NONALIGNMENT·PACT

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.