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Research Insight: Comparing the Chart Success of Cover Songs to their Originals Brian F. Wright PhD Student in Musicology – Case Western Reserve University Research Question: Comparing the Chart Success of Cover Songs to their Originals Occasionally in the history of the Billboard charts, two different artists have achieved chart success with versions of the same song. Rarer still, the later version, known as a “cover song,” is sometimes more popular than the original. How does the chart success compare between a cover song and the original recording? Which recording had more success in its historical moment? Are any broad trends visible in the data? Why Understanding It Would Be Useful Cover songs have become a staple of contemporary popular music. It may therefore be useful to have a wide conception of how the success of cover songs compares to the success of the original recordings. To this end, drawing on data from the Music ID platform, this Research Insight analyzes the chart success of five cover songs as stand-ins for how cover songs tend to perform on the Billboard Hot 100 more generally. How Does Music ID Answer the Research Question Cover songs have become a staple of contemporary popular music. It may therefore be useful to have a wide conception of how the success of cover songs compares to the success of original recordings. To this end, drawing on data from the Music ID platform, this Research Insight analyzes the chart success of five cover songs as stand-ins for how cover songs tend to perform on the Billboard Hot 100.
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Figure 1 - Relative Success of “Hazy Shade of Winter”
While Simon and Garfunkel’s original recording of “Hazy Shade of Winter” climbed the charts faster than the Bangles’ cover, it peaked at #13 and only stayed in the chart for 9 weeks. The Bangles’ cover, by contrast, peaked at #2 and remained in the Billboard Hot 100 for 21 weeks.
Figure 2 - Relative Success of “When a Man Loves a Woman”
Compared to the original chart success of Percy Sledge’s version of “When a Man Loves a Woman,” Michael Bolton’s cover was wholly more successful: it entered the charts higher, climbed the charts faster, reached #1 sooner, and stayed on the charts five weeks longer than Sledge’s version.
Academic Rights Press © 2014
Based on the data, it is far more common for cover songs to belong to the second category— covers that are less popular than the original songs—and this includes examples such as Van Halen’s 1978 cover of the Kinks’ 1964 song “You Really Got Me” (Figure 3) as well as Lenny Kravitz’s 1999 version of The Guess Who’s 1970 song “American Woman” (Figure 4) and many others.
Figure 3 - Relative Success of “You Really Got Me”
As evident in Figure 3, both the Kinks’ and Van Halen’s versions of “You Really Got Me” entered the charts with nearly identical trajectories, but soon parted ways. In the end, Van Halen’s version peaked at #36 and only spent 11 weeks on the chart, compared to the Kinks’ original 15 weeks on the chart and #7 top position.
Figure 4 - Relative Success of “American Woman”
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Unlike Van Halen’s cover, it seems that Lenny Kravitz’s version of “American Woman” never even came close to matching the chart success of The Guess Who’s original recording (although it did stay on the charts a few weeks longer). Lastly, songs in the third category—covers roughly equal in popularity to the originals —are the rarest. After extensive searching, the cover song with the closest trajectory to its original was Tiffany’s 1987 cover of Tommy James and the Shondells 1967 recording of “I Think We’re Alone Now” (Figure 5).
Figure 5 - Relative Success of “I Think We’re Alone Now”
While Tiffany’s cover lasted slightly longer on the charts than the original, both versions had nearly the exact same trajectory of chart success in their historical moment. Elements of the Insight That Would Not Have Been Possible Without the Data This data may overturn common assumptions about the popularity of particular artists or songs. For example, it may be surprising to some that Michael Bolton’s version of “When a Man Loves a Woman” was more popular at its time than Percy Sledge’s had been, especially since Sledge’s version has become a mainstay of oldies radio. Or, many may not realize that Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now” is a cover at all, not to mention that the original was equally popular in its own day. More than this, however, the Music ID platform provides an unprecedented look into the various types of chart success for multiple hit versions of a song on both a large and small scale.
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A Valuable Research Tool Prior to the Music ID platform, it would have been difficult, if not unfeasible, to collect detailed chart data on two artists whose success came decades apart. In the case of comparing the success of cover songs to their originals, the data provided by Music ID visibly demonstrates that cover songs statistically tend to be less popular than original recordings. The advantage of the Music ID platform is not just that it provides hard data for such a diverse set of popular songs, but also that it can quickly graph this data for comparison. The Music ID platform can thus be a useful tool for researchers and scholars looking to compare and analyze the relative chart success of songs from different eras in minute detail.
Academic Rights Press © 2014
