Placing a Nirvana cover

[wen]

I have been working on a recording of a cover tune that I used to perform live a lot. The song is "Smells like teen spirit" by Nirvana.

Since its only a cover, I am not sure how much more time/money to put into it. Originally this was just something I wanted to do to capture my love of the song.

If a library were to accept it, and place it, how would it work with the licensing fee to the original artists? Would that come out of my portion of, whatever? How much would it be, anyway?

How often do covers actually get placed??



cheers

[Casey H]

If you were to get a placement of a cover, you would collect only an upfront master use license fee. Any backend PRO money would go to the songwriter(s).

Some covers do get placed and we've seen Taxi run listings for covers lots of times. I even recall actual placements of covers due to Taxi library deals. I would say covers get placed much less often than originals. Also, not all libraries accept covers.

Certainly nothing wrong with recording your Nirvana cover and putting feelers out to some libraries.

Best,
Casey

[wen]

thanks casey!

[coachdebra]

Cover tunes are a great way to drive traffic to your youtube channel - as people are more likely searching for someone they know than someone they don't. So if you're going to create the song, then use something like Camtasia to create a visual for it and post it up!

[wen]

Thanks, that's true! I have over 6,000 hits on my cover of "Clocks."

I'm still revising the recording on this one (getting someone else to sing it; adding new elements midway etc. cuz it gets boring i think) but I make my own videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbhReGmsRJA

[lucy]

Hi Wen,

That cover is great. Your harp playing is super awesome!

I love the contrast you have created in the use of the classical refined harp on such a dark teen angst song.

cheers
El

[wen]

Lucy,

Thank you very much for listening! I appreciate the feedback. Stuart Cardell did the processing/mixing, which helps it a lot.

Best regards

Wenda

[sguiles]

I was under the impression that you can/could also earn monies/royalties for YOUR mechanical recording of the song. I.E., Cobain and friends would get the Writer's share, but there's also a portion of the pie that goes to whoever owns the master recording for THAT particular version of the song.

[wen]

hmm, yes, I recall something about that also... Thanks Steve.

[rdance]

i feel chilly after watching your video...music was chilling too. nice interpretation wen!