I stumbled upon some news concerning Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins appearing before a US Congressional hearing concerning the royalties perfomers receive from radio play.
Essentially (and I haven’t confirmed if this also applies for Canadian radio), when a song is played within the US, the songwriter receives royalties for the tune, however the performer does not. There is hope to make changes to this legislation to properly reward musical artists.
Billy Corgan presented his view which was quite interesting (read here) and it talked about how performers should be properly compensated for a song that ends up on the radio.
I agree with the changes in legislation. Take a closer look at such popular songs as ‘Tainted Love’ by Soft Cell (thanks Mike!), “Blinded by the Light” by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, or ‘Last Kiss’ by Pearl Jam.
Now in the above scenarios, ‘Tainted Love’ was actually written by Ed Cobb and recorded by Gloria Jones. This happened in 1964. Then in 1981, the band Soft Cell revamped the song and that’s the version that is most popular on the airwaves today.
‘Blinded by the Light’ is actually a Bruce Springsteen tune off of his first album ‘Greetings from Asbury Park’ N.J.’. Then Manfred Man’s Earth Band comes along with a souped up version and voila, a hit single is born and is the version that people are most familiar with. Wikipedia reports an interseting factoid concerning this song. “As of 2008, the Manfred Mann’s Earth Band recording of “Blinded by the Light” is still Springsteen’s only Number 1 single as a songwriter on the Hot 100.” That’s interesting.
‘Last Kiss’ by Pearl Jam is actually one tune that I recognized was a cover song. I remember years ago in the summer months that the Shell gas station would have some cassette tapes for sale each week over the summer. I believe they were the Solid Gold Hits or something to that effect. I remember listening to these tunes on trips down to Gaspe. Before Pearl Jam came out with their version a few years ago, Wayne Cochran wrote this tune and performed it with his band Wayne Cochran & the C.C. Riders back in 1962. Now, there is also a version covered by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers in 1964 and that seems to have had major commercial success. I’m sure someone out there can tell me which version I would have been listening to.
A sidenote: Is it not really interesting to see that bands were re-recording their own versions of songs that came out a few years prior? Most cover songs that I can think of have been around for a long time but I can’t think of many cover songs that are fairly recent. I wonder what people would think if I re-recorded a version of a Nickelback tune? I seriously doubt that it would get any radio play. But who knows?
Now, should the performers of these songs not get their share of the profits? I believe they should. Imagine yourself being a new band on the market with a great tune written by someone else which becomes a hit on the radio. Granted, they are still getting something out of it with the deal…their name becomes popular and linked to this song, it may be bring larger album and tour sales. I don’t even know how many royalties come in from radio stations. But if you can imagine the number of radio stations across the US and then think if they play your song once a week, how many dollars and cents would be coming your way?
On that note, I’m off to find a brilliant tune to cover.