Beseech - Gimme Gimme Gimme
Oh, without a doubt. Cocker rocks this song, but then he just rocks.
One last contribution, The Man Who Sold The World. I like both versions but have to give it to Bowie’s original. Nirvana’s cover is a great artistic interpretation and extremely well done.
Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World
David Bowie - http://youtube.com/watch?v=LSnXjE66tvQ
Not sure about better but I REALLY loved this version back in the day and it still stands up pretty well now - DEAR PRUDENCE (Beatles) by DOUG PARKINSON IN FOCUS:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IBKOvyIll8
I also like this one - ELEANOR RIGBY (Beatles again) by ZOOT (look for a vey young Rick Springfield).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_3IUASoqfM
The Mountain Goats - “The Sign”. It puts the original by Ace of Base to shame. (Easy target, I know, but the Goats’ version kicks 90’s dance-pop’s well-polished butt.)
The Butthole Surfers cover of The Guess Who’s American Woman is sheer, unadulterated genius.
My favorite cover of all time is Fairport Convention’s cover of Dylan’s “Percy’s Song,” on “Unhalfbricking.”
Second is The Clash’s version of “Pressure Drop.” The opening riff is currently being used in a Nissan commercial, but don’t hold that against it.
Nancy Sinatra’s Bang Bang (in Kill Bill) is a good one.
There’s another splendid cover on “Bless Its Pointed Little Head:” The Airplane do a fine job with Donovan’s “Fat Angel,” which contains the VERY appropriate lines, “fly Jefferson Airplane/gets you there on time.”
I thought someone would have mentioned Van Halen’s cover of the Kinks “You Really Got Me” by now… So, there you go!
To me Eva Cassidy’s version is almost unbearably moving (in a good way). I’d never heard the original before and always figured it was an old folk song. Hearing what the original actually sounds like makes her version even more impressive.
Wow, that is really good. Maybe not better than the original, but very impressive.
Roky Erickson and the Explosives doing the Velvets’ **Heroin **live, as presented on the Gremlins Have Pictures album. This may well be the very best cover version of any song ever recorded anywhere by anyone, but I don’t quite have the balls to say so unequivocally.
**Joan Jett **has done a whole lot of covers in her career, and damned good ones too, mostly, but there are three that stand out: Roadrunner, Crimson and Clover, and The Little Drummer Boy
The Dead Kennedys also gave us a trio of the most kick-ass renditions of all time IMNAAHO: Viva Las Vegas, the theme from Rawhide, and **I Fought The Law [And I Won] **-- it’s the Bobby Fuller song as done by Dan White, you see…
The Divine Horsemen did a version of Gimmee Shelter way back in the 1980s, that still gives me the chills whenever I listen to it; a decade later, Chris D. went back and re-formed the Flesheaters, and they did a blistering take on AC/DC’s classic** If You Want Blood, You Got It,**.
Speaking of AC/DC, The Atomic Bitchwax also gave props to Australia’s finest with their rendition of Dirty Deeds (Done Dirt Cheap)
And Nick Cave’s The Mercy Seat, the way it’s sung by Johnny Cash,is one of the very few songs to lay me out on the floor near tears and physically shivering from the sheer beauty and power of it. In fact, it’s the only song that’s ever done that to me.
Patti Smith’s version of Gloria just simply spanks every other version right out of existence --but you already knew that, right?
Lynyrd Skynyrd: one great rock band. That Smell: one great fucking song. That Smell covered by Canned Heat: one pinnacle of greatness so high that there’s ice and snow on it,that’s how motherfucking great it is.
There are a shitload of covers of Hey Joe. It’s simply a hard-assed righteous little gem of a song is all, and a lot of fine rock musicians have recorded their own gloss on it. Some of those recordings are pretty damned good, like Patti Smith’s. A few approach excellence, like the early one by the Leaves (who?). Some are acknowledged classics like Jimi’s. But the greatest Hey Joe cover of all is the one on Body Count’s third album. Because Body Count were a great, intense, hard-and-heavy-as-a-motherfucker rock and roll group, who carried the power of Satan’s lightning onstage with them, and that song could have been written just for **Ice-T **and the snarling urgency of his voice, and the total gut sincerity of his delivery.
I came into this thread to recommend that, and damn you it’s the first one in your OP.
YMMV, etc…but by god, that’s really, really pants compared to the original.
Iron and Wine covered Such Great Heights (original by Postal Service) as a hushed acoustic lullaby. I have to say, I actually like it better than the original, since the minimal arrangement makes the lyrics shine through.
Some I’d add:
Beck’s version of the Korgi’s “Everybody’s got to learn”
The already mentioned Nouvelle Vogue’s version of “Dance with me” (I think it was originally Lord’s of the New Church, but could be wrong)
Cocker’s version of “The Letter” really whips the buttocks of the original.
Which two? I’ve got Rock Animals and Let’s Knife. There are some moments of brilliance, but a little Shonen Knife goes a long way, too.
The best description I’ve heard is that Shonen Knife are what you’d get if you crossed The Ramones with Hello Kitty.
Early In The Morning was originally done by Jimmy Rushing or somebody way back when I was a toddler. The very best cover was by Harry Nillsson.
Speaking of Harry Nilsson…
Three Dog Night’s version was itself a cover of Nilsson’s original. (All of TDN’s hits were covers or songs given to them by songwriters; they didn’t write their own songs.)
Weird. Two pages of replies and no one (that I saw) has mentioned Manfred Mann’s cover of “Blinded by the Light”. I honestly thought that was the default answer to the OP’s question.