MP3 Pro was released today. RCA/Thompson/Fraunhofer (however you spell that) released a free MP3 Pro player/encoder today. The encoder is fixed at 64 kB/sec, but that's fine since the whole idea is that it does what MP3 does in half the space, right?

I gave it a whirl. I took some of my 160 kB/sec MP3s and re-encoded them to 64k WMA files as well as 64k MP3 Pro files. Then I did a listen-compare using a SB Live Platinum and a pair of Sony MDR-V200 headphones.

Songs tested (if you care):
Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
Lenny Kravitz - Black Velveteen
Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away
Harry Connick Jr. - Avalon
Save Ferris - Come on Eileen
Episode1 soundtrack - Duel of the Fates
G. Love & Special Sauce - Rodeo Clowns
Chrono Cross OAV - Time's Scar

The verdict? WMA and MP3 Pro are virtually identical at 64k. They both sound about as good as a 160k MP3, maybe a TINY bit worse on some songs...very hard to tell. Maybe if I had $10,000 listening equipment. =) The MP3 Pro has slightly more accurate highs (hi-hat cymbols, for instance) and the WMAs have a little less background noise, but in either case you'd be hard pressed to hear it.

MP3 Pro uses the combination of two audio "layers" to avoid the normal loss associated with low bitrates. They're making a big deal out of the fact that an old MP3 player can play back an MP3 Pro file without any modification at all--it just plays back one layer. Well, lemme tell ya, it's nothing to sing about. Playing a 64k MP3 Pro file on an MP3 player sounds like total and complete shit. Worse than a regular 64k MP3.

Oh, one other thing: I used Winamp to play back the WMAs and it averaged 3-4% CPU utilization. The RCA MP3 Pro player used twice that, 6-8%, to play back an MP3 Pro file. Just to see, I played the same song in regular 160k MP3 format on the RCA player, and it dropped back to 3-4%. So it's different players and hardly a scientific comparison, but it appears at first glance that MP3 Pro takes more processing power to decode.

As far as encoding goes, both were just as fast.

Oh, and file sizes--you'd expect two 64k files of the same song to be the same size. But the MP3 Pro files were, on average, around 200 KB smaller than WMA. Sometimes, it was only 20 KB smaller. Hardly a big deal, but interesting to note.

So MP3 Pro sounds like a better utility than WMA. Isn't there some concern that Microsoft is doing something to force WMA on everyone? I thought I read something about that?

>So MP3 Pro sounds like a better utility than WMA.

Actually, it doesn't. Quality seems to be pretty much the same, and WMA is less resource intensive. The difference would depend on the licensing schemes--I don't know what shipping a WMA encoding codec costs (decoders are free for MP3, MP3 Pro, and WMA). The WMA encoder that's free for Windows will encode a variety of bitrates, and variable bitrate. The only free MP3 Pro encoder right now is limited to 64k only.

>Isn't there some concern that Microsoft is doing something to force WMA on everyone? I thought I read something about that?

What Microsoft is doing is not enabling the new Media Player 8 in Windows XP to rip MP3s. In the beta, it could rip MP3s at a low fixed bitrate (64k)--MS says the functionality was in there to make sure it worked. It's not in the final product because in order to ship an encoder, Thompson and Fraunhofer demand 2% royalty or $2000 a year, whichever is more. For MP3 Pro, it's 3% or $3,000. MS doesn't want to give up 2% of all Windows sales to ship with an MP3 encoder.

HOWEVER--media player will rip to MP3 just fine if you install a MP3 encoding codec from anyone else. If it's on your system, media player will automatically turn on the function (and not at fixed bitrates).

Why this is a big deal, I honestly have no idea. The current Media Player doesn't rip MP3s. The new one will have the new extra additional option of allowing you to rip MP3s if you have a licensed codec, which the current one also doesn't do. How MS is somehow forcing WMA on people by ADDING a feature to media player which isn't in it now, I don't know. Typical anti-Microsoft news rhetoric, if you ask me.

It's the same with software DVD playback. Do enable DVD playback, you need to pay to license the decoder from the DVD consortium. The current Media Player won't playback DVDs through software because MS doesn't pay for a DVD decoding license for every copy of Windows shippped and every Media Player 7 downloaded. But if you have a hardware decoder card, it'll use that (because the hardware maker bought the license). In media player 8 for XP, if you install a software DVD codec from like WinDVD or something, Media Player will play back DVDs through software using it.

