Cover Songs, My Conundrum.

This is a video of Miley Cyrus covering "Smells Like Teen Spirit," the Nirvana classic that arguably changed everything about the music industry.

Sweet Jesus, is this even legal?

Ok, that might be a little harsh. Now, instead of complaining about her covering this, I'm going to do something a little bit unlike my usual blogging self and play devil's advocate.

I think Cobain would love this shit. Here's why:

Cobain knew he wrote a couple of pop songs (including this one) and, as far as I know, didn't have any pretentions or delusions about it. He was ok with it- hey, it's a great hook. Who wouldn't be happy with a hook as great as this one? Miley's got some pretty catchy hooks as well ("Party In the USA," anyone?). Cobain knew how to sell a song, just as I'm sure Miley does by now. I mean, c'mon- she's 18 years old and has sold just as many (if not more?) records as Cobain.

Plus, Miley's dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, managed to do with one song ("Achy Breaky Heart") what Cobain was trying to do with several albums- piss off the entire world.

I also have to mention that Cobain loved the song "Achy Breaky Heart," Miley's dad's only real claim to fame. Apparently, in fact, Cobain and Cyrus were pretty good friends. They hung out and bonded over their young daughters, who played together as children.

This begs the question: are there songs that are "taboo" to cover? As a musician, I say yes. Some songs are absolutely brilliant and should be "untouchable." I feel this way about a large portion of the Lennon/McCartney songbook as well as songs like "Seven Nation Army" and "Smoke On The Water," or pretty much anything by AC/DC (sorry, there's no lightning bolt key on my computer). These songs are all either classics or completely overdone, or both.

But as an avid music listener, I think you should be able to cover pretty much anything you want. Take Franz Ferdinand's new "Covers EP," which they released for Record Store Day. They had released covers by LCD Soundsystem, Britney Spears, and Blondie as b-sides to records, so they just released this EP full of several artists (including LCD Soundsystem and Debbie Harry of Blondie) doing renditions of Franz tunes. I think it's cool to do cover songs as long as you do a good job with it. Unfortunately a lot of people don't get exposed to cover songs and whatnot unless it's a shitty version on American Idol or America's Got Talent or something.

Granted, this could be looked at by Adorno as the problem with pop music- simply rehashing the same songs, over and over again. So how do you make it different?

Well, you make it different. You create something new out of something old. You change the song just enough in order to make it yours, but not enough to make an entirely new piece of material (because, well, it's not making something entirely new, you're using someone else's ideas and changing them a bit).

So I'm a little stuck in the middle here (ha, band humor).