Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music / Edition 1

by George Plasketes

Overview

The cover phenomenon in popular culture may be viewed as a postmodern manifestation in music as artists revisit, reinterpret and re-examine a significant cross section of musical styles, periods, genres, individual records, and other artists and their catalogues of works. The cover complex, with its multiple variations, issues, contexts, and re-contextualizations comprises an important and rich popular culture text. These re-recordings represent artifacts which embody artistic, social, cultural, historical, commercial, biographical, and novel meanings. Through homage, allusion, apprenticeship, and parody, among other modes, these diverse musical quotations express, preserve, and distribute popular culture, popular music and their intersecting historical narratives. Play it Again represents the first collection of critical perspectives on the many facets of cover songs in popular music.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780754668091
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/28/2010
Series:	Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

George Plasketes is Professor of Radio-Television-Film and Popular Culture in the Department of Communication & Journalism at Auburn University, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction Like A Version, George Plasketes; Part 1 Front Cover: Treatise; Chapter 1 Further Re-flections on “The Cover Age”: A Collage and Chronicle 1 This chapter is a remastered and expanded edition of an essay that appeared in the special issue on cover songs in Popular Music and Society in 2005. Thanks always to the journal’s editor extraordinaire Gary Burns., George Plasketes; Part 2 Under the Covers: History, Ideology, Identity; Chapter 2 Charting Cultural Change, 1953–57: Song Assimilation Through Cover Recording, B. Lee Cooper; Chapter 3 The Cover Song as Historiography, Marker of Ideological Transformation, Sheldon Schiffer; Chapter 4 Cover Up: Emergent Authenticity in a Japanese Popular Music Genre, Christine R. Yano; Part 3 The Song Remains the Same? Song and Album; Chapter 5 From Junk to Jesus: Recontextualizing “The Pusher”, Andrew G. Davis; Chapter 6 David Bowie’s Pin-Ups : Past as Prelude, Stuart Lenig; Part 4 Look What They’ve Done To My Song: Gender, Identity, Media Makeovers; Chapter 7 Queering Cohen: Cover Versions as Subversions of Identity, Erik Steinskog; Chapter 8 Covering and Un(covering) the Truth with “All Along the Watchtower”: From Dylan to Hendrix and Beyond, Russell Reising; Chapter 9 The Same Yet Different/Different Yet the Same: Bob Dylan Under the Cover of Covers, Greg Metcalf; Part 5 Don’t Forget To Dance: Technique and Techno Transformations; Chapter 10 “Hide and Seek”: A Case of Collegiate A Cappella “Microcovering”, Joshua S. Duchan; Chapter 11 The Mashup Mindset: Will Pop Eat Itself?, David Tough; Chapter 12 Camp Transitions: Genre Adaptation and the HI-NRG/Dance Cover Version, Lee Barron; Part 6 Contemplating Covers; Chapter 13 In Defense of Cover Songs: Commerce and Credibility, Don Cusic; Chapter 14 Artist Intentions: A Case for Quality Covers, Remy Miller; Part 7 Back Cover: Epilogue; Chapter 15 Appreciating Cover Songs: Stereophony, Deena Weinstein;

Editorial Reviews

'From "American Idol" to Weird Al Yankovic, from Japanese enka to mash-ups, Play it Again reveals the many layers of connection to be found in our increasingly recombinant media culture. The fifteen essays in this collection invite us to consider just how prevalent the act of covering is”far beyond its usual association with "copying someone else's song." Indeed, whether as apprenticeship, as tribute, or as sabotage, the phenomenon of covers have penetrated film, television, and the advertising world. Together, the essays in this collection suggest a number of new avenues of inquiry for popular music studies.' Kevin Holm-Hudson, University of Kentucky, USA ’It is timely that cover songs should be treated with scholarly respect. ...Play it Again: Cover Songs in Popular Music deserves a strong readership from undergraduate and postgraduate courses in popular music and popular cultural studies.’ Times Higher Education ’Recommended.’ Choice

From the Publisher