Take Cover

Last week I discovered A Perfect Circle's cover of "Imagine". As in, the one by John Lennon. As in, one of the most beloved songs EVER. As in, a GOD's everlasting anthem. As in, our world's most effective and affective plea for peace.

A visit to Amazon.com revealed that it's a part of their new album, "Emotive". This album appears to feature other covers, such as:

Elvis Costello's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love and Understanding"
Led Zep's "When the Levee Breaks"
Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On"

All this raises an excellent question: why the fuck are they covering awesome, meaningful pieces of rock history? These songs are honored; people don't like it when you mess with songs they hold dear. When you cover "Imagine", no one's going to hear it and say, "Oh, I like that better than the original!" At best, they'll say, "Well, I guess that was O.K." Why set yourself up for a failure like that?

And BY THE WAY, after hearing that horrendous piece of crap last week, let me assure you A Perfect Circle has definitely failed.

Cover songs are becoming more and more prevalent. This is largely thanks to the new marketing tactic where an established band throws together a cover song to place on their greatest hits album, suckering die hard fans into buying a CD that has only one new song. Someone should take control of this madness.

My suggestions:

The cover should sound different than the first. Slow should be fast, fast should be slow, or fast should be faster. Female vocal can switch to male and vice versa.

Cover enjoyed or underenjoyed songs, but NOT beloved songs, and ESPECIALLY not beloved songs with strong political or philosophical meaning. "Imagine" would fall into this latter category, you Perfect Circle fucksticks.