{"id":1973,"date":"2024-02-10T22:41:23","date_gmt":"2024-02-11T03:41:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/?p=1973"},"modified":"2024-03-13T13:43:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-13T17:43:51","slug":"cover-shift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/","title":{"rendered":"Cover shift"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On <a href=\"https:\/\/mostly.substack.com\/p\/covers-and-remakes\">his blog<\/a>, Brad Skow discusses Theodore Gracyk&#8217;s account of cover songs. He gives a fair summary of Gracyk&#8217;s view, according to which a version is only a <em>cover<\/em> if reference to the canonical version is part of its artistic content. So (on this view) you can only appreciate a cover by taking into account the canonical version. In contrast with common usage, Gracyk holds that any version which lacks this referential structure is a <em>remake<\/em> instead of a cover.<span id='easy-footnote-1-1973' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/#easy-footnote-bottom-1-1973' title=' For a longer discussion of defining &amp;#8220;cover&amp;#8221;, see Ch 1 of &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/job\/coversongs.php&quot;&gt;my book&lt;\/a&gt;.'><sup>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With all that in place, Skow notes that Taylor Swift&#8217;s remakes of her own work seem designed to efface the originals rather than refer to them. So he suggests we might call them <em>anti-covers<\/em>.<span id='easy-footnote-2-1973' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/#easy-footnote-bottom-2-1973' title=' This is unconnected with Doyle Green&amp;#8217;s use of the term &lt;em&gt;anti-cover&lt;\/em&gt; to describe a cover that is referential in the sense that interests Gracyk but which is in opposition to or against the original. For example, Sid Vicious&amp;#8217; &amp;#8220;My Way.&amp;#8221;'><sup>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The problem is that one familiar function of so-called covers has been to crowd another recorded version out of the market. This is often given as an explanation for why the word <em>cover<\/em> was used in the first place: They were meant to cover over or cover up the originals.<span id='easy-footnote-3-1973' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/#easy-footnote-bottom-3-1973' title=' I&amp;#8217;m not sure this explanation is correct. The word &lt;em&gt;cover&lt;\/em&gt; also suggests coverage, from a time when artists or labels would record their own versions of all the popular songs.'><sup>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>So Gracyk&#8217;s restrictive, stipulative definition tempts Skow to think of a traditional feature of covers as somehow being the utter opposite of a cover.<span id='easy-footnote-4-1973' class='easy-footnote-margin-adjust'><\/span><span class='easy-footnote'><a href='https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/#easy-footnote-bottom-4-1973' title=' If this point interests you, see &lt;a href=&quot;https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/job\/paper.php?item=this_isnt_a_cover&quot;&gt;our forthcoming paper on Taylor&amp;#8217;s Versions&lt;\/a&gt;.'><sup>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On his blog, Brad Skow discusses Theodore Gracyk&#8217;s account of cover songs. He gives a fair summary of Gracyk&#8217;s view, according to which a version is only a cover if reference to the canonical version is part of its artistic content. So (on this view) you can only appreciate a cover by taking into account &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/2024\/02\/10\/cover-shift\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Cover shift&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[35,16],"class_list":["post-1973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","tag-covers","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7PjAo-vP","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1973"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1973\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fecundity.com\/nfw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}