All of these are pretty horrible, but I think I have to nominate Toad the Wet Sprocket’s cover of Kiss’ Rock and Roll All Night. I’ll concede that it’s not the worst actual cover song ever, but slowing that song down sucks all the energy right out of it. I don’t think anyone’s ever going to accuse Kiss of being the world’s greatest lyricists, and it’s the tempo that sets the mood in the Kiss version. TtWS’s slowing it down forces you to pay attention to the lyrics, and there’s no real substance in that song.
Actually they did a whole album worth of them a few years back. Most of them were pretty decent.
Bruce Willis singing Under The Boardwalk has haunted me since 1987.
You know, if the video in the OP was performed by Will Ferrel and Cheri Oteri it’d be great. In an entirely diffferent way.
Cake doing Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’ and Sabbath’s ‘War Pigs’ are equally horrific. Cake is attrocious anyway but they really really ruin what are already goods.
You win a night with Celine Dion.
How about this one from Der Bingle?
I have it, good covers of Crossroads and For What Its Worth.
That was a telecast of a tribute concert at Wembley Stadium.
To rock and roll fans, Liza Minelli’s appearance was nothing special, but you have to remember that Freddie Mercury himself ADORED Liza. She was one of his show biz idols (as she has been to countless gay men) and role models. Most people who attended or watched that concert were rock fans first and foremost- to them, them, Axl Rose, Metallica, Def Leppard, Elton John, Robert Plant, Tony Iommi and Seal were much bigger attractions than Liza.
But Freddie himself would probably have been thrilled to have Liza sing that song in his honor, which is why the band invited her.
I think Cake’s cover is pretty good.
“One Tin Soldier” Killdozer
Yeah but that’s Killdozer, and they love ironic covers. I mean how seriously can you take a band that does a sludge rock cover of EMF’s Unbelieveable? (NSFW due to single profanity)
25 or so years back, we were eating in a restaurant that had old record albums on the walls as decor and tended to play music from the 1940s.
Frank Sinatra, singing a showtune. Beautifully, competently, melodically… except
He was singing Old Man River.
Not as painfully bad-sounding as some (e.g. Shat-anything) but the combination of the song, and the singer, was truly mind-boggling.
On the funnier side: the elevator-music version of Born In The USA. The Same. Six. Notes. Repeated. And Repeated. And Repeated.