This has a Cafe Society bent to it but figured this called for opinion so here it is.
Personally I almost never like a cover song better than the original. Only rarely do I hear a reinterpreting of a song that I like and even more rarely like better than the original artist’s version.
Yet occasionally someone really manages to pull it off in spectacular fashion. I am hard pressed to think of many but would like to find more. To start it off I offer the following:
I am a fan of Leonard Cohen. I think he is an amazing lyricist. One of the best set of lyrics I have ever heard is the song Hallelujah by Cohen. Pure poetry, just stunning.
I really like his version but he has been upstaged (and willing to bet he loves it). The song Hallelujah has been done as a cover by an unusually large variety of singers. Not surprising since the brilliance of the song is hard to miss and many others wanted a go at it. A Jeff Buckley cover seems to be a favorite but personally I do not care for it.
However, K.D. Lang did a cover several years ago at the Canadian Juno Awards that was a show stopper. K.D. Lang herself is amazing with a staggering talent one has to think only god could give. She outdid even herself here. If you know the song and have not seen this you really must check it out (you can thank me later). If you don’t you should anyway.
Check it out and, as the thread’s OP suggests, if anyone has other amazing covers to share that’d be great.
I like it too although personally I am sticking with K.D. Lang on this one (will give it a tie with the original which, as noted in the OP, is high praise in my mind). The last, Down’s Syndrome looking guy does have an amazing voice. Would like to hear just him do the whole song solo.
I’m not sure how fair this is, but talking about Dylan, there a few artists who have bettered the originals. I say not fair because some of them come from Dylan’s Great White Wonder/Basement Tapes, and so were sort of not officially recorded by him.
For example, This Wheel’s On Fire, covered by Julie Driscoll and The Brian Auger Trinity, and the Byrds.
The Mighty Quinn covered by Manfred Mann.
I Shall Be Released and Tears Of Rage by The Band.
The Byrds have done Dylan better than Dylan quite often IMO: Mr Tambourine Man, My Back Pages, You Ain’t Going Nowhere for example.
Another genre that you could almost start a complete thread on is reworking of old blues songs. Of course, as with my Dylan comments above, this could be seen as sacrilege, if you believe the originals are sacrosanct. But I don’t. So my starter for ten is The Doors version of Back Door Man, closely followed by Led Zeppelin’s I Can’t Quit You and You Shook Me.
On a different tack, I have always thought that Mountain’s version of Jack Bruce’s Theme From An Imaginary Western is vastly superior.
Johnny Cash’s version of “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails… takes a song by whiney goths about the self-indulgence of drug use and turns it into a shattering song by an old man contemplating the end of his life.
Sonic Youth covered The Carpenters *‘Superstar’ *in an incredibly beautiful fashion.
The Clash’s version of Junior Murvin’s Police and Thieves was an update that bettered the original.
I am usually faithful to the original, but those two stand out.
(Often people don’t even know a song is a cover, such as Alien Ant Farm’s version of Michael Jackson’s Smooth Criminal.)
M Ward’s cover of Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” is IMO vastly superior to the original.
Red House Painter’s cover of The Cars’ “All Mixed Up” Ditto.
I’m on my iPhone right now, I’ll dig up links for both when I get home.
Also, while not better, Marah’s cover of Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” is spectacular…imagine a bluegrass version of what is a
pretty haunting song.
I loved Glenn Campbell’s version of “Gentle on My Mind” and still do, but when I heard Lucinda William’s version at the end of Talladega Nights, it just blew me away. Absolutely hauntingly beautiful.
