Listening to music and cover versions

As many of you know I like my music (or at least what I think of as music anyway). I am intrigued by cover versions and also I have lost the habit of listening to whole albums in one go. I used to do this all the time when I was younger. I remember sitting down and listening to my albums be it at my house or at a friend's house. We used to share music, make compilation tapes and recommend music to people.

I have discovered in recent years that many more people I was at school with shared my tastes in music (well some of them!!). Over the coming months I will be listening to albums and investigating cover versions.

What makes a good cover version? Are there songs you just shouldn't cover? Do some musicians do cover versions better than others? I will also be looking at covers of the music of bands and musicians to see why some are covered and some aren't.

With the listening project I will be going through my collection and also listening to 'classic' albums to see what all the fuss is about and to broaden peoples musical horizons. For the record the last album I listened to all the way through was The Weight of Your Love by Editors.