The methodology you used is a very poor way to compare audio compression codecs.

A better version of your test would involve comparing a 160k MP3, 64k MP3 Pro, and 64k WMA file that were all compressed from the same original CD rip. Writing the 160k MP3 out to WAV and re-compressing to MP3 Pro and WMA is problematic.

The issue is that the 160k MP3 is quite different from the original CD track. MP3 encoders use a psychoacoustic model that is based upon current scientific understanding of how the brain processes sound. They use techniques such as cutting off high frequencies or eliminating sounds deemed inaudible, that irretrievably change the underlying sound structure.

Further, MP3 encoders markedly vary in their fidelity. A 160k CBR (constant bit rate) Xing-encoded MP3 will exhibit all sorts of audio anomalies including ringing and smearing on difficult passages.

Writing the 160k MP3 out to WAV preserves these changes, so any re-encoding is using a flawed, distorted source. Although the principle isn't the same, in practice it's like dubbing VHS tapes. Your first copy is pretty good, but a dub from that one suffers a lot, make a third from the second and the errors compound, etc.

Overall, remember that MP3 compression is a lossy compression based upon incomplete studies of human sound perception. There are a ton of different approaches and algorithms that make the process quite subjective. It's a lot different than, say, making a ZIP file.

The single best source I've found for MP3 information is r3mix.net. It's quite a fascinating topic.

John - I agree. That's why I disclosed the method in the first place. I didn't have my CDs available at the time to rip from directly. It was definitely a quick 'n dirty test meant to give a "first impressions" type thing since the MP3 Pro codec had only just been released.

I've got my CDs at home and I'm going to go through some testing this weekend with direct CD rips. I'll have a better spectrum of tunes to test with, too. If anyone's interested, I'll follow up later.

It would be really nice if there was an MP3 Pro encoder around that could make 24k or 32k files, so I could test what reasonalbe streaming web radio rates are like.

"If anyone's interested, I'll follow up later."

Count me in. I've been following along and would appreciate the results.

"could make 24k or 32k files, so I could test what reasonalbe streaming web radio rates are like"

Now this puzzles me. I can understand wanting to know what the lower bit rates might sound like, but why try to match a bit rate set up for streaming?

Can you even stream an MP3 file? I thought to stream a file you needed to use a format designed for streaming, like windows media or real media.

Ahh... crap. I'm _not_ reincoding over a couple thousand mp3's @ 256+ just so I can get a little bit less space and maybe a bit better sound.

Re-Releasing a new product that does absolutely crap except maybe cut the file-size in half isn't going to cut it. I certainly won't re-encode my files, and I sure as hell won't download a product that only encodes at one bitrate (tho that'll probably change).

I don't know many people who will bother re-encoding their files as well, it'd be a waste.

Fraunhofer are idiots, at least when it comes to common sense. Sueing the people they gave the codec's to, sueing the people who made new codec's, re-releasing insanely stupid "new" formats of the same type; Come on, it's just plain stupid.

elhajj,

people have been streaming mp3's for years...ever heard of 'shoutcast'? that's winamp's streaming mp3 server software (of which there are several clones).

winamp and several other 'media players' have been able to play back streamed mp3's for quite some time, too.

- mike - somewhere in east-central illinois -

Thanks, Mike.

I had no idea about Shoutcast. It looks like you setup the server, then use Winamp /w plugin for the encoder.

I was trying to determine what protocol they use for streaming--it looks like they just use http. Is that true? How does that sound?

Jeff Atwood, who posts here often, runs a web radio station from www.gamebasement.com. It's all game music, and it's got a lot of stuff. He uses WMA because it sounds, oh, 1000 times better at modem-friendly bitrates than MP3.

32k/sec is 4 KB/sec, which any reasonable 56k connection can handle. 64k is 8 KB/sec, which is really quite friendly to even poor broadband (some 56k'ers get 5.5, after all).

