December
2000:
"The
Trials and Tribulations of Tribute Albums: Does the World Need Any More
Cover Songs?"
Welcome to the December 2000 installment of "From
Hell's Heart..." This is an editorial column written by the
Metal-Rules.com team. Each month we pick a metal-related topic and share
our thoughts, feelings and ideas on it.
“The Trials and Tribulations of Tribute Albums: Does the
World Need Any More Cover Songs?”
By Nathan
Seriously, what in the fuck is with all of these
tribute albums? This has
gotten way out of hand, and it’s a trend that’s lasted too long.
It seems like every band has a tribute album nowadays.
Christ, I’ve even seen a tribute to Rod Fucking Stewart!
I remember thinking how great it would be to hear bands cover
Sabbath songs as I was jamming to my Dad’s old records.
Back then, Sabbath always sounded primitive to me, and I felt
their music needed to be “updated”.
I pissed my pants over Nativity in Black, but that album
was just the first of too many other tributes to come.
Many bands serving as a major influence in metal deserve
to be paid tribute. But
whether or not a tribute album is necessary is debatable.
I take this stance: if
the band’s music can be improved, then go for it.
Black Sabbath’s early material, although groundbreaking, still
sounds pretty primitive, which can only be expected from the era in
which it was recorded. Modern
bands can not only improve the sound quality, but also make the songs heavier.
The same goes for Celtic Frost and early Judas Priest.
On the other hand, we have bands like Slayer, whose music just
simply cannot be improved. No
Slayer cover will ever match the original.
The same goes for Iron Maiden: although bands can make the music
heavier, they usually fail miserably when it comes to the vocals
(although both Anthrax and Opeth did killer versions of “Remember
Tomorrow”).
The most interesting way of covering a song is by
changing it to reflect your own style.
Priest’s “Love Bites” is a horrible song.
But Nevermore’s version simply crushes because they played
around with it. And how
about Ozzy’s “No More Tears”?
It’s quite a boring and overplayed song.
But when Solitude Aeturnus put their hands on it, they turned it
into a great doom-laden song. And
The Beatles are complete shit. But
when Realm transformed “Eleanor Rigby” into a thrash song, it took
on a whole new life. But
the most brilliant cover song I’ve ever heard is Illdisposed’s
version of Megadeth’s “Wake Up Dead”.
First, the original version rules, and there is absolutely no reason
to cover it. But
Illdisposed fucking changed the whole song.
The riffs are all played differently, the arrangements are
different, the guitar leads are completely different, and they even
added new verses. They paid
tribute, but made the song into something completely new.
Because tribute albums are such a big trend, some
record labels take advantage of the money-making opportunity.
Thus we see Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth, Kreator, and Iron Maiden
tributes come out containing unknown and fourth-rate death metal bands
who shouldn’t even release records let alone cover songs.
And it’s sad when bands include a cover song on one of their
albums, and then their label advertises it with “including a cover of
Slayer’s ‘Angel of Death’!!!!”
When a label advertises like this, it’s simply wrong.
You should be attracted to a band because of the music they
write, not because of what great songs they cover.
And I think cover songs in general are just getting
tiring. Some bands have
been doing way too many covers over the years.
Sure it’s just for fun, but goddamn it, spend your time and
energy writing some new material! Are
you listening Anthrax? One
thing I do admire about Anthrax, however, is how perfectly they play
other bands’ material. On
the other hand, it’s truly sad when they release a best-of album (Return
of the Killer A’s) and the only songs appearing from State of
Euphoria and Persistence of Time are the cover songs
appearing on each. It’s
also sad when these are the only songs the band plays live from these
albums. It’s as if saying
“the best songs on these albums are the ones we didn’t write”.
And then we have bands releasing entire albums worth of covers.
Well, this isn’t so bad. I
mean, if you dig Overkill, Napalm Death, or Six Feet Under, you’ll
probably dig their covers albums. At
least the songs are assembled onto one CD instead of being spread
out over several CD singles, compilations, tribute albums, and
soundtracks (like Anthrax).
Really, I could care less if bands continue to do
covers, but please at least try and make things interesting.
Some incentive to listen needs to be present.
But I think record labels need to put tribute albums to rest.
They tend to be a money-making scam and we just don’t need any
more.
The Trials and Tribulations of
Tribute Albums: Does the World Need Any More Cover Songs?
By
Michael De Los Muertos
This one is a pretty easy topic.
If by “tribute albums” you mean the worthless chaff churned
out by metal record labels to try to make a quick buck, and if by
“cover songs” you mean filler material a band puts out to satiate
their fans until their next studio release, the answers to both are
clearly no.
