1st Edition

Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music

Edited By George Plasketes Copyright 2010
280 Pages
by Routledge

280 Pages
by Routledge

280 Pages
by Routledge

Covering”the musical practice of one artist recording or performing another composer's song”has always been an attribute of popular music. In 2009, the internet database Second Hand Songs estimated that there are 40,000 songs with at least one cover version. Some of the more common variations of this "appropriationist" method of musical quotation include traditional forms such as patriotic... Read more
Introduction Like A Version, George Plasketes; Part 1 Front Cover: Treatise; Chapter 1 Further Re-flections on “The Cover Age”: A Collage and Chronicle 1 This chapter is a remastered and expanded edition of an essay that appeared in the special issue on cover songs in Popular Music and Society in 2005. Thanks always to the journal’s editor extraordinaire Gary Burns., George Plasketes; Part 2 Under the Covers: History, Ideology, Identity; Chapter 2 Charting Cultural Change, 1953–57: Song Assimilation Through Cover Recording, B. Lee Cooper; Chapter 3 The Cover Song as Historiography, Marker of Ideological Transformation, Sheldon Schiffer; Chapter 4 Cover Up: Emergent Authenticity in a Japanese Popular Music Genre, Christine R. Yano; Part 3 The Song Remains the Same? Song and Album; Chapter 5 From Junk to Jesus: Recontextualizing “The Pusher”, Andrew G. Davis; Chapter 6 David Bowie’s Pin-Ups : Past as Prelude, Stuart Lenig; Part 4 Look What They’ve Done To My Song: Gender, Identity, Media Makeovers; Chapter 7 Queering Cohen: Cover Versions as Subversions of Identity, Erik Steinskog; Chapter 8 Covering and Un(covering) the Truth with “All Along the Watchtower”: From Dylan to Hendrix and Beyond, Russell Reising; Chapter 9 The Same Yet Different/Different Yet the Same: Bob Dylan Under the Cover of Covers, Greg Metcalf; Part 5 Don’t Forget To Dance: Technique and Techno Transformations; Chapter 10 “Hide and Seek”: A Case of Collegiate A Cappella “Microcovering”, Joshua S. Duchan; Chapter 11 The Mashup Mindset: Will Pop Eat Itself?, David Tough; Chapter 12 Camp Transitions: Genre Adaptation and the HI-NRG/Dance Cover Version, Lee Barron; Part 6 Contemplating Covers; Chapter 13 In Defense of Cover Songs: Commerce and Credibility, Don Cusic; Chapter 14 Artist Intentions: A Case for Quality Covers, Remy Miller; Part 7 Back Cover: Epilogue; Chapter 15 Appreciating Cover Songs: Stereophony, Deena Weinstein;

Biography

George Plasketes is Professor of Radio-Television-Film and Popular Culture in the Department of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University, USA.

'From "American Idol" to Weird Al Yankovic, from Japanese enka to mash-ups, Play it Again reveals the many layers of connection to be found in our increasingly recombinant media culture. The fifteen essays in this collection invite us to consider just how prevalent the act of covering is”far beyond its usual association with "copying someone else's song." Indeed, whether as apprenticeship, as tribute, or as sabotage, the phenomenon of covers have penetrated film, television, and the advertising world. Together, the essays in this collection suggest a number of new avenues of inquiry for popular music studies.' Kevin Holm-Hudson, University of Kentucky, USA ’It is timely that cover songs should be treated with scholarly respect. ...Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music deserves a strong readership from undergraduate and postgraduate courses in popular music and popular cultural studies.’ Times Higher Education ’Recommended.’ Choice