Commercials for a new Poison album of them covering 12 or 13 already well known and too-often played songs has got me asking: Do we really need this?
Rush, Styx, Def Leppard, Poison, Metallica... and a ton more have all released cover albums in the past decade. They make these grand gestures to their "inspirations" and liken the venture to a kind of music public service: we made it big, here's the bands who influenced us, so we pay tribute with this album of covers.
Well, no. Cover albums seem to be the new Best Hits, allowing a band to keep up with a release-every-18-months without writing any new material. They hop into a studio and play a bunch of songs they've probably known for years.
So lemme ask: Can any good come of cover albums?
