I've never been a fan of bands putting cover songs on their albums. As B-sides or bonus tracks or whatever, fine. Or as an all-covers album like Metallica did, fine. But not on an album proper. It just screams "we don't have enough ideas."The A side of Black Sabbath is one of the strongest in their catalog but the B-side (with the two only so-so cover songs on it) really brings the album down for me. Paranoid is the first album full of all excellent songs and no filler stuff like cover versions or jams to fill out record time.
I think there are cases where covers are good enough to put on albums. Judas Priest’s “Diamonds and Rust” and “Better By You...” come to mind. The latter got them in a lot of trouble, though.I've never been a fan of bands putting cover songs on their albums. As B-sides or bonus tracks or whatever, fine. Or as an all-covers album like Metallica did, fine. But not on an album proper. It just screams "we don't have enough ideas."
In Black Sabbath's case, though, you have got to remember that they recorded the album in one day, they might have wanted to keep and polish one or two ideas of their own for the next record.I've never been a fan of bands putting cover songs on their albums. As B-sides or bonus tracks or whatever, fine. Or as an all-covers album like Metallica did, fine. But not on an album proper. It just screams "we don't have enough ideas."
I agree. I think it depends on the artists though, if they can do some original with a cover then why not? But it usually means for a worse album experience overall.I've never been a fan of bands putting cover songs on their albums. As B-sides or bonus tracks or whatever, fine. Or as an all-covers album like Metallica did, fine. But not on an album proper. It just screams "we don't have enough ideas."
What the frick, really?In Black Sabbath's case, though, you have got to remember that they recorded the album in one day
The A side of Black Sabbath is one of the strongest in their catalog but the B-side (with the two only so-so cover songs on it) really brings the album down for me. Paranoid is the first album full of all excellent songs and no filler stuff like cover versions or jams to fill out record time.
From Wikipedia:What the frick, really?
They probably couldn't afford much studio time. I'd say the strategy worked out for them.From Wikipedia:
"According to Black Sabbath's guitarist and founding member Tony Iommi, the group's debut album was recorded in a single day on 16 October 1969. The session lasted twelve hours. Iommi said: "We just went in the studio and did it in a day, we played our live set and that was it. We actually thought a whole day was quite a long time, then off we went the next day to play for £20 in Switzerland." (Black, Johnny (14 March 2009). "Black celebration: the holy grail of Black Sabbath". Music Week. Archived from the original on 5 March 2012. Retrieved 7 September 2013.)"