I think I have a pretty broad taste in music, I’ll give anything a shot, if it sounds nice then I don’t much care if it’s country, rock, pop, classical etc etc etc. It’s nice tom have some music when relaxing in the house, or working on something boring. When anyone might enquire what sort of music I like, to avoid the cliche “everything”, I will say it’s covers. And indeed this is true. As I see it the advantage of a cover is that it you have a favorite piece of music that you’ve play to death and are getting a bit fed up, you may find a cover brings new life to your streaming collection. So before I continue I should define what is a cover. When an artist wriownertes an original piece of music they have the right of first pes rformance, which is logical because no one else knows about it. After the first significant public performance, or commercial release, the song comes up for grabs, and anyone can make a version and make money from it.
So what about all this “when X called Y to ask for permission to cover Z” type stories, this is a courtesy call it’s not required. When you do need leave it’s when you want to use it in another medium, like a jeans advert or a movie. The coverer is obliged to pay a royalty fee though an agency to the songs owner. Performing rights. Anyway, that’s the law as I think it is.
In general it seems to be opinion that the original is best, but of course there may be other opinions. One famous oft quoted is that Jimi Hendrix covered “All along the Watchtower”, by Bob Dylan, and many think Hendrix did a better version. It’s certainly different. Dylan was reported to say that he now plays it more like the Hendrix version.