....does your opinion of them go down?
It does for me, some of my favourite songs are covers but when I thought they were original I loved them more. I like originality in my music.

No, not really. I suppose I do think its a bit of a shame when its a song I really love, from an artist I also love, and then I find out its a cover. But it doesn't actually lessen my enjoyment of the song itself. I'll still play it and enjoy it just as much.

Sometimes....it depends if its a straight forward rip off or if the cover adds something new to the song.

This pretty much sums it up for me. I absolutely love covers which have something new to add, with a fresh interpretation of the original song.

For example I absolutely love Live Lounge covers of commercial pop records, more than anything because there's nothing nicer than listening to a stripped-back song being performed (by a talented vocalist) with live instrumental accompaniment imo.

Not at all. If people didn't sing what you call covers they would all disappear and we would miss out on some great songs.

I don't see how the fact that a song is a cover means it can't be original. Just to give an obvious example off the top of my head, Johnny Cash's cover of Nine Inch Nails' 'Hurt' is completely different from the original song, it's not like he just took someone else's song and did next to nothing with it. Even if an artist doesn't change a song much, often a cover can be better than the original if, for example, the singer is more suited to the song than the original artist. Unless a cover version really adds absolutely nothing to the song, or completely murders it, I don't see the problem.

Yeah I agree with this. When I first became a fan of The Corrs a few years ago, I didn't realise till a couple of years later when I became a fan of Fleetwood Mac and Stevie Nicks that Dreams was a cover. It didn't change my opinion of The Corrs' version of the song and personally, I prefer their version to the original version even though I like the original also.

already a big thread about the exact same thing .. and only on page 2 as well ..

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1601451