It's interesting to apply this to classical music, where they're ALL "covers". Each conductor and orchestra will interpret a given work differently; people who love the composer will differ in whose interpretation they like best. I grew up listening to particular recordings of pieces that my parents owned, so that those performances seem like the "right" tempo, orchestration, etc. For example, the Fritz Reiner/Chicago Symphony recording of Maurice Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" is the performance I grew up with - therfore, for me, it's "the best". I was really disturbed when I first heard Leopold Stokowski's orchestration of the same work - not only was it a different conductor/orchestra, but an entirely different setting of the original piano piece.

While popular music usually isn't granted the same consideration as classical music, covers of songs are simply new arrangements of existing pieces. Those artists who try to duplicate a previous arrangement are usually doomed to failure, because you can't duplicate a particular performance that was captured in a moment of time on record. Those artists who try to do their own versions of songs are simply being "conductors" of their own musical symphonies, interpreting the music as it affects them.

But the version I heard first will always be the "right" one, and my favorite...(BG)