Talk:What Is A Cover

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This discussion stems from before AdvancedRelationships were released

Reading the above, I would suggest instead distinguishing "recordings" from "compositions". All cover recordings of a work would then be related to the same composition, as would "the original." --JoeG

Thinking of Jazz, that seems very logical to me. In Jazz musicans don't do covers, they make versions of songs but they give credit to the original composer. So I would argue that the ComposerRelationshipType is factual, and that the CoverRelationshipType includes the opinion of the moderator, which song was the original for that specific recording. --DonRedman

  • This somewhat applies to the folk and traditional music scene as well, for the record. -- FrederikSOlesen 09:00, 10 May 2007 (UTC)


The question of parodies was raised on the UsersMailingList. These possibly count as covers too, although there's no consensus yet. --MatthewExon

  • I think this too could be solved by the idea mentioned above, decoupling compositions from recordings. While there may be debate over whether a song parody constitutes a cover of the original recording, it definitely uses the music or lyrics from it. --LarryGilbert


I think we also need to distinguish, based on the initial definition, that a cover is not an artist recording their own song again. "A new rendition of a previously recorded song" could be mis-interpreted that way. -- BrianFreud

There is also a difficulty determining what the "original" recording would be for interactions between classical and non-classical recordings. When a rock band covers a track from an opera, especially if that opera was composed prior to the age of music, there would be no target recording that could be pointed to under the current definition. -- BrianFreud