A tribute to this post...by Flickerstick

My life has been so much better ever since I bought Kidz Bop 7.

Okay, I'm lying. It's actually been going steeply downhill. Okay, I'm lying again. I didn't really buy Kidz Bop 7. But I could have, which bothers me. It seems there are quite a few stupid trends in music right now, and I'm not even going to waste my time with the obvious ones like Clear Channel and the NOW series.

I've been really confused with the recent rash of tribute albums. Now, I'm not complaining about the traditional view of a tribute album: a bunch of bands each covering a track by a well-known artists. That's cool. I hear the Police tribute album is amazing. I'm even cool with alternate versions of entire albums. I'm particularly fond of the Strung Out series, where a string quartet plays arrangements of popular songs. I enjoy studying to Strung Out on Jagged Little Pill, and my brother swears he's going to use songs from Songs You Have Come to Love the Most in his wedding.

What bothers me are these new-fangled tribute albums where an unknown band covers every song off an album that was released less than a year ago. Have you seen these? They're usually stocked in the same section as the artist they're covering and they say, "A Tribute to Sum 41." And it's the exact same order of songs as the Sum 41 album, only the band playing IS NOT SUM 41! I'm not making this up, people! Look, some dude made a whole list of them. 3 Doors Down is on there, Justin Timberlake, even Ludacris! I didn't even know you could cover rap songs. How do you put your own stamp on rhythmic talking?

I have a few questions:
1) How is this even legal? Don't the artists own the rights to their songs and who can cover them for a profit? Or do the tribute people get around it because they record in Canada?
2) Who the crap buys this?! Is there really someone out there who thinks, "I simply can't get enough of the adorable pop-punk stylings of Sum 41. I really think I'd enjoy hearing their entire album covered by someone OTHER THAN THEM." I have to assume people are buying, because there's a lot of them. I'm so freaking confused.

I want some unknown blogger to cut and paste this entry to make a tribute to me. That would be rad, but they would have to be from Canada.