Cover Version

In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song. It can sometimes have a pejorative meaning implying that the original recording should be regarded as the definitive or "authentic" version, and all others merely lesser competitors, alternatives or tributes (no matter how popular). Originally, Billboard and other magazines which track the popularity of the musical artists and hit tunes measured the sales success of the published tune, not just recordings of it. Later, they tracked the airplay that songs achieved, for which some cover versions are the more successful recording(s) of the particular song(s). Cover versions of well-known, well-liked tunes are often recorded by new artists to achieve initial success when their unfamiliar original material would be less likely to be successful. Prior to the onset of Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s, songs were published and several records of a song might be brought out by singers of the day, each giving it their individual treatment. Any singer who appeared to be copying an already successful version of the song would be viewed with disfavour. The trend, however, became for records to be produced, usually with particular background noises, and no other group would attempt a version.

On occasion a cover becomes more popular and well-known than the original like Santana's version in 1970 of Peter Green's and Fleetwood Mac's 1968 song Black Magic Woman or Jimi Hendrix's version of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower". The Hendrix version, released six months after Dylan's original, became a Top 10 single in 1968 and was ranked 48th in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.