Met - cutting file size in half is no slouch. Or in your case, probably more than in half (I'd wager you'd not be able to tell a 96k MP3 Pro or WMA from your 256k MP3s). Maybe you don't want to re-encode, but if you have a portable device, you'd want to fit 2.6 times as many songs on there. Even if saving hard drive space isn't an issue, getting really good sound in a lot less space means a lot to streaming audio on the web and portable devices. Or, hell, even for games. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a broadband-only online RPG in a few years that could dynamically change CD-quality music from time to time by streaming it to you? Perhaps for a big upcoming event, they'd make custom music.

new test results in next post...

Okay, I did more testing this weekend. This time I used more songs, a very wide variety of musical styles, and direct CD rips. Listening equipment was improved, too (I have Grado SR-80 headphones at home). I won't bore you with the song list.

MP3 Pro, er, pros:
-slightly better highs
-files were around 20KB smaller
-plays on regular MP3 players


MP3 Pro cons:
-encoder requires a pay license, costs 50% more than regular MP3 license
-seems to require more CPU power
-only one free encoder out there right now, locked at 64kb/sec.
-only one free player (same as encoder), and it's not so hot. That'll be quickly remedied, I'm sure.
-playback of Pro files on regular MP3 players sounds like crap.

WMA pros:
-slightly more "kick" to low end sound
-slightly better stereo seperation
-seems to use less CPU
-free to ship encoder? (anyone know?) Regardles, free encoders at a variety of bitrates are available
-lots of players, including portable devices

WMA cons:
-are there decent WMA players for Mac/Linux? Anyone know?
-files are around 20KB larger
-slightly less crisp highs

Notes:

The 20KB file size difference is really no biggie. An example: Da Funk by Daft Punk encodes to 2561 KB with MP3 Pro, and 2587 with WMA. I don't know why I had some files with a 200KB difference before--something must have been screwy. The roughly 20KB difference was very consistant this time around.

The greatest sound quality difference seems to be that WMA has a little cleaner bass, and MP3 Pro has a little cleaner highs. I doubt most people would notice without decent listening equipment and without actively listening for it.

There's an option in the MP3 Pro encoder to produce better sound quality with a small sacrifice in stereo channel seperation. It's enabled by default, and probably should be--I tried it without, and the difference in stereo seperation is small. You'd want to disable this only if stereo seperation is REALLY important for some reason (and use a higher bitrate to compensate for sound quality).

Most of MP3 Pro's drawbacks seem to be that there are no free encoders except the test version from RCA, which is locked at 64k and can only encode wavs (no direct CD ripping). That's the only Pro player, too. Those will quickly go away--I'm sure there will be restricted free encoders in MusicMatch and all the players will update with Pro decoders soon.

In the case of both MP3 Pro and WMA, I found that a 64k file taken from a direct rip actually sounds BETTER than a 128k MP3, and actually pretty much like a 160k MP3. There were differences, but not always in the 160k MP3's favor--overall 64k MP3 Pro and WMA are equal to a 160/192k MP3. I doubt most users have speakers, headphones, and hearing good enough to really hear the difference between a CD and a 64k WMA/MP3 Pro file. That's almost 19:1 compression...not too shabby!

CPU utilization appears to be higher on MP3 Pro than WMA, but it's hard to test since you can use the same player for both, and WMA playback codecs have had time to be optimized. We're talking a high-end of 4% CPU on GHz machine vs. 8%. Worst case. It's usually a percent or two less.

Final verdict:

WMA and MP3 Pro, at least at 64k, are of comperable overall quality, and it's really pretty darn good. Right now I'd pick WMA only because you've got a far better selection of free encoders and far more players (hardware and software) than can handle the format. If it wasn't for that, WMA would still get my vote if only for CPU utilization. If that turns out to be a non-issue, it's a total toss-up.

Oh yeah, a side note (sorry to post so much):

Windows Media Player in WinXP still plays MP3 files, and in fact has more MP3 playback functions than the current media player. The current player doesn't encode anything but WMA, but the XP player will encode MP3 if you have the proper codec installed. But the question is--will it support MP3 Pro? Playback OR encoding (with installed codec)?

I would GUESS that the best we could hope for is true Pro playback (not the crappy quality "regular MP3 player playing a Pro file) at first. If you install a Pro encoder, I doubt you'll see it as an option in the recording options menu like you do with regular MP3. But I bet it won't be long before there's an auto-update to the XP media player that enables that.

