Songs composed by Paul McCartney have become covers performed by other artists.
The term cover , from the English language, can be translated as “cover” or “lid” . In our language , its use appears in the musical field to refer to a song by an author or performer that is covered by another musician .
A cover, in other words, is a different version of a musical track that was previously recorded by another artist. An example of a cover is the version that Guns N' Roses recorded in 1991 of “Live and let die” , a song by Paul and Linda McCartney that was originally recorded by the band Wings in 1972 . In this case, nineteen years passed from the original recording of the song to the recording of the aforementioned cover.
It should be noted that the same song can have many covers. Returning to the example of “Live and let die” , it was not only recorded by Guns N' Roses : there are also versions by Geri Halliwell , Fergie and The Pretenders , among others.
Cover album
There are bands that have decided to record an entire album of covers, without their own songs. That's what the Ramones group did in 1993 when they released the album “Acid Eaters” , composed of songs by The Rolling Stones , The Who , Creedence Clearwater Revival , The Byrds and others.
It is also a covers album “Other songs” , by the Argentine band Attaque 77 , which features versions of classics by The Beach Boys , ABBA , Erasure , Alberto Cortez and more artists.
Queen covers are very common.
Bands that are dedicated to paying tribute
It is important to mention that there are groups dedicated exclusively to the interpretation of covers. Many of them are tributes to other groups, such as The Beats (which pays tribute to The Beatles ), The Musical Box (dedicated to the music of Genesis ) and Dios Salve a la Reina (tribute to Queen ).
Within this group of artists who have specialized in performing covers of others, we come across in Spain the group called La Década Prodigiosa. This band was created in 1983 and, although it represented the country in the Eurovision Song Contest with an original song (“Made in Spain. The girl that I want”), it became popular due to medleys of songs from different songs. decades and both national and international artists.
Among his most successful albums are some such as “Los años 60 Vol. and 80” (1990).
Currently it is still on stage although its popularity is no longer the same and it is not made up of the original members, among whom were Andrea Bronston or Manel Santisteban.
Rise of covers thanks to the Internet
In addition to everything indicated so far, we cannot ignore that since the Internet has been shaped, the term cover has begun to be used much more. And there are more Internet users who do not hesitate to make their covers of well-known songs and then upload them to platforms such as YouTube and even the different social networks to achieve a certain popularity.
Thus, there are YouTubers who have specialized in covers and who have thousands of followers around the world, sometimes including the artists themselves of whom they make covers.