Talk About Pop Music

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Cover vs original
Posted on by Christopher Smith

PLAYLIST: Cover Version vs Original

Cover vs Original – exactly that!

Are original songs always the best or have there been better covers? Or is the original still and always going to be the best? That is the question. Our extensive database seeks to remind you of what you may think is your favourite song from the 80’s, 90’s or today, but is in fact a reworking of a classic from the 70’s, 60’s or even the 1950’s.

Some songs have been so popular they’ve been recorded over a hundred times by artists male AND female as well as bands and groups alike. So we pull out the best known, the most successful of these and put them to a jury. You! You tell us which one is the best. Have we done right? Are there one’s we ourselves have forgotten and should be evaluated as part of the mix?

One thing is for sure, every week another song will come to ‘trial’, placing the original that our mums and dads will tell us are always the best alongside the latest version that we know and love and accept as gospel. “Always On My Mind” for example. Elvis or the Pet Shop Boys? Sometimes it can be difficult, and often there’s a story to be told about each song and the artists that have recorded them.

Click here to view all our Cover vs Original posts

So take a journey back in time, through time to the present time and see how many you remember and also how many of your current favourites were actually topping the ‘hit parade’ half a century ago…

cover original - apple

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Written by Christopher Smith

So perhaps you’ve read an article or two that I’ve written and wondered “just who is this character?”! Well I thought maybe it would be time to introduce myself and what I’m all about. Well it’s all about the music! Having been born in the late 1970’s I was heavily influenced by my parent’s love of ‘popular’ music and rock and roll of the 1950’s and 60’s. My Mother always said she should of married Elvis and my father was, and is still, in love with Sandie Shaw! But while my Dad’s tastes stopped in about 1967, my Mum carried on loving music throughout the 70’s, 80’s and beyond. My first memory was playing on the floor whilst my Mother was ironing one day with the radio on, and hearing ABBA’s “Super Trouper” dancing my nappy off to it! Maybe that’s where it all went wrong…?! Having been subjected to all and sundry in my infant years, I finally found my feet in the mid-1980’s and began ‘partying’ to the likes of Culture Club, Stevie Wonder(!), Elkie Brooks and Bananarama to name but a few! The year 1987 would have a profound effect on my listening tastes and from thereon in my life would be dominated with buying and listening to music. Any number of outstanding songs were released and listened to that year, most notably “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”, “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and “La Isla Bonita”. That Summer my mind was completely taken over with music and sounds I’d never heard before and I was totally taken in by it all. My father would say “whaaar rubbish you got on naaaaao?” (I’m from Norfolk!) but I was hooked. And it continued so for the rest of the decade and the next. At the beginning of 1988 I ‘met’ my true love and the singer I’ve worshipped more than any other artist or group. You may know of her. She’s from Australia…! Aside from pop music, my tastes are many and varied and continues to grow and expand as I ‘mature’ in age. I’ve always been heavily interested in films and in particular the mechanics of film making and of course film music, so scores and subsequently orchestral music takes up a lot of my tastes and collection. 90’s dance and club tunes also takes up much of the space in my head and I’m surprised my brain has stopped shaking from the years of abuse it took being dragged to nightclubs, often three times a week in my 20’s! I find with each year that passes I regress back to my youth and of course the 1980’s. 80’s music dominates and the lust to see as many 80’s acts and singers play live now is insatiable. I’m still getting into the groove as much as every breath I take, but I’m never gonna give up listening to my heart and pumping up the volume, simply because I LOVE MUSIC…any kind of music!