"It is fortunate for literary men that people no longer read anything written long ago, for if they did they would come to the conclusion that * * * the making of new books is certainly vanity." -Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)Nate Dogg wrote:It is sad that most people have no knowledge of song composers and the original versions. Sometimes, it seems like every hit rap song is mostly sampled from other songs. That being said, it is a bit rough to use words like "stole" and "theft" when they are legitimately licensed. Coolio covered the Stevie Wonder song with significant changes. That is how I see it.
If you go back to the swing era, many songs were covers. So, I think appreciation of the original artist/composer has been an issue for a long time. It just has evolved to what we have today (the quickest way to make a hip hop hit is to rework a previous hit).
I do get a tinge of self-righteousness with all these kiddie bands nowadays re-making the anthems of my youth. However, that said, most of the re-makes and re-samples do significantly re-work the song enough to make it a new song. Rock anthems aside, Hammer's "Can't Touch This" (Rick James' Superfreak) and Will Smith's "Wild Wild West" (Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke) have an updated feeling to them, even though they are blatantly the same song in writing. Why does there need to be only ONE version of a great song?!?
Looking at the jazz tradition of everyone playing the same standards only amplifies this point: it's not just the writing that makes the song, but the PERFORMANCE. Duke's "In a Mellow Tone" is different from Basie's Mellow Tone, which is significantly different from Louis Armstrong's Mellow Tone, which is different from Ray Bryant's Mellow Tone.
... Or the classical tradition of playing Beethovan. I mean, how LAME can you get?!?! What? You don't have enough talent to write something NEW that surpasses the greatest classical composer who ever lived?!?!
You loser!! 
