Confessions of a Cover Junkie.

[Owyn]

I am a Cover Junkie.
There, I've said it.

It didn't happen overnight, but, I am on my way to a full fledged addiction. You know the type.
"What? You only have 20 covers of SongX?"
Maybe not, but...

I can remember the milestones in getting to this stage.

Late 2005 - Found out about Podcasts.

Early 2006 - Found Coverville podcast. Still going strong. Episode 625 just released.

Late 2007/Early 2008 - An episode on Coverville included guests from various Cover Music blogs. Huh. "Cover Music blogs"? Hmmm. A blog for Folk Covers. Better check out Cover Lay Down.

Almost immediately after - Oh!! There is down-loadable music here. Save as, save as, ...
Hey this stuff is pretty good and, man, am I out of date on contemporary folk artists.
Worth subscribing to in GReader. Still subscribed, Boyhowdy has great taste and a finely crafted writing style.

Almost immediately after that - This Save As,... is for the pits. Got to find a better way. Checked around and found DownThemAll Firefox add-on. Heh. One click downloads of all music files in a post to a specified folder. And it even works inside GReader.

Early 2008 - There has got to be something better than iTunes. Found MediaMonkey. Windows only. Pity. Oh well, reason to keep Windows XP system in use.

Almost immediateley after that - Shoot. Of Course. OriginalArtist tag. (One of the downsides of using iTunes. It does not make all tags available.)

Late 2008 - Wonder about some of these other blogs in Boyhowdy's blog roll. Hmmm. Why not. Easy enough to subscribe and DownThemAll.

Late 2008 - Started selective re-rip to higher quality. Decided to get Composer and OriginalArtist correct on these re-rips as part of the project. Decided to use All Music Guide as reference database for Composer. Re-rips were artist by artist and favourite albums within artist. Decided to clean up tagging for other albums of the artist at the same time.

Late 2008 - Need to use additional MM tools, particularly Advanced Search. Upgraded to Gold.

Early 2009 - Now this is getting out of hand. Need to organize these downloads better. Set up
...\Blogs\<Blog Name>\<Post Date & Description>
structure to store downloads. e.g. this post would be coded as
Blog=Cover Me
Post=CM 091109 Stalkers and Restraining Orders
The "CM" was something I started doing with DownThemAll so I could quickly identify which unprocessed download folder in my download staging area came from where. I use MediaMonkey manual Add/Rescan on Downloads folder to get new files for processing. Not a big fan of background processes. Like to get things relatively clean first.

Early 2009 - Now this is getting really out of hand. Got to clean up the tags in these downloads. They are messing up my library. Hmmm. Well let's start with new downloads and see what happens.

Mid 2009 - Better. Pretty good handle on Artist, Title, and Original Artist tags. Composer so-so. The rest are still a bit of a dog's breakfast. I had always removed any Ratings from blog tracks. If it really caught my ear while playing, rated it then, otherwise they were all left unrated.

Mid/Late 2009 - The Blogs\... structure is getting pretty large and ok as an archive but not really a good way to store the files. Decided to:
Set Custom1="Blog:" <Blog>
Set Custom2=<Post>
Set AlbumArtist=Artist
Cleared all Custom1 and Custom2 tags from library to start. (Advanced Search: Custom1 is known, Custom2 is known)
Started processing files a blog at a time (easy with the existing folder structure).
Simple Properties edit for Custom1.
Used existing RegExp preset to load Custom2.
Created new preset to re-set Album Artist.
Use Auto-Organize manual to move processed files to a new structure,
...\FromBlogs\<AlbumArtist>\<Album>\<Artist> - <Title>

Almost immediately - This is a great way to catch duplicate blog postings. The same cover tends to get re-purposed or shared around between bloggers. No need for duplicates in library.

Currently - Still unhappy. Reviewed and quick tested various scripts in Forum. Focused on two scripts from Trixmoto (Which he may or may not be happy about. I tend to get involved in making things work the way I want them to.).
The scripts are:
MusicIP Tagger - I have used MusicIP Mixer (currently using v1.9 beta 6) for a long time and regularly rescan my library folders and archive analysis for new tracks. The script makes it very fast to get MusicBrainz/MusicDNS tag info for poorly tagged tracks. The latest version also allows you to store the track's PUID to e.g. Custom5. Currently used as part of my new downloads cleanup process.
Genre Finder - This script uses Last.Fm folksonomy tags as the basis for deriving "standard" genres. I have a very customized whitelist. Am using a slightly patched script and wheedling Trix to make changes. Good enough at the moment to clean up Genre tags for new downloads.

Process is still evolving.

Hmmm. Maybe I should have titled this topic "Journal of an Anal Cover Junkie".

