h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Another way to spot a boy/girl band is that they will inevitably cover a classic song. Badly. This will, at some point in time, be refered to as 'an improvement on the original' by some member of the press. Recent examples include Heresays (sorry Hear'says) version of Bridge Over Troubled Water, Atomic Kittens version of Eternal Flame and Worstlifes (soory again, I meant Westlifes) version of Seasons In The Sun. The worst example of this was Take That's live cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit (I am not making this up).

Strangely Louises forthcoming cover of Stuck In The Middle With You is an exception to this rule.

This isn't exclusively a manufactured band phenomenon. Prime example: Madonna. While none of us could possibly argue that she's mostly manufactured, one person does not a band make. And she did the single crappiest song in the history of any song anywhere when she re-did Don McLean's classic 'American Pie'.

I retch just thinking about it.

No it's not. It's horrid.

The "covers" thing is likely to become the norm. Since Manufactured acts are "music product" it's not important to create a brand new song and tune to sell the product. There is a rich mine of old music that will not have been heard by the target audience before, and therefore this can be dipped into to obtain "covers" and therefore records at a minimal cost.

Yes it suck, but the public are to blame. They buy this stuff and create a demand for it.

I heard the worst cover ever made in the history of music. I'm surprised my ears didn't dissolve after hearing Britney Spears' cover of the Stones' "Satisfaction."