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Better than the Original: The Joy of the Cover Version
Through ten carefully chosen cover versions, this film celebrates the role of the cover in the pop canon and investigates what it takes to reinvent someone else's song as a smash.
Documentary which celebrates the role of the cover version in the pop canon and investigates what it takes to reinvent someone else's song as a smash.
Through ten carefully chosen cover versions that whisk us from the British Invasion to a noughties X Factor final, this film journeys over five decades to track how artists as varied as The Moody Blues, Soft Cell, Puff Daddy and Alexandra Burke have scored number ones with their retake on someone else's song. Each of the ten classic cover versions has its own particular tale, tied not only into its musical and cultural context but also the personal testimony of the artists, producers and songwriters whose lives were changed in the process.
Narrated by Meera Syal, it explores the stories behind such iconic hits as House of the Rising Sun, Respect, Tainted Love, I'll Be Missing You and Hallelujah, with contributors including John Cale, Gloria Jones, Marc Almond, Rick Rubin, Faith Evans and British singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot.
The cover version has always been a staple of the pop charts. Yet it's often been viewed as the poor relation of writing your own songs. This film challenges and overturns that misconception by celebrating an exciting, underrated musical form that has the power to make or break an artist's career. Whether as tribute, reinterpretation or as an act of subversion, the extraordinary alchemy involved in covering a record can create a new, defining version - in some cases, even more original than the original.
Last on
Music Played
Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes
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00:02
The Police
Every Breath You Take
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00:03
The Moody Blues
Go Now
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00:04
The Animals
House Of The Rising Sun
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00:06
The Animals
The House Of The Rising Sun
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00:24
Bryan Ferry
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
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00:26
DEVO
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
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00:30
The Flying Lizards
Money (That's What I Want)
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00:36
Soft Cell
Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go (Extended Dance Version)
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00:42
Diddy & Faith Evans
I'll Be Missing You (feat. 112)
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00:46
The Source
You Got The Love (feat. Candi Staton)
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00:49
Alexandra Burke
Hallelujah
Credits
Role | Contributor |
---|---|
Narrator | Meera Syal |
Producer | David Vincent |
Director | David Vincent |
Executive Producer | Mark Cooper |
Broadcasts
- Fri 6 Nov 2015 22:00
- Sat 7 Nov 2015 02:00
- Sun 8 Nov 2015 00:00
- Fri 3 Mar 2017 21:00
- Sat 4 Mar 2017 00:35
- Fri 23 Mar 2018 21:00
- Sat 24 Mar 2018 01:00
- Sat 10 Nov 2018 23:40
- Fri 22 Feb 2019 00:05
- Sat 11 Jul 2020 00:30
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