When covering a song, an artist must strike a balance between creating a work that sounds distinctly new while also keeping enough source material intact so that their cover is read as relating to the original. To this end, singers often preserve vocal pitches and rhythms while changing timbre (Heidemann 2016, Malawey 2020, Tatar 2022). This paper examines how timbre influences listeners' perceptions of the genre at hand, and, in turn, how previous generic expectations influence the grouping of timbres into two categories: those that lie inside the genre and those that are distinct (Frow 2005, Gjerdingen and Perrot 2008). Through examining the balance of original and reinterpreted parameters in cover songs, this research has broader implications for our understanding of the relationships between genre, timbre, and authenticity in popular music.