This article took a small sample of cover songs that were intended as jabs at the original artist and extropolated that when one artist covers another from a different genre, he's making some kind of personal or political statement about the other artist or genre. Nonsense.

There is no "problem with cross genre cover songs." It is a fantasy in the head of a writer who didn't have anything to write about really.

Go ahead, dude. Explore the circumstances and background of a couple of these cover song jabs. Interview people. Make somebody the bad guy/good guy in the story.

But don't posit some blanket assumption that there is an ulterior motive or condescending intent behind most cover songs. Usually, it is simply a tribute or an attempt to add something to the original statement that perhaps wasn't fully realized in the original recording.