Either way, it's more MP3-friendly than the current media player.

"He uses WMA because it sounds, oh, 1000 times better at modem-friendly bitrates than MP3"

This is in response to my question about SHOUTcast? So I guess that means that streaming MP3 isn't optimal. Figured as much.

"are there decent WMA players for Mac/Linux? Anyone know?"

No, unless some one has managed to ship something in the past year. There's been a beta WMP for Mac floating about for years, but it's very buggy. There was also a Solaris version of WMP briefly, but I don't think it ever got enough develpment time or momentum to be more than a private release.

Jason, I'm curious. Why don't you include Real Media in any of your tests? They have a free encoder and have been compared favorably to WMA in plenty of web reviews, but you don't even mention.

Thanks for sharing the research. Interesting.

Met - cutting file size in half is no slouch. Or in your case, probably more than in half (I'd wager you'd not be able to tell a 96k MP3 Pro or WMA from your 256k MP3s). Maybe you don't want to re-encode, but if you have a portable device, you'd want to fit 2.6 times as many songs on there. Even if saving hard drive space isn't an issue, getting really good sound in a lot less space means a lot to streaming audio on the web and portable devices. Or, hell, even for games. Wouldn't it be cool if we had a broadband-only online RPG in a few years that could dynamically change CD-quality music from time to time by streaming it to you? Perhaps for a big upcoming event, they'd make custom music."

I hadn't really thought of the streaming aspect of it, in which, yes, half the filesize would make a different. Not to mention that having an online RPG that had the CD-quality dynamic music engine from the Star Wars games (where it would promptly switch to a new song, and it would flow) would be quite awesome.

And of course, capable only if you could get it across to the user without having that stream take up so much bandwidth you were lagging. In which case, hell yes, I'd take a lower-encoded but higher-quality half-spaced format anyday.

Maybe if they release an encoder that lets me encode at 256-320kbps and have half the space I'd switch, I probably would. But that's a while off, and by then we might have portables capable of higher storage (in 5-7 months from when they release the codec "at large" and instead of just a program fixed at a bitrate). So hey, I might convert yet. =)

Oh, and Jason, great comparison article.

>Maybe if they release an encoder that lets me encode at 256-320kbps and have half the space I'd switch

That's never going to happen. It's impossible. If a file is encoded t 256kbps, that's 256 kilobits per second. Bitrate means the number of bits the file uses in a give span of time--in that case, 256 kilobits for each second. Bitrate is not the quality of the file, it's the size. It just so happens that as you improve quality, you have to record more information, hence a higher bitrate.

It's like saying I wish there was a file format where I could record five megabytes a minute in half the space. Well then it wouldn't be five megabytes a minute, would it? =)

What I guess you're looking for is a format where you'd get the same QUALITY as a 256kb/sec MP3 file in half the sapce, which would be 128k. I think if you tested encoding a CD or two with WMA at 128k, you'd find it sounds exactly like your 256k MP3. MP3 Pro too, but there's no way to test that until a 128k encoder comes out.

I highly doubt it'll be 5-7 months until they release MP3 Pro "at large." In fact, I think it's released that way now. Remember, just like MP3, you have to pay to license the encoder. I'm sure they're selling it right now, and some 3rd party company is going to offer software to encode Pro at lots of bitrates in a matter of weeks.

Why no RealMedia--because I hate RealPlayer and RealJukebox with a passion, and good players like WinAmp and WMP and stuff don't play realaudio files. Few, if any, portable devices play realaudio.

Streaming MP3 - nope, it's not ideal. But MP3 is an old codec, there's been a lot of progress since then. MP3 Pro should make a good streaming codec, but I'd like to test at lower bitrates first.

WMA on Mac/Linux - I'd got off my ass and looked it up.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/en/download/mac7.asp

There are probably more, but google spat that one out right away. =)

I poked around for awhile to find one for Linux, but no such luck. I can't find any actual evidence that it's not possible, but everywhere I looked the Linux community said "why would you want to use that evil Microsoft WMA? Get your free MP3 player here!" I honestly don't know if anyone has actually TRIED.