What we could use, though, are the right
tribute albums, and the right
cover songs, because, as always, the concept is valid, but the execution
doesn’t always come off.
While it is true that tribute
albums are made up of cover songs, I see two different species here: the
real tribute album, where a
group of bands get together to cover one band’s songs, and the
inverse, the cover album,
where one band covers songs by lots of different bands.
Both are pretty risky these days.
I think there is some room in the world for both types, but they
have to be chosen carefully. Take
Nativity In Black, for instance.
That was a good idea. Black
Sabbath is a band that needs a tribute, and the bands to provide the
covers ought to be bands who were heavily influenced by them, or can
take their songs in a new direction.
Granted, there are some crap songs on that album, and some poor
choices of bands, but there are some real gems too.
Unfortunately since the success of high-profile tributes like Nativity
we’ve been flooded with third-rate clones, horrible albums full of
badly-produced tracks by bands nobody has ever heard of.
Part of the problem is that they’re making tribute albums for
bands who don’t deserve
tribute albums. Example:
Sepultura. I love (old)
Sepultura, and clearly they were important on the scene in their day.
Of course they influenced many bands over the years.
But they don’t deserve a tribute.
In the year 2015, long after Sepultura themselves have passed
into history, and their role on the metal scene can be evaluated from
the perspective of history, then it will be time for a Sepultura tribute
album.
Cover albums tend to annoy me
more. I guess my paradigm
experience with them was a bad one, that being Guns N’ Roses The
Spaghetti Incident?, which, judging by the sheer number of them I
see in used CD stores to this very day, has got to be the most-returned
album of all time. And
rightly so – it suuuuuucked! This is the worst example of a cover album: a band churns out
some hastily-recorded tracks and throws them on an album to “tide
over” the fans until their next studio release.
Even some of my favorite bands have been guilty of this (AHEM Six
Feet Under), and I’m skeptical whenever I hear a band has a cover
album coming out. I still
haven’t heard Helloween’s Metal
Jukebox, and that’s not because I don’t trust Helloween to have
well-produced, well-sung covers, but more because I really don’t need
a power metal Spaghetti Incident.
I’d rather wait four years until their next album, rather than
wait two to get a disc full of covers – in which there’ll invariably
be a couple of real clangers – and then wait another two in abject
disappointment until the “real” album comes out.
Unfortunately, metal is a
business, and business reality is sometimes ugly.
There must be somebody
out there buying these terrible tribute and cover albums that seem to
proliferate in every Nuke Blast and Century Media catalog, so I guess in
a way they’re probably funding the “real” albums to an extent. So the fact that they exist doesn’t bother me.
Will I buy them? Usually no, except under extraordinary circumstances.
EvilG's Rant
Tribute albums and cover songs...both are kind of one in the same,
but I will make a distinction here. I am TOTALLY sick off all the
tribute albums coming out but if a band records a full album of ORIGINAL
material and puts one cover song at the end of the CD, I'm OK with that.
The tribute album thing started out as something cool but has grown into
a thing were some labels base their existence around releasing tribute
albums to almost every metal / hard rock band that has existed. I can
understand a tribute to Sabbath or Maiden - not that it's likely that
anyone will top the originals. There are way too many tribute albums
where a bunch of unknown, noisy, death metal bands pay tribute to a band
that has nothing to do with their sound and VERY little to do with their
influences. I don't know about you, but I do not want to hear someone
burping and grunting out "Over The Mountain" by Ozzy...I'll
listen to the original thank you. There are some tributes that are just
silly. Some bands deserve to be forgotten! I wonder what the count is on
the number of Slayer tributes that have come out now - seems like
dozens!?!?? Does anyone actually buy this because they think it's gonna
be better than Slayer?? HELL NO!! Does anyone think a tribute to
Suicidal Tendencies makes sense? There are only a few tribute albums
that to me were done right and involved the right type of bands covering
the songs. Two of my favorites were released by Century Media Records.
The first is the Legends of Metal / Delivering
The Goods tributes to Judas Priest. The second is the Holy
Dio Tribute to Ronnie James Dio. As for cover songs themselves - I
think one song on a full-length CD is cool; or a b-side with some
originals, unreleased songs, live songs and a cover or two (ie. Iron
Savior's cover of "Headhunter" by Krokus got me back to
listening to some classic
Krokus!!)
