Disturbed - Shout http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7Mu509Ln-M
Disturbed - Land of Confusion http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqEzkdA2-_k
Dream Theater - Master of Puppets http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O4HOMPD-1E
Considering new covers come out all the time, so what if the topic has been done before?
I like Deepfield’s cover of “Don’t Let Go (Love)” at least as well as the original, despite it being a very different take on the song.
I tend to like covers like the one above which are covered by a singer of a different gender than in the original versions. Like “Running Up That Hill” by Placebo, “Hot in Herre” by Jill Sobule, “Straight Out Of Compton” by Veruca Salt’s Nina Gordon, “Possession” by Evans Blue, “Baby, One More Time” by both Travis & Fountains of Wayne, “Jolene” by The White Stripes, “Let’s Go To Bed” by Ivy, “Say It Ain’t So” by Julianna Hatfield, “When You Were Mine” by Cindy Lauper & Tegan and Sara, “Paint It Black” by Vanessa Carlton, “Strange Little Girl” by Tori Amos etc.
They’re not all better than the originals by any means, but it often helps make them more interesting.
Whenever this comes up, I always have to stand up for NIN’s Hurt. I like Johnny Cash a lot, and I’m not really a NIN fan at all, but Johnny Cash’s Hurt is soulless compared to NIN’s. I honestly think it’s a terrible cover.
And, before it comes up: Dynamite Hack’s Boyz-in-tha-Hood is the worst cover song of all time.
I actually prefer Jose Feliciano’s version of Light my Fire to the Doors’ original. Not that I dislike the original, I just prefer the Latinized styling.
Nick Cave’s version of Neil Young’s Helpless is pretty cool.
Yeah, but a topic on cover songs seems to come up monthly. We do this a lot.
I feel the same way.
I like the **This Mortal Coil **covers, including Buckley’s Song To The Siren (Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins) and Syd Barret’s Late Night(Caroline Crawley of Shelleyan Orphan)
Then there are a couple of Rolling Stones covers I like better than the originals (although I do like the originals): The Sisters of Mercy cover of Gimme Shelter
and the Laibach covers of Sympathy for the Devil (a whole album of covers, but I like the single version best)
The main reason Cash’s version of ‘Hurt’ moved me is that he was old and near death when he recorded it.
The lyrics include:
‘I hurt myself today
to see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
the only thing that’s real
the needle tears a hole
the old familiar sting
try to kill it all away
but I remember everything’
which can really apply to being elderly.
Trent Reznor (the composer) became a fan of Cash’s version, however, once he saw the music video.
“ I pop the video in, and wow… Tears welling, silence, goose-bumps… Wow. [I felt like] I just lost my girlfriend, because that song isn’t mine anymore… It really made me think about how powerful music is as a medium and art form. I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone. [Somehow] that winds up reinterpreted by a music legend from a radically different era/genre and still retains sincerity and meaning — different, but every bit as pure."
The Air That I Breathe, best known for its lush recording by The Hollies. Its little-known original is by Phil Everly on his album Star Spangled Springer. It’s actually quite nice, with Phil’s beautiful tenor voice, until you get to the instrumental break, and in comes this hideous la-la-la choir. If you listen to it you’d think you were being punked. And who do we have to blame for this travesty? Warren Zevon, who arranged the mess. And Duane Eddy, who produced it.
That we have to read the same, old, well-known suggestions over again.
There’s a gun to your head?
Are you going to post this in every such thread? :smack:
**Cover songs better than the original
**
Damn near anything by Bob Dylan.
A quick reminder, folks: please keep your song quotations down to about one verse.
Well no. But I like the topic. Maybe if an old thread was resurrected again each time, there wouldn’t be this problem.
The all-time example remains Jimi Hendrix’s cover of Dylan’s All Along the Watchtower.
“Mad World” by Tears for Fears, sung by Gary Jules.
Cat Steven’s “Here Comes my baby” by Yo La Tengo.
“When U Were Mine” by Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
Alien Ant Farm “Smooth Criminal”
Alison Krauss “Baby, Now That I Found You”
Eva Cassidy “Fields of Gold”
Wild Colonials “Don’t Explain”
Annie Lennox “Whiter Shade of Pale”
Aretha Franklin “Bridge Over Troubled Water” and “Respect”
Bettye Lavette “How Am I Different” and “Streets of Philadelphia”
Big Daddy “Once in a Lifetime”
Tori Amos “Smells Like Teen Spirit”
Snakefarm “Pretty Horses”
Natalie Imbruglia “Torn” (although the Edna Swap version is cool too)
Shawn Colvin/Mary-Chapin Carpenter “One Cool Remove”
The Pixies “Head On”
Mandy Moore “Umbrella”
Black Crowes “Hard to Handle”
Otis Redding “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”
Curtis Stigers “Don’t Think Twice (It’s Alright)”
The Puppini Sisters “I Will Survive”
The Bad Plus “Heart of Glass”
Save Ferris “Come on Eileen”
Skee-Lo “Tale of Mr Morton”(Schoolhouse Rock Cover)
The Sundays “Wild Horses”
With a Little Help from My Friends is still the king for me, but the Woodstock version over the studio version. The video of this that was linked around here a few weeks ago is both brilliant and hilarious.
When the Levee breaks, as done by Led Zeppelin is incredible, but it can be argued that half of LZ’s early stuff were covers.
An oft overlooked is “Hazy Shade of Winter”, originally by paul Simon, then covered by the Bangles.
I actually prefer the Puppini Sisters’ version of “Wuthering Heights” to the Kate Bush original (and had the opportunity to personally tell the Puppinis that recently!).
Just about every cover done by Def Leppard is better than the original.
Just some examples of songs I loved by the original artists and now love Leppard’s version better (but I do still like the original version):
Rock On
No Matter What
20th Century Boy
Check out their covers CD “Yeah!”. I pretty much like or love all the versions on it.
Plus, Joe and Phil did a side project called “Cybernauts” with members of Bowie’s Spiders From Mars and those versions are amazing as well.
Moonage Daydream is my favorite from that set of songs. If you can find a way to hear it, it’s worth it.