"That's never going to happen. It's impossible. If a file is encoded t 256kbps, that's 256 kilobits per second. Bitrate means the number of bits the file uses in a give span of time--in that case, 256 kilobits for each second. Bitrate is not the quality of the file, it's the size. It just so happens that as you improve quality, you have to record more information, hence a higher bitrate.

It's like saying I wish there was a file format where I could record five megabytes a minute in half the space. Well then it wouldn't be five megabytes a minute, would it? =)

What I guess you're looking for is a format where you'd get the same QUALITY as a 256kb/sec MP3 file in half the sapce, which would be 128k. I think if you tested encoding a CD or two with WMA at 128k, you'd find it sounds exactly like your 256k MP3. MP3 Pro too, but there's no way to test that until a 128k encoder comes out. "

That's what I meant. =) Until they release a codec or program that lets me encode at the same rates I do now, then there's no point in me upgrading. Sorry I didn't clarify myself in the first place.

And as far as WMA goes... I could probably switch, but I've got this nagging thing about keeping all my files the same (I'm the guy who goes thru and makes sure his entire playlist has the same format of casing, name then title, etc). I've heard WMA a few times, and yeah, it does sound pretty awesome. I downloaded a STP song by accident w/ WMA as the format, and it was good compared to the other STP mp3's I have.

"I highly doubt it'll be 5-7 months until they release MP3 Pro "at large." In fact, I think it's released that way now. Remember, just like MP3, you have to pay to license the encoder. I'm sure they're selling it right now, and some 3rd party company is going to offer software to encode Pro at lots of bitrates in a matter of weeks. "

That's not what I mean; When I say "at large", I mean the codec has been distributed to where people are basing their own codec's off it. i.e. BladeEnc or some other Codec engine.

If Fraunhofer have their way, no one will be able to base codec's off theirs and we'll all be stuck using the format we have now, or either pirating the codec/programs or paying for them.

That's why I say it'll be a few months, at least. I could be wrong, I wasn't big into mp3's or other audio on the computer when it was getting big so I don't know how long it will take for codec's to be released, but I'm just guessing it's not gonna *snap* happen.

Mainly because Fraunhofer sues anyone who makes an mp3 codec? =)

"because I hate RealPlayer and RealJukebox with a passion"

Any money this has to do with how agressive those two are with grabbing file associations. Am I right? Heh--they fight *one another* for some file extensions.

"When I say "at large", I mean the codec has been distributed to where people are basing their own codec's off it. i.e. BladeEnc or some other Codec engine."

the reason why there's so many mp3 encoders/ decoders/ codecs available is because there's "standard, reference" code for it, that ANYONE can copy/use: it's part of the MPEG standards. albiet, there's some stickyness with the actual USE of the code, since some of it was patented..oops...which is why the 'LAME' encoder project took some time out, and made their code 100% legacy/reference-free.

i haven't read any technical papers on 'mp3 pro' yet, but i'm going to assume it's going to be some sort of encapsulation of another stream of data within the existing mp3. unless someone has a lot of time on their hands to reverse engineer it, or someone acquires the source code, it's unlikely that there will be any 3rd-party codecs (see also: WMA ;)


"Any money this has to do with how agressive those two are with grabbing file associations. Am I right? Heh--they fight *one another* for some file extensions."

hell, it wouldn't be JUST Real vs. WMP in that case: RealPlayer, WMP, QuickTime, and WinAmp all compete for the same namespace for certain files... ALL of them attempt to take *at least* .mp3 unless you dig through each of the programs telling them to shut the hell up about that crap. it gets REALLY annoying REALLY fast.

- mike - somewhere in east-central illinois -

"Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
Lenny Kravitz - Black Velveteen
Lenny Kravitz - Fly Away
Harry Connick Jr. - Avalon
Save Ferris - Come on Eileen
G. Love & Special Sauce - Rodeo Clowns
Chrono Cross OAV - Time's Scar"

Jason, you know your MP3 tech. And these posts are amazingly deep and interesting to a... well a casual digital music listener like myself. But, and I say this with all due respect to you personally, your taste in music is atrocious! ;)

Kravitz's abominable American Woman cover and Save Ferris' evern more horrible take on Dexy's Midnight Runners? Good gracious me!

Mine ears would bleed.
-Andrew

I also hate RealPlayer with a passion. It is one of the most invasive programs you can install on your system. It fights you every step of the installation process to subscribe to useless crap.