If for some reason you wanna hear a bunch of unknown bands (for the
most part) covering, and often butchering bands, then head over to www.dwellrecords.com
where you will see a glut of this tiresome crap. It's sad that these
bands think the only way they can get some recognition is by being on a
tribute CD...especially on the low caliber tribute CD's that no one even
knows about. While there is some room for tribute CD's, what we have now
needs to come to an end. Bands should focus on writing better music
rather then covering stuff that people already like. I would rather hear
a band take a song and make it theirs, not ruin it and not make an exact
copy. In the words of Tom G. Warrior "create, not copy." In
other words, if you're planning on covering a song...DOT NOT just cover
it, RE-CREATE it without butchering it in the process! Not an easy task
is it?
Rick's Rant
This is a very interesting topic to cover in this months "From
Hells Heart". The last few years have seen such a proliferation of
tribute CDs and cover songs that it seems that there is hardly a metal
band left that doesn't have a tribute to it in one form or another.
There have been tributes to Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Dio, Accept,
Iron Maiden, Metallica, Helloween, Guns N Roses and Queensryche among
others. There have also been a number of CDs released by bands that are
totally covers songs and tributes to some of the bands favourite artists
and influences and finally there are the numerous cover songs that show
up on many bands CDS and even more often as b-sides on the singles.
Overall this is a very large body of covered material and stretches from
one end of the metal spectrum to the other.
I myself like covers. Its great to hear another band interpret
material from the groups that have influenced them. Metallica have made
a career of playing covers from some of the best obscure bands from the
history of metal as such Diamond Head, Blitzkrieg and other acts outside
the metal spectrum such as The Misfits and Killing Joke. Six Feet Under
have just released a CD of covers called Graveyard Classics which has
covers of AC/DC among others. Helloween even got in on the act last year
when they released Metal Jukebox which had covers of songs by bands like
Focus, Faith No More and the Scorpions.
I think the idea of tributes and covers is fine but its getting to a
saturation point now. There are only so many versions of "Hes a
Woman, She’s a Man" or "Kill The King" that I can take.
There comes a point when I get sick of hearing covers and want to hear
some fresh new material. And the other thing that I don't like about all
the covers and tribute CDs today is that many are done by bands that I
have never heard of before. When I heard Helloween covering Judas Priest
or Grave Digger covering Dio it was cool. But to hear a band like
Prototype covering King Diamond just doesn't interest me. My interest
comes from hearing a great band paying tribute to their heroes not from
a young band trying to make a name for themselves with someone elses
material. Another thing that bugs me is when the covers are preformed by
bands that can't hope to pull of the original. I know that many people
don't agree with me but hearing Chris Barnes singing a Thin Lizzy tune
or any death metal band doing a King Diamond cover just does not
interest me in the least. Its nice to hear a band do a cover song in
their own style but to just dismantle the song in most cases and with
rare exception just doesn't interest me in the least.
I think that its time for the flood of covers to stop. Covers are
great but a full cd of covers for the sake of doing covers is just not
that interesting. I know that I usually don't buy them. As for Tribute
CDs. Its great to hear a CD full of established bands doing covers of
their heroes. It gets old quick when the market is flooded with tribute
CDs which include fledgling bands trying to make a name for themselves.
I would much rather hear original material from a young band. As for
covers themselves. One song on a CD of 12 or 13 tracks is cool.
Joe's Rant
Since I usually don’t bother with tribute albums, I don’t have a
whole lot to say on the subject. I did buy the Judas Priest tribute, Legends
of Metal (Volumes 1 AND 2! No crappy North American version
for me!) a few years back, but I sorta had to... Priest are my all-time
favorite band and the Legends... tribute boasted such an
impressive line-up of bands that I just had to buy it. There is at least
one more Judas Priest tribute CD that I’m aware of which features a
bunch of Death Metal bands (many of whom I’ve never heard of) who, in
my opinion, merely end up butchering some of the genres greatest songs.
No offence to fans of Death Metal, but Kreator covering
"Grinder" makes much more sense than some Mortician clone
covering "Breaking the Law".
I also bought the Black Sabbath tribute, Nativity In Black: Vol.1.
Never having been a huge Sabbath fan, I picked it up just to
familiarize myself with some of their classics. This was also during the
pre-web days. Grunge
explosion, so I was desperate for some new music. It was a pretty good
CD, but it’s one that rarely (if ever) gets played anymore. I’m sure
as hell not buying NIB: Vol.2 that was released earlier this year,
that’s for sure... Have you seen the line-up for that one??? Ozzy
Osbourne and Tony Iommi deserve nothing short of execution for allowing
such hideous bands to perform their material! Utterly disgusting.
