I Love Rock 'N Roll, Jessica to Take My Breath Away and best of all, Goodnight by Destiny's Child. Hmmm... (3 singers, shouldn't it be Destiny's Children?) Perfect. Bravo, bravo, brovissimo...

The latest one I came across is Beat It by Fall Out Boys.

They're good rockers, with fine personalities but this is nothing personal, just business- it was pretty, erm, lame. Rock bands today tend to drown their vocals with heavy metal music, perhaps to cancel out any slight off-pitch voices. After all, the spotlight is on the music, not the vocals. Necessity falls on guitar and drum skills, not much on vocals instead.

Where was I?Oh, F.O.B. Their guitar skills are definitely top-notch in the song, perhaps that explains the inspiration to perform the song.

But dear boys, the song you picked was sang by Michael J, who is unbeatable in choreography and vocal. If you want to cover for Beat It, somehow please polish up your vocal a little more. I know, you are trying to rock-size the song but the cover compared to the original production is like a Petaling Street's faux LV (for Louis Vuitton, in case you wonder) to the authentic one from France.

Mm-mmm...a bag every girl just wants

The beat it, beat it part has an obvious off pitch-tempo there, no can do, boys. Definitely falling out, boys. My hats to Michael J. I just love him singing that song. But you wanna be baaaaaaaad! So, beat it!! Uumph.

Had tough time choosing MJ's picture. There are so many and the difference is HUGE. Kinda like series of evolution in Biology books.

Just when I thought these artists are pretty bad, then the video by William Hung came on air right at the exact moment. I stand corrected, Westlife and Fall Out Boys are GOOD. This is catastrophe, fiasco. She bangs, she bangs. Before you know it, she'd bangs her head hearing this song. I wonder how it felt to be Ricky Martin to have his song mutilated so baaaadly.

I mean, come on. Just listening to it makes you want to cringe and give his face a good slap. That's not music, its NOISE. Definition: UNWANTED random sound in the human audible frequency range.

AAAAARGH. RUN! Its Hung-zilla!!

Definitely there are certain ingredients that you just must have in your cover songs such as not making a cover too soon for the song like Jojo and Sean Kingston and also to change the style into one that's unique and not end up stale-cold. For example the accoustic of Rihanna's Umbrella (ambik Payung tu..nak hujan dah ni) in You Tube was great whereas Mandy Moore's too plain.

Looks like the coversong-itis disease will never come to an end.