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[Original Spies]

Why do they do this? I get the feeling perhaps Alkaline and Woodsinho might have info behind this, as they are often overflowing with facts. I just never quite understood it. I'm sure it's something to do with licensing, but if the "artist" has to pay to cover a song, then surely they could just fork out to be play the original version, and not covered by some guy off the street for a few bob and a paid lunch.


I was in Poundland yesterday, and this absolutely horrific piano ballad version of Womanizer by Britney Spears was being played. 3 times slower, and just this horrible karaoke voice and piano just about talked the words. It was like if you could shit in your own ear.

I always seem to catch Matalan playing some Atomic Kitten song that sounds like it's being crooned by Avid Merrion's Scary Spice impersonation.



It's proper shite. Pull your finger out and get the radio on or something, or just let folk shop in silence. Music is shit anyway.

[paranoid]

You need to have an entertainment licence to play CDs, radio or TV to customers. I think the stuff you are mentioning is a bit of a dodgy area because they are still broadcasting the material to an audience, but if it isn't the original then they might have found a loophole.

That is why Archies didn't play music or have TVs before they got done up. No entertainment licence meant they had less overheads and that allowed them to charge less for drinks.

[ca_gere]

I worked in a cafeteria type thing once and we were told we couldn't listen to the radio because of this law. I had never heard such a stupid thing. I partly quit because of it. There was nothing left to drown out the customers.

The worst compilation I have ever heard was in a shop like poundland down in Englerland somewhere. It was Pan Pipes covers... of Phil Collins songs. In the Air Tonight never sounded worse!

[soundian]

Originally Posted by Original Spies

Why do they do this? I get the feeling perhaps Alkaline and Woodsinho might have info behind this, as they are often overflowing with facts. I just never quite understood it. I'm sure it's something to do with licensing, but if the "artist" has to pay to cover a song, then surely they could just fork out to be play the original version, and not covered by some guy off the street for a few bob and a paid lunch.

I think it's down to the fact that you have to pay both the intellectual copyright holder (songwriter or whoever they've signed the rights over to) AND the mechanical copyright holder (whoever owns the copyright to the recording). If they own the mechanical copyright they only have to pay the intellectual copyright holder.

[Lucky Rathen]

In layman's terms, it's alot cheaper to play the soundalike versions than the originals.

[Shaki]

Originally Posted by Original Spies

I was in Poundland yesterday, and this absolutely horrific piano ballad version of Womanizer by Britney Spears was being played. 3 times slower, and just this horrible karaoke voice and piano just about talked the words. It was like if you could shit in your own ear.

I always seem to catch Matalan playing some Atomic Kitten song that sounds like it's being crooned by Avid Merrion's Scary Spice impersonation.

I actually want to hear both of these.

[Original Spies]

Perhaps there is a Retail Music Filesharing Ring on the internet somewhere, for the diehard fans of these skilled renditions.

I still think no music at all would be better than some of the shite that gets played. Some of it really is some amateur tape-recorder and karaoke backing tracks in a garage somewhere, and then selling the end result to Poundstretcher.

[Godzilla Blues]

I've been in Matalan a couple of times over the past week or so and can concur that the cover version tuneage is horrific. Even songs I don't like in the first place I feel sorry for.