Getting back to the topic, I do think that over the past two or three
years that record companies have been getting carried away with the
issuing of tribute albums. I can understand tributes to bands like
Sabbath, Priest, Iron Maiden, Dio, and maybe even Accept because these
bands are not only the most influential acts in Metal history, but they
also created and forged Heavy Metal into a new and legitimate genre of
music. And as the true pioneers of Metal they deserve some kind of
recognition. But it seems as though nowadays, every excuse for a label
is issuing a tribute to some band or other. I wish I could name some
albums for examples, but I don’t know of any because I’ve just been
ignoring them. I have no interest in them whatsoever. And why should I?
In the majority of cases, the issuing labels select the most
inappropriate bands to play the covers and the cover is never as good as
the original anyway (Well... Megadeth’s cover of "Anarchy In the
U.K." WAS better than the Sex Pistol’s version...). It
seems to me that tribute albums are nothing more than a money-making
ploy on part of the record companies and for the consumer are really
nothing more than novelty items. Personally, I’d much rather spend my
money on new material by the artists that are supposedly being
"honored".
Pete's Rant
No, no, no, no, no.
Ya know, it was pretty cool when your favourite band added a cover
tune to their album.
I know I ‘d look everywhere for the singles that had that
“unreleased B-side” that was usually a cover tune. Then along came
Garage Days, Nativity In Black, Kiss my Ass……uh-oh ,now its overkill
(who even have their own album “Coverkill” pardon the pun), as there
tributes to everyone. Don’t believe me, check out Dwell Records
homepage: www.dwellrecords.com.
There’s tributes to Testament, Slayer, White Zombie(???), even a
tribute to Marilyn Manson.
Enough Already!!!!!
Do We Need Any More Cover Songs?
By Keith McDonald
I do like tribute albums. It's a great way to pay homage to a
legendary/influential band and there are some great ones out there. The
KISS Tribute was a nice piece that featured well known artists, some
much to my surprise, that grew up and were influenced by KISS. Lenny
Kravitz and Garth Brooks did great covers of Deuce and Hard Luck Women
respectively and the orchestra rendition of Black Diamond was
incredible. The Black Sabbath Nativity In Black was another great piece
of work. But since the mid-90's these Tribute albums have flooded the
market. Everyone and their mother have been on some sort of album which
has weakened it thought. Great bands like Judas Priest, KISS and Iron
Maiden have more than one Tribute album out there. When is enough
enough?
You have labels out there (i.e. Dwell Records) releasing them every
month just looking to make a quick buck off the die hard fans. Sure,
they're smart enough to get well known artists from today's scene to
cover the songs (i.e. Nativity In Black). But it's getting harder and
harder to enjoy the idea behind these Tribute discs when they're being
milked dry.
When I worked at Mayhem Records we were throwing around the idea of
doing a Twisted Sister Tribute album. The company's owner was Twisted's
former manager. Dee explained he felt there were way too many
compilations out there, and that was in '96. Now as we reach 2001, Koch
Records is planning on releasing the TS Tribute with Motorhead, Lit,
Iced Earth and other 'known' artists covering the classics. Do we need
one now? Probably not. But plan on it being a moneymaker for Koch, which
today is the main goal in the MUSIC industry.
Going back to the original question 'Do we need any more cover
songs?' I have to say Fuck No! Money has been the driving factor in
putting together Tribute albums rather than the music. Let's just let
the new generation of fans learn about the Van Halens, Judas Priests and
Black Sabbaths by picking the original songs on the original classic
albums. Sometimes less is more.
Jesse's two cents
I wrote about this very topic a few months ago in a review I did
right here on Metal-Rules.com! This is probably illegal, but I'm going
to dig out a paragraph from that review, 'cause it perfectly expresses
how I feel on this matter (plus I'm lazy!):
Tribute albums have become big business in this overly nostalgic era
of ours and I'm split as to whether or not they are a good thing. On one
hand it's cool to hear different interpretations of classic songs and to
get a feel for the wide range of influence a certain band has had. But,
then again, the shear number of tribute albums being cranked out these
days is really getting to be quite annoying. I have a certain philosophy
about tribute albums and it goes a little something like this: a good
tribute song should be different from the original, but should retain
its essence. Simply put, we don't need to hear an exact copy of the
original, 'cause what would be the point? I can go and listen to the
original, you know? Sometimes, however, bands will warp the original so
much out of whack that it will bear absolutely no resemblance to the
source material. I think that a good tribute song should retain a few
characteristics of the original, because (yet again) what would be the
point in it not? I want to recognize the song on some level!
Anyway, as long as a cover song adheres to my philosophy, I think
that my world can endure a few more of 'em!