Lastly, it installs the RealPlayer agent in your task bar and it does not make it obvious or easy to deactivate.

Ah...you're one of those music nazis who just hates all covers, aren't you Bub? =) Some people are so villified by the mere concept of a cover that they can't stand them, whether they're good music or not. "It's not as good as the original" and "they should make their OWN music" and so on. Whatever.

Me, I like a decent cover. I think Real Big Fish's cover of Take On Me is good, too. And PUSA's Video Killed the Radio Star. So TTTHHHHPPPTTT... :P Ears bleeding yet?

I hate realplayer/jukebox because it installs all the garbage all over the place. Startup items, registry keys, tool tray items, all that crap. GRR... It's more of a virus than a real program.

"Ah...you're one of those music nazis who just hates all covers, aren't you Bub? =)"

No, I just hate the covers you mentioned.
I loved that redo of Tainted Love not too long ago. A lot of Dylan sounds best with someone else doing it. And Camper Van Beethoven's Pictures of Matchstick Men is far superior to the original.

I am however... a Nazi, you got that part right.

-Andrew

>A lot of Dylan sounds best with someone else doing it.

Well that's not saying much.

You ever hear the Jimmy Hendrix tribute album Stone Free? Never have I heard more totally, amazingly crappy covers (The fucking CURE doing Purple Haze?) mixed with some truly brilliant stuff (Clapton's Stone Free and Living Colour's Crosstown Traffic).

By the way, I'm not a huge fan of Kravitz's American Woman remix. But I had it ripped (from the G H album) and all his stuff since he went to digital recording and editing is THOROUGHLY well engineered. It made for a good test case song.

And hey, the video is pretty good, but that's just because Heather Graham is really hot in it. =)

Now if you wanna talk bad covers, listen to Madonna's American Pie remake. Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick!

"You ever hear the Jimmy Hendrix tribute album Stone Free?"

I dodged that bullet, but the Clapton "Stone Free" sounds like a good idea on principal.

"and all his stuff since he went to digital recording and editing is THOROUGHLY well engineered."

Actually, I figured that was your reasoning to begin with for all the tunes you used. FYI, Hendrix's "Radio Station EXP" remains the perfect surround sound test.

"Now if you wanna talk bad covers, listen to Madonna's American Pie remake. Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick!"

Total agreement. Yuck!

Anyone else listening to Radiohead's Amnesiac? This one might take a while to get into I think, I've only given it one spin thus far.

-Andrew

I don't like Radiohead, in general.

Regarding dolby surround--there are actually only a couple albums out there that have actually been recorded and mixed for dolby pro logic. Some have been remixed but it's not the same, and others just happen to do something based on how pro logic decodes from a stereo channel, but it's not intentional.

My friend used to have that Sting album (forget the one) and it was a good test. But I have acutal test CDs for that kinda thing - one has this great dixieland jazz quintet recorded and mixed in surround that's just fantastic.

Oh, and I heard DVD Audio at a music store the other day. It's like NIGHT and DAY over CDs. It is to CDs what CDs are to cassette tapes. You hear SO much more, and they're actually mixed for discrete 5.1 audio (CDs can't carry six-channel audio so if you have a 5.1 player, the DSP in your amp just breaks it up to fakey-5.1).

Covers Scoot likes:

Aretha Franklin: Let It Be
Ben Harper: Sexual Healing
Bjork and PJ Harvey: Satisfaction
Cake: I Will Survive
Fountains Of Wayne: Hit Me Baby One More Time
Jimmi Hendrix: All Along The Watchtower
Johnny Cash: Rusty Cage
Juliana Hatfield: Every Breath You Take
Lauryn Hill: Bohemian Rhapsody
Letters To Cleo: Dreams
Mogwai: Don't Cry
Nick Cave & Shane McGowan: What A Wonderful World
Pet Shop Boys: Where The Streets Have No Name
Radiohead: Nobody Does It Better
Radiohead: Rhinestone Cowboy
Radiohead: Sunday Bloody Sunday
Reel Big Fish: Take On Me
REM: I Will Survive
REM: One
Siouxsie & The Banshees: Trust In Me
Tom Waits: Somewhere
Travis: Hit Me Baby One More Time
Travis: Nobody Does It Better
U2: Everlasting Love
U2: Paint It Black

And I like Amnesiac. Or, as I call it, "OK Kid B"

-Thierry

Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" is better than the original. I'm not sure about that Cake "I Will Survive" though.

