Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense, an early 80s horror anthology TV series with 70 minute episodes. Hard to find these days, but worth it if British psychological suspense tempered for a television audience is your cup of tea.
Recently watched an episode called “Black Carrion”. I’m not sure what the title referenced but the plot revolved around two musician brothers who had mysteriously disappeared a decade or so ago at the peak of their career. The soundtrack was interesting enough to me. 4 songs, all covers, the first one being “Shakin’ all over”, originally released by Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, later famously covered by The Guess Who.
I couldn’t help but think that having the brothers’ music be all covers could be seen as lazy today, and possibly back in 1986 as well when the episode first aired. But back in the 60s and early 70s the record industry had a different view of covers. Why pay these longhaired degenerates to warble their original compositions when the industry already had the rights to dozens upon dozens of already proven hits? When I started haunting library book sales, thrift stores, and garage sales, picking through crates of records, I was amazed at how many early rock records were just collections of covers. Vanilla Fudge, for instance, are still riding the fame of various covers. When a tune hit #1, bands, especially new bands, would scramble to put out their own rendition and let the best version win!
It’s part of the drift of copyright and music publishing practices that groups like the Rolling Stones and that eternal thorn of a boy band The Beatles fought to release their own songs and retain the songwriting rights. The validity of covers changed dramatically. I was peripheral to an instance in Portland Oregon around the turn of the century, when a reggae band playing a packed bar gig launched into an impromptu pop cover. A representative of the ASCAP happened to be at the gig, and ASCAP sued the bar out of business for allowing such a performance.
Without delving into it, I think this phenomenon speaks volumes about power and property. You can still get sued for pirating media on the internet, unless of course you are a multibillion corporation feeding your LLM.
