> Must have been a weird feeling for an artist to hear Johnny Cash is covering your song. On the one hand, he’s a legend who inspired you and who you worship, but also it has to be a bit of “oh shit, his version is going to be so much better than mine, isn’t it? Well, I guess it’s Johnny’s song now. ”
Pff.
Based on monthly listeners on Spotify Johnny Cash is bigger than both Nice Cave and Nine Inch Nails. So what kind of position do you put artists who are both less known and younger in when you cover their songs? Well factoring in respect and professionalism: deference is a likely outcome. “It’s his song now!” Ridiculous.
“Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails is fine I guess. “Hurt” by Cash is just an old man voice over a steel string guitar. Very monotone and dull. I heard it way before I heard the NiN version (naturally) and I never understood why people were taken by it.
Another example is “My Body is a Cage” by Arcade Fire. Peter Gabriel did a similarly boring cover: flat vocals (compare with the AF vocals reaching for the higher notes) over a dun-dun-dun piano which builds into a orchestral backing. I guess the instrumentation is comparable but the vocals are just okay. But the vocals are supposedly the wow-factor for such artists.
But AF has done at least one Peter Gabriel cover. So it goes both ways.
Pff.
Based on monthly listeners on Spotify Johnny Cash is bigger than both Nice Cave and Nine Inch Nails. So what kind of position do you put artists who are both less known and younger in when you cover their songs? Well factoring in respect and professionalism: deference is a likely outcome. “It’s his song now!” Ridiculous.
“Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails is fine I guess. “Hurt” by Cash is just an old man voice over a steel string guitar. Very monotone and dull. I heard it way before I heard the NiN version (naturally) and I never understood why people were taken by it.
Another example is “My Body is a Cage” by Arcade Fire. Peter Gabriel did a similarly boring cover: flat vocals (compare with the AF vocals reaching for the higher notes) over a dun-dun-dun piano which builds into a orchestral backing. I guess the instrumentation is comparable but the vocals are just okay. But the vocals are supposedly the wow-factor for such artists.
But AF has done at least one Peter Gabriel cover. So it goes both ways.