I fell in love with Reel Big Fish's "Take On Me" as soon as I found it in Samba De Amigo.

You dance with a monkey! Woot!

"Hendrix's "All Along the Watchtower" is better than the original. I'm not sure about that Cake "I Will Survive" though."

There's swearing in Cake's version. That automatically intrigues me.

-Thierry

"Would you like to buy a monkey?" - Still my favorite NOLF overheard conversation...

Covers... there's some great ones, Metallica's cover of Thin Lizzy's Whiskey in the Jar, Little Caesar doing Aretha Franklin's Chain of Fools, Tesla's cover of Five Man Electrical Band's Signs and the mighty Thin Lizzy's cover of Bob Seger's Rosalie which this thread made me pull out!

--Dave

"Metallica's cover of Thin Lizzy's Whiskey in the Jar"

Not exactly Thin Lizzy's, is it? Whiskey in the Jar is traditional. Although they did do one of the first rock versions I'd ever heard.

Yes, I much prefer Martin O'Reilly's unplugged lute version from 1874. Now that was a cover that had the lassie's a'headbanging.

But seriously folks, there's a version of it by the Pogues (with the Dubliners -whom I'm pretty sure hail from Dublin) that I'm partial to.

-Andrew

I have an old bootleg live tape of the Replacements pretty much attempting to cover every bad 70s song, playing each for about 30 seconds, usually wrong, then giving up.

"...the Replacements pretty much attempting to cover every..."

Sounds fitting, doesn't it?

Metallica has an absolutely wicked Mercyful Fate cover called, well, Mercyful Fate. It's actually a big 11 min medley of bits of songs from the MF album Melissa that was originally released in 1983.

This cover is the best bit of music Metallica has released since the Black Album. No kidding, I mean it. The original has King Diamond's trademark love-it-or-hate-it banshee wailing, and is poorly produced, so I wouldn't recommend it to the average listener. But Metallica's sound is so crunchy that the riffs really come alive; the combination of melody and power is astounding, and Hetfield's clean vocals work great as well. Their arrangement also cuts out the fat that bloated some of the originals.

Honestly, I didn't think they had it in them to rock like this anymore.

---

Quote:

Not exactly Thin Lizzy's, is it?

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I've actually never heard the word "cover" used like this before. So I take it that when a song that were previously done by another band are called covers? Interesting. Is this some new X-gen shit? God I feel old.

Well, I'm only 21, but I've heard this expression used for as long as I can remember...A "cover song" is exactly what you thought -- when a (usually not-so-well-known) band performs a song that isn't their original, but was originally performed by another (usually much more well-known) band. They're used for auditions a lot -- when a band is auditioning for a gig, or a producer, or whatever, they're often asked to do two or three originals and one of maybe two covers.

The term "cover tunes" has been around as long as I can remember. My brother was in a "cover band" as long as 15 years ago. The term was the same then as it is now. It's certainly not some X-gen term...

--Dave

I've got copies of Rolling Stone from 1973 that use the term "cover band". Timmy boy... how old are you there codger?

Don't fret though, I didn't know what a "Three Finger Salute" was or what an "L33T Hax0r" was. Of course not knowing hardcore terminal-head hacker terms sort of makes me proud.

-Andrew

Heh. Dang whippersnappers, the lot of ya.

It goes back even further than 1973. The word "cover" was used to describe white singers like Pat Boone recording the songs of black artists like Little Richard in the '50s before black artists could get their own recordings played on the radio.

And, no, I'm not quite so old that I personally remember that. =)

Speaking of Pat Boone, he has a metal covers CD called In A Metal Mood. Haven't heard any of it, but I imagine it didn't do much for his career.

Amazon link

"(Pat Boone)it didn't do much for his career."

As I recall, it harmed it. He got all the crappy "Entertainment Tonight" ain't he a freak coverage and he alienated much of his Christian fanbase.

I'd probably go nuts and do the same thing if I were Pat Boone through most of my life though...

-Andrew