Do you post at Fark under the name Toshiro Mifune’s Letter Opener?
Posting this link is a running gag at Fark. This version of an already cheesy song is pretty amateurish but at least it’s better than being RickRolled.
Oh, crap; I totally forgot about that album (which, incidentally, I own). I wish I could link to a version of Shatner’s “Mr. Tambourine Man”, but I can’t find one. I played that at a party once and almost had people wetting their pants laughing. It is truly priceless.
Take a deep breath, hold onto your seat, perhaps shove a thick cloth into your mouth to stifle the blood-curdling scream you’re about to emit…and click on this link.
For my money (literally – I bought them) the worst covers are collected on the Golden Throats albums:
You might think this is like shooting fish in the proverbial barrel (and regardless of what Mythbusters did with that. I’m imagining a barrel filled with fish), but I have to admit that I actually LIKE some of these offerings. Muhammed Ali does a pretty decent job of singing “Stand by Me”, and some of the others are pretty good.
But one entry on the first Golden Throats record stands out as an EXTREMELY Bad Cover. Possibly the worst ever.
It’s Andy Griffith covering House of the Rising Sun.
It’s hard enough for me to wrap my head around the idea of clean-cut Sheriff Andy singing a song about a New Orleans whorehouse in the first place. They got around this by changing the lyrics (which had already been substantially altered by the time it got to him) so that it’s now about — well, I’m not sure wht it’s about. There’s a line about a really long freight train that’s not in any other version. Maybe its Freudian, and they’re just being clever-cute. But I think they’re just being dumb.
And Andy really can sing, which makes it even worse. it lacks the comedy value of Sebastian Cabot enunciating Bob Dylan, or Jack Webb reciting the lines of “Try a Little Tenderness” in his “Just the facts, Ma’am” voice. Or Mae West trying to sing and sound “Hip”. Knowing that he probably could make this decent if he really tried just makes it worse.
But… but… [del]it’s shit[/del] I respect your opinion I guess. But do you know the original? Even if you still like it, can you see how Ms Collins turned a wistful, broken-chorded, innovative song, into a piece of sappy bouncy hippie glurge?
And for screen/keyboard’s sake, swallow your soda. If you click this link and think “Oh yes, I heard Shatner doing bizarro covers at parties in college. No need to watch.” watch anyway, at least until about 2:05…
I typically like cross-genre covers but for some reason a hard rock version of “My Favorite Things” is vastly more successful than Rat Pack crooner types trying to be “hip”. Frank Sinatra singing “Yesterday” for example. It smacks of some producer somewhere (or likely conference room full of marketing executives) saying “Well, married people over 40 LOVE you…but we need to boost sales in the 18-25 range. These Beatle fellows are certainly popular. Why not…”
I would nominate the Beach Boys’ cover of “Rock and Roll Music” – except they did a cover of “Louie, Louie” that was 10 times worse.
I’ve visited Fark before. I didn’t even know they had a message board.
Fergie singing Live and Let Die. Her timing if awful, I’m not totally sure she’s singing the right lyrics (It sounds like she might be saying “In this ever changing world in which we live in”) and the instrumental break is her vamping around the stage like a moron. Plus the stupid “Ya know ya did”? Just unnecessary on so many levels. Shoot me, please.
Sure, and for Amazing Gace and Send in the Clowns- all are wretched.
And I guess I’m in the minority but the only Pearl Jam song I like even a little is Last Kiss- now Wednesday’s 1974 cover of the song is not a personal fav, to be sure- death songs shouldn’t be peppy.
I’m a huge Pearl Jam fan, but Last Kiss is not one of my favorites because I just don’t like the song. As I recall, Eddie Vedder found the single at a garage sale and the band recorded it for the Ten Club single that year. I doubt they intentionally butchered it, since the Christmas single is something that the fans look forward to all year. It started getting airplay and the band donated the profits from the single to Kosovo relief, and it ended up making quite a bit of money.
Make that Cat Power
Or the Residents.
I’m not sure this counts since it was intentionally bad, but I really enjoy the “Bad News” version of “Bohemian Rhapsody.” I keep that one on my iPod just to give me an unexpected laugh every so often.
On a more serious note, there’s a cover of “Heart-Shaped Box” on Guitar Hero II where the lead singer comes within a hair of turning it into a country song.
I’ve never really recovered from Van Morrison’s unholy butchering of Comfortably Numb from The Wall: Live in Berlin
I can only assume that by the time Roger heard Van in rehearsal, it was too late to retract the invitation. shudder
Speaking of Joni Mitchell, some alt-rock group* did a cover of Free Man in Paris that I wouldn’t have recognized if I didn’t know the lyrics. Interpretation I can accept, but there was no melody left at all. Pretty bad.
*I heard it on a station that should have know better, and didn’t pay attention to the name of the band.
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I think the difference in why the first example is more than successful than the Sinatra-covers-the Beatles is that the former’s meant to be taken ironically. Also, despite its sugary “Sound of Music” pedigree, “My Favorite Things” is surprisingly adaptable to different genres (e.g, John Coltrane’s cover).
I think for it to be a really bad cover, you need to be an otherwise bona-fide singer; if CNN’s Anderson Cooper does a song, it’s not a bad conver in this sense.
I can’t remember hte name or the year, but it was a well-known singer and he did “We are the World” alone.