[Shiny Rabbit]

heh, I think I'm past the point of "on the way to a cover addiction" at present, I have 72 albums and only 10 don't have covers (besides my "unknown album") these are ones of which I only have 1 or songs from or ones people tag with their names

I've even made my own for my Vocaloid songs, Rickrolls and other stuff

edit: oh you meant covers as in song covers, sorry, I misread you

I don't have many covers, I have various Vocaloid versions of other songs and a few remixes/remakes of the japanese song Mottoke! Sailor Fuku (the Lucky Star theme) but that's about it

[Owyn]

I sort of came at it from both end's at once. I have always had an interest in Singer Songwriters, e.g. Tom Waits (he is my most played artist, or near to it, in every category on Last.fm).

Got interested in covers of Tom Waits songs. A lot of them are just terrible (but I keep them in the library anyway, rated as Bomb, but still there). Some great. e.g Neko Case - Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis. Petra Haden & Bill Frissel - I Don't Want To Grow Up, ...

Find it interesting that two of the recent Grammy Albums of the Year, River: The Joni Letters and Raising Sand were basically cover albums. Both of them are now among my most played albums. And were so well before their Grammy buzz.

[nohitter151]

Thanks for the coverville podcast, I always love to hear interesting covers/covers of my favorites as well! I've already gotten quite a few new tracks from just a few coverville podcast episodes!

[Owyn]

Check out the Coverville Cover Search.

Great way to find back episodes you might like. They can all be downloaded from the archives even if they are not in the current feed.

[jimmy1one]

Hey Guys
I'm a bit of a cover freak with a small collection of Blues and Funk numbering 8000 to 8500 tracks, 500 are Albums the rest are CD and LP. I've started on my quest of getting all the music on HDD, scanning in the covers and tags. It's going to take quite a bit of time, just wondering if any of you share the same interest. I read where someone here said 5 to 10 years if I add pictures of the 70's to 2000 era it probably going to take a life time. Hoping some of you might want to compare notes
jimmy1one

[Owyn]

This topic is heading in two different directions, Cover Music and Cover Art.

[jimmy1one]

Yep it's funny when you consider most have no idea what a cover song is or was. If you're serious about music and respect artists it even funnier
jimmy

[Lowlander]

I rarely enjoy a cover, unless it's a parody, those can be great if they're funny. Sometimes it's in reverse and I like the cover instead of the original. It normally depends on which version I heard first.

[Owyn]

Sometimes the results can be bizarre, sometimes just unexpected.

I can remember listening to a CBC Ottawa weekend show which was running an informal call in contest for worst cover of a Leonard Cohen song.
Leonard Cohen won.

[Owyn]

Latest episode of Coverville podcast is a Full Album cover episode of the sound track to Jimmy Cliff's "The Harder They Come". Seminal album. Great cover set.

[Mizery_Made]

I'm nowhere near a "Junkie" when it comes to Covers, in fact I honestly rarely pay attention to them. Though, that is likely due to the fact that I'm more of a Hip-Hop listener (and thus samples or remakes are more common than an actual Cover), but even with the Pop, R&B, Country & Rock I have, covers are likely at a minimum.

One exception would be when it comes to Phil Collins' "In The Air Tonight," as I tend to at least listen to any cover or sample of the song I come by. Got a playlist set up for the instances of it I have in my Library. It's only 9 tracks though.

• 2Pac ft. Outlawz - Staring Through My Rear View
• DMX - I Can Feel It
• GrewSum ft. Damico - Home Wrecker
• Krayzie Bone - Silent Warrior
• Kris Allen - Heartless
• Nonpoint - In The Air Tonight
• Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight
• Rihanna - Cold Case Love
• Thug Lordz - When It Comes To Get Money

Most are samples or have the feel of the song. The closest thing I have to a cover of the song would be the Nonpoint remake. But... yeah... anyone know of some other good ones, lemme know.

[Owyn]

Don't look to me for help. I probably have about as much Hip Hop in my library as you have Texas Country in yours.

[rovingcowboy]

two hours of ol' waylon in mine and two hours of willie, and some david allen coe, and four hours of ET. and about 4 hours of asleep at the wheel. do that count for texas country

[Owyn]

Well now, that's a darned good start Texas Country grew out of Outlaw Country and Willie & Waylon are the god-fathers of that genre.

My Hip Hop is only here by accident and largely unplayed. I conciously collected every Billboard Year End 100 track since day 1, well actually I have been working it back to the jukebox charts of the 30's. Main time that it gets played is when my Auto-DJ is on Rating >=3star & Play Count < 2. Anything that year end charted is at least a 3star rating.