Why we made a new design for COVER.INFO

We want to explain why we introduced the new design of COVER.INFO to which you unfortunately need to accustom yourself.

We had to think for a long time intensively about the question how to show the complex relations which we have in our modernized database. The old design using tables is not able to represent them.

The old one assumed that there are only covers and originals. Cover on the left, original on the right. That's how we naïvely started in 1999.

Meanwhile we learned: The world of music is not that easy. Indeed there are covers and originals, but originals can contain samples from other songs for example. Such a sampled song can itself be a cover version which has an original. Thus there are chains of song relations. These can't be represented in a two-columns view.

Therefore we decided on a representation with two or three boxes. This is done chronologically from old (at the top) to new (at the bottom).

You always consider one song. The two cases with two boxes are the following:

When nothing is derived from the considered song, for example the latter is a cover version which doesn't sample or quote anything, then this considered song is on the bottom and its originals (original version, quotation sources and sample sources) are above it, as shown in the following example.

(Note: The following information about the colors and the texts of the labels is partly not up to date. Meanwhile we optimized the labels. See the description of the song relations in the Help section.)

Fictitious example: As the considered song "Volé" has an original (green label), you can conclude that it must be a cover version.

When there is nothing older, then the considered song is situated on the top and its covers, samples, quotations, etc. are below.

The third case is the following: When the considered song is itself based on other songs (quotes them for example) and however also has been covered, then it is represented as one of three boxes, namely as the one in the middle.

In this fictitious example, the examined song "Stolen" contains a quotation of "What A Nice Song" and "Stolen" is the original of the cover version by The Original Samples. Furthermore, "Stolen" has been sampled in the "Sample Song".

Furthermore in the old design, there was not enough of space for our new additional information such as languages of the songs, references and YouTube videos (more to come).

Probably everyone will be convinced of the new design after a short period of practice. It is a bit exhausing to learn how the new design works but it's worth it.

What you should know about the new COVER.INFO

We welcome you to the beta version of the new completely modernized COVER.INFO!

Many things are not finished yet. We know that nobody likes web sites under construction. But the new COVER.INFO already has more benefits than the old coverinfo.de whose search function did not work properly anymore. We decided against operating both the old and the new site at the same time. Thus we can invest all efforts into the new COVER.INFO.

These are the most important innovations:

Search for either an artist or a song

You have to enter into the search field either one artist (performer or composer) or one song title. It is no longer possible to search for a combination of an artist and a song tile or for a combination of multiple artists (for example artist 1 feat. artist 2).

As search results you will find on the left (or on top on narrow displays) a list of found songs and on the right (or below on narrow dispays) a list of found artists.

Clicking on a song leads you to the correspondent song page. When you click on an artist, you'll get his artist page with the songs he performed and wrote. There you can click on the songs and at last you'll get the song page.

Chronological song relations

To understand the layout of the song pages, you have to understand that the new database chronologically shows the relations between pairs of songs (for example cover – original or quotation – quotation source).

An original is situated on the top and you will find its cover versions below, sorted by year in ascending order. But if the original also quotes other songs, then the quotation sources are naturally older and thus placed even above the original.

(Note: The following information about the colors and the texts of the labels is partly not up to date. Meanwhile we optimized the labels. See the description of the song relations in the Help section.)

Colored labels – for example  Cover ,  Original ,  Quote  and  Quote  – indicate the relation of the other song to the considered song whose title you clicked on and thus on whose song page you are. Orange or yellow labels stand for songs which are derived from others; green or turquoise labels for the originals on which the considered songs are based.

Fictitious example: As the considered song "Volé" has an original (green label), you can conclude that it must be a cover version.

If the other song is a cover (and situated below), then the considered song consequently is an original. If the other song is an original (and situated above), then the considered song is a cover (see example above). Accordingly if the other song (situated below) contains a quotation, then the considered song is the correspondent quotation source. And finally if the other song (situated above) has the label for the type quotation, then the considered song contains a quotation of that song.

In this fictitious example, the examined song "Stolen" contains a quotation of "What A Nice Song" and "Stolen" is the original of the cover version by The Original Samples. Furthermore, "Stolen" has been sampled in the "Sample Song".

New categories of entries

We introduced new categories of songs beside cover and quotation:

A  Medley , often also called potpourri, is a piece composed of parts of songs, played one after another, sometimes with overlapping.

A  Sample  is the special case of a musical quotation which is not played anew but taken from the original recording.

An  Alternative  version is another version of the original version performed by the original artist, especially a version in another language. You could also call it a "self cover version". To distinguish it from a cover, it shows its label even when it is the considered song.

Seperate artists

In the old database, technically

• artist 1,
• artist 2,
• artist 1 feat. artist 2

were three different performers. That's why when you searched for all songs by artist 1 or by artist 2, you did not see the songs by artist 1 feat. artist 2.

For the new COVER.INFO we revised and separated all performers. Now you can reasonably search for individual artists even when they only exist in cooperations with others.

Aliases of artists

For every artist we are also able to save aliases, i. e. additional names this artist is known under. Now you can find an artist by searching for any of his aliases to get his artist page.

YouTube videos

Maybe the biggest benefit of the new COVER.INFO is the fact that we search and in case of success embed a YouTube video for every song, i. e. version. You can listen to them to know how the song sounds. The majority of the videos are found automatically. In case of an error, they can be corrected editorially.

References

The last innovation which is worth to be mentioned here is the publicaton of many of our web references. They are linked on the respective song pages so that you can easily go to other music databases for further research.

Looking further

As said in the beginning, not everything is already working well. That's why we would be glad to hear your feedback and hints about dysfunctions and suggestions for ameliorations of the website. Comment this post or send us a mail to feedback@cover.info.

Other functions are already planned, for example contact forms for suggesting corrections and new entries and an advanced search.