A Tribute to Tributes

Tribute albums are easy to mock. Even high-quality tributes are usually cynical attempts to graft your own small brand onto another, much more popular artist. Sure, there are exceptions. I loved the 1999 Gram Parsons tribute album Emmylou Harris put together, and I think it might very well be the gold standard as these things go. But take a look at the longer list of Gram Parsons “tributes”, and you start to see what’s so terrible about the genre. You either get lesser bands outsourcing their songwriting duties to a legend OR you get a label using a classic songbook to pimp obscure artists or create an easy catalog mover.

In the best cases, tributes are a mixed bag of admiring artists who contribute worthy interpretations and rote filler. In the worst cases, a “tribute” is really an obscene desecration that follows one these patterns:

1. A tiny label recruits its entire roster to record a bunch of wretched covers.
2. A tiny artist or label reinterprets a bunch of famous songs into another genre that robs the songs of any charm they might have had.
3. An original artist re-records their own songs and mangles them to death. This (sometimes assisted) suicide is the most sad and inexplicable of the three categories. Frank Black and Will Oldham, I’m looking at you.

Cracked has already done a pretty good job of locating the worst offenders. But in the years I’ve been an eMusic subscriber, I’ve kept a running list of my own ear-gouging, corpse-burning discoveries. eMusic is actually a great place to find this crap, because they offer such an easy way for small indie labels to sell their horrible pabulum to unsuspecting customers. For example, type “Weezer” into the album search box. This is what you get:

Alas, it’s only the beginning. Emusic offers a wealth of horrifying pleasures.

Click the pics for links.

If you always wished David Sanborn played on more Eagles songs, this is for you.

Rap metal and “gothic acoustic” deserve each other.

I don’t want to hear what Rod Stewart’s or Ted Nugent’s members sound like.

Don’t miss the iSweat tributes to the Jacksons and Olivia Newton John.

This one’s got some faithfully bland, competent covers. But they can’t rescue the artwork.

Radiohead suffers mightily at the hand of the tribute makers.

Tool fares even worse.

Worse than Def Leppard.

I’m ashamed to say I kind of like this one. David Lee Roth does indeed sing the first two tracks.

Medieval Incantation? Yes, please! Seriously, my favorite on this list.

The last three come from perhaps the biggest source of crappy tribute albums, Vitamin Records. As the K-Tel of the string tribute, their sins are too numerous to mention. A whole list could be made of their worst moments, and it’s unclear to me whether they have any good ones. Ugh.

Finally, so I can close the Weezer loop I started, I feel like I should leave you with a recently downloaded tribute record I actually enjoy.

I posted this to Facebook a few weeks ago, and Danny Mee (from the Jonx), responded:

As I said in my response to Danny, this tribute hits the mark for me.

There are several reasons for this, which might be extrapolated as best practices for this sort of thing:

1. Made by friends and contemporaries of the actual band.
2. Included songs that weren’t hits. Four of the seven tracks came from Seven More Minutes, a record hardly anyone bought or heard.
3. All seven tracks actually bothered to re-imagine the original song.
4. Not too much product. An EP might be the optimal length.

I think this could be all it takes to make a decent tribute record. Doesn’t matter if the songs are famous. Doesn’t matter if the bands are ordinarily any good. Doesn’t even matter if the originals were that good. Just take some well-meaning pals who like the music, and get them out of their comfort zone so they’re exploring modes and changes they hardly ever traverse. In that way, everyone gets to hear what the listener hears. Something new.