What I am is what I am, are you what you are, or what?

For the last couple of weeks I've spent much of my time thinking about, and listening to, all the new music I have come across in 2008. That is interesting in itself but it has made me think more generally about about the ways in which music evolves - why certain things come round again and how and why they are reinvented or recycled.
Things crossing my mind currently include my favourite singles of 2008, particularly widely successful ones and for a reason, also a top ten of cover versions from 2008, and why I think both topics matter.

One of the cover versions that I really like is a bit like a comet - it comes back to shine brightly every ten years and so - thus at least for those under twenty-something it will probably always be associated with Emma Bunton and TinTinOut (for whom it was a 1999 UK single). It was originally written by Edie Brickell and Kenny Withrow and appeared on the 1988 album 'Shooting Rubber Bands at the Stars', which was the début by Texan band Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians.
It has appeared once again in 2008 as one of the few covers on 'Deranged', the self-released début album by West Virginian singer-songwriter Stacee Lawson.

I like this version of 'What I Am' to bits and actually most of the rest of the album too - it came within a whisker of being included on the second of the two lists of Albums of 2008 that I posted last week.