In the relatively recent history of popular music, there is a case to be made for cover versions. The Beatles sharpened their own songwriting chops first singing other people’s songs. It was notable on a recent ITV programme devoted to The Carpenters how many of their hits were written by other people – one example was We’ve Only Just Begun, nicked by Richard from a bank commercial. Multiple interpretations of the songs emanating from The Brill Building, Bacharach & David, Leiber & Stoller ended up shining a spotlight back on the songwriters. No bad thing.
It’s very easy to be sniffy about cover versions. Stevie Wonder’s For Once In My Life, Saint Etienne’s Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Status Quo’s Rockin’ All Over The World are just three examples of renditions which eclipsed the original in terms of sales or acclaim. There have also, as you may have read in the past few hours, been some inventive and inspiring re-imaginings of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, the most notable perhaps from John Cale and Jeff Buckley, and an excellent take from Kathryn Williams, as well as some lousy ones.
Boybands, not to be confused with Jerome Kern or Irving Berlin, often do covers. In defence of Louis Walsh (yes, I did just write that), it’s worth mentioning that Barry Gibb thinks the best ever Bee Gees song he heard by another act was Boyzone’s Words and Bjorn Ulvaeus gave similar praise to Westlife’s I Have a Dream when it topped the end of century charts.
But….
There is a pernicious kind of cover, the kind of twee aural wallpaper which represents an infestation of the earhole like no other.
It has been used to plug dramas. ITV backed the first Downton Abbey trailers with the high-pitched choir rendition of The Police’s “Every Breath You Take” by Scala & Kolancy Brothers, the same high-pitched choir whose rendition of Radiohead’s Creep ended up on the trailer for The Social Network. ITV also soundtracked later Downton teasers with the same act singing U2’s With or Without You and Wham’s Last Christmas.
It wasn’t long before the BBC used Lorde’s update of Tears for Fears’ Everybody Wants To Rule The World for their drama Banished, about the establishment of a penal colony in Australia.
It would be a lovely thought if that same penal colony was reopened for advertising executives and programme executives who flood TV soundtracks with these oatmeal rehashes.
You could, if you were so minded, set your calendar to when the worst culprits serially offend. Early in November, the ad executives of a certain department store release a short film of something certain internet users will find irresistible. It may be a small dog in a kennel surrounded by snow, a penguin, a hare or a bear, or both, a snowman, an old man. Small children are inevitably involved.
This year, it is a boxer dog bouncing on a trampoline. Plus, some foxes. A badger, squirrels and snow. There is also a cute child and, as is popular in adverts appealing to any mother with a credit card, the harassed and vaguely clueless father.
The department store spends the GDP of a small country giving this commercial more festive airtime than Her Majesty. Luckily, the newspapers take pity by giving them more free advertising for anyone unfortunate enough not to own a television.
Enough words have been spilt on these commercials except to say this. The music is often overlooked in the coverage of the commercials.
It’s always horrendous.
The soundtrack to these adverts is an affront to Santa Claus, Noddy Holder, Roy Wood, and the one whose birth led to the whole December 25th jamboree.
It is bad taste dressed up as good. It is barely one step up on the musical evolutionary ladder from the muzak in lifts, or the knock-off hits you hear murdered in B&Q, who refuse to pay for the originals.
And yet somehow B&Q don’t carpetbomb their Christmas ads with bad covers.
The advertising agency for this department store have a formula. They either use an artist of the day such as Ellie Goulding, Gabrielle Aplin, Tom Odell or Lily Allen to reinterpret a modern classic pop song. Or they take one with the suggestion of indie credibility – or as it’s also known in muso circles, total obscurity – like Aurora, Slow Moving Millie or the current artists, south London electronica act Vaults, who have covered Randy Crawford’s One Day I’ll Fly Away for the 2016 commercial.
For a department store to use an artist like Randy Crawford, Guns N Roses, Oasis, The Smiths would be an interesting choice. Not as cool as the snow on the adverts, maybe, but quite cool. These beige travesties suggest that the music coordinators for this store’s ad agency shouldn’t just be banished for Christmas, but for life.
