In the days of Tin Pan Alley, the song was more important the performer. While it is true that the sheet music features a performer on the cover in order to encourage sales, it wasn't necessarily the singer that sold it. It was more like this: if the song was good, a famous singer would sing it. Consumer's Conclusion: it must be awesome song!
Archive #16 (1915)and #13 (1912) demonstrating the prominence of performers on old sheet music
That's the logic anyway. It certainly goes to show why so many songs, such as Irving Berlin's Blue Skies, for example, have so many different well known singers singing it as a part of their catalogue (Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few). These days, covers of songs are abundant (the fact we call them covers now, whereas in the old days the idea didn't warrant a term is in itself an interesting topic), but they rarely are a defining feature of the band. It's usually a homage to music that the singer/performers love.
According to the book, Tin Pan Alley, this was because of Elvis. You know how video killed the radio star? Well, Elvis' gyrating hips killed the sheet music company. Well, not exactly. The availability of albums for the public to get their hands on made it so you didn't have to listen to your grandma's warbling rendition anymore. You could just listen to Elvis.
It makes me wonder about the way things are nowadays. My friend Zack and I are in a long-distance band (we send bits of songs to each other via email) and we create unique covers as part of our repertoire. And it isn't just us. Well, the long-distance thing is probably just us, but making covers isn't. The internet is full of covers. I wonder, then, if the power of the song is overtaking the power of performance now that means to record music is more accessible.
We are definitely entering a new age of music.
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