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I've been listening to a guy on the radio talking about cover bands, There was alot of laughing about how much creativity can possibly go into being a cover band. It got me thinking. Are Fanfic writers and cover bands very alike? I would propose that fanfic writers are actually more creative in the sense that we play in someone else's universe but we write our own stories in them while a cover band aspires to sound and sing exactly like the original artist.

Or is there really no difference in terms of overall creativity?

That analogy is a difficult sell. Cover bands are merely replay another band's song with perhaps a different style. There's nothing they do (or could do) that could be analogous to fan fiction writing. The closest thing I could think of would be a band taking an existing song, extracting certain meaning, themes and storytelling from it, and perhaps expand on those things in a different song.

Fanfic writers are a lot like programmers. Programmers usually develop within the confines of someone else's frameworks. People like Microsoft and Apple give developers a set of APIs to write their programs with. Some developers, through header inspection, get access to non-public APIs. They would be analogous to fanfic writers who write for a universe whose creator gets grumpy about them doing so.

So we're more like Video game modders?

Durandal wrote:That analogy is a difficult sell. Cover bands are merely replay another band's song with perhaps a different style. There's nothing they do (or could do) that could be analogous to fan fiction writing. The closest thing I could think of would be a band taking an existing song, extracting certain meaning, themes and storytelling from it, and perhaps expand on those things in a different song.

I recommend you look at Richard Cheese's Louge Against the Machine. It takes effort to confort any form of music into a lounge song.

Stravo wrote:So we're more like Video game modders?

I'd say that's a fair comparison.

Personally, I like covers that are done in the band that's covering it's style, rather than attempting to be as close to the original as possible. Like apocalyptica's cover of all those metallica songs, or domination by pantera, one of the funniest covers I've heard is "Material Girl" by Exhumed, who are an extensively gross goregrind metal band. It sounds like they're being sick when they're singing it.

I'd say fanfic writers are completely different from cover bands. The only notable similarity they have in my mind is that 99% are dull or flat-out suck and 1% are a thousand million billion times more glorious than the original. I'd have to agree with the video game modders comparison, however.

And just for the hell of it, I'm going to say right now that fanfiction is a cool hobby.

Singular Quartet wrote:

Durandal wrote:That analogy is a difficult sell. Cover bands are merely replay another band's song with perhaps a different style. There's nothing they do (or could do) that could be analogous to fan fiction writing. The closest thing I could think of would be a band taking an existing song, extracting certain meaning, themes and storytelling from it, and perhaps expand on those things in a different song.

I recommend you look at Richard Cheese's Louge Against the Machine. It takes effort to confort any form of music into a lounge song.

I've heard and love Richard Cheese's stuff. But it's merely replaying the same song in a different style. I never said that cover bands weren't creative; I just described what they do.

Stravo wrote:So we're more like Video game modders?

Exactly.

Cover bands, to me, are like the second cast of a major broadway show... if you couldn't catch the original, or couldn't afford it, it's an option for those that still want to experience the music performed live.

SPOOFE wrote:Cover bands, to me, are like the second cast of a major broadway show... if you couldn't catch the original, or couldn't afford it, it's an option for those that still want to experience the music performed live.

Well some bands have done some excellent covers. Metallica's cover of "Turn the Page," for example, I think is better than the original.

Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies baby! Best cover band ever.

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