Many of us recycle and reuse things on a daily basis to save the planet. Similarly, songs could be recycled and reused zillion times in both good and bad ways. Yes, I am talking about cover versions here.

Centuries have passed but, Carnatic musicians keep recycling the compositions of trinities and have even made a career out of it by applying manodharma and other different techniques. Popular music channels such as Rosebowl and Kappa TV have revolutionized this cover trend in addition to promoting bands making original music. As a musician, sometimes I enjoy singing covers of some of my favorite songs and guess what, there is a set of audience who has found some of my cover songs interesting as well.

This ever-growing popularity of cover versions leads to an obvious question - why is there such a huge audience for a recycled song?

Familiarity induces a feeling of comfort and this leads to a general human tendency for resistance to change. This could be a reason why cover versions of songs appeal to more number of people than original numbers.

Have you thought about this? What do you think are some of the reasons for this?

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to Sou's Voice and join me on Facebook and Twitter. Check out www.sousvoice.com for an alternate perspective on Indian music.