what *exactly* is a "cover song" anyway
@Felthry an artist performing another artist's song
@noiob is this an unusual enough thing that it needs a distinct name for it??
@Felthry why would it need to be unusual to be named?
@noiob I don't know, it's just like
the way we look at it, a performance of a piece by its composer is the more uncommon event, the performance by someone else ought to be considered the default, or something
@Felthry no, not like that
if someone writes a song for me and I perform it (as in I'm the original performer), it's not a cover, but if you then perform said song it's a cover
@noiob that's strange
since when are songs written for a specific performer
@Felthry well, most bands write their own songs, for starters, or the producing company has songwriters write songs for them
@Felthry well that won't help with understanding pop-music-specific phenomena
@Felthry but, like, most people who write music also play said music? I don't think that's a strange thing
pop musicians then sell recordings said music to be played on the radio/ sold on CDs/ whatever happens nowadays
@Felthry a big part of pop music is also live performances of said musicians
note that pop music especially in its roots didn't necessarily include writing down notes, a big part of stuff like blues or rock is "jamming", just sitting down to play whatever comes to mind
@noiob I guess we've just never known this stuff because we actively avoid pop music
vocals in music make us very uncomfortable so everything we listen to is either soundtrack music or classical music, pretty much
@Felthry there's instrumental pop music! Most jazz is instrumental. I'd classify a lot of soundtracks as pop music, too
@noiob I don't know what it is then
like, our entire conception of music is rooted in it being something that one person writes and many different people play, not something that one person writes and one person plays and then other people play but their performances are branded as lesser by the term "cover"
@noiob I don't know, this is just really weird
@Felthry they're not necessarily seen as lesser! There's a bunch of covers that became more popular than the original song. A good example would be Johnny Cash singing "Hurt", which was originally a Nine Inch Nails song, but even their singer was like "yeah that's Johnny's song now, his interpretation blows mine out of the water"
(I like the Nine Inch Nails version better, personally)
@Felthry but if someone writes a song specifically for themselves or someone, they can account for, e.g. a singer's strengths and usually also tell their personal story, so songs are usually closely associated with the original artists
@noiob @Felthry The best covers are ones that understand what it is awesome about the original and preserves it, while being willing to modify everything else to make their own artistic statement. If someone does a cover version that's exactly the same as the original but with different performers it's kind of pointless since recorded music is a thing. But covers that take a song and bring it to a place that is completely different from the original can be a thing of beauty.
@starkatt @Felthry yeah, and "Hurt" is an amazing example of that, Johnny Cash sings that song as if he specifically wrote it for himself, while only having changed one word of the lyrics (and don't get me wrong, I like his version, too, but I can identify a lot more with the NiN version)
another great example of an often-covered song is "Hallelujah" but honestly for me it's Cohen's voice that makes the original and every cover is just so plain in comparison
@Felthry @noiob
OKAY so technically this is a re-arrangement and not a cover but pop covers very frequently change all of the instrumentation so I don't think this is totally off-limits? And I love the example.
Milky Way from the soundtrack to the game FTL [2:40]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BWs9rV4T2I
Piano arrangement (start at 2:58)
https://brentkennedy.bandcamp.com/track/ftl-themes-ben-prunty
@Felthry @noiob Also here's an entire-ass playlist of covers of Wintergatan's instrumental Marble Machine.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLLYkE3G1HECSsIy4IBqUVyJ76Q4oaA97
@noiob I don't understand pop music