Vanilla Fudge’s cover of *You Keep Me Hangin’ On *strays quite a bit from the tone of the Supreme’s version.
Missed the spirit, but in a good way…
On the other hand, the Glee rip-off of Jonathan Coulton’s version completely missed the point of the cover.
I mean, they only did it because people kept asking them to.
I remember when the acoustic version came there were some people that I thought were my friends said that is was better.
My take is that the guy singing the original wants this woman so bad that it’s killing him. The remake is sung by a guy that’s had her.
Back in 1967, one-hit wonder Robert Knight did a song called “Everlasting Love,” clocking-in at just under 3 minutes. Good song. A classic. In 1974, Carl Carlton remade the song in a faster tempo - still a good rendition - and did it in a little over 2 1/2 minutes. In 1994, Gloria Estefan, who IMHO was a queen of excess, also did an up-tempo version but stretched it out to over 4 minutes with about 1:30 of pointless riffing, a la “we have a love, we have a love, we have a love, an everlasting love, it’s everlasting, yes it’s everlasting, ooh our everlasting love…” (This is not quoted verbatim, but you get the idea.) I’ve always hated it when a singer goes on and on like that, as if they’re being paid by the minute, taking a perfectly good, tight pop tune and making it twice as long as it should be.
Her version of “Let It Snow,” which gets a lot of play around this time of year, is equally dreadful and pointless. Just sing the damn song and be done with it!
You could easily pose the argument that THAT is exactly what happened.
Bobby Darin’s version of “Mack the Knife.”
The original (Lotte Lenya, who the song was written for) is dark and dangerous, which fits since it’s talking about a stone cold killer. Even in the original German, it’s haunting.
Darin jazzes it up and completely ignores the darkness in the lyrics into a cool celebration of a psychopath.
you forget it was remade as a duet several times in between in the 80s one version was one of the first videos pre mtv ………
The Monkees. You are saying the Monkees did a gritty earnest version.
My vote would be Billy Idol’s version of “LA Woman” though apparently that was on purpose. I heard an interview where he was saying how Morrison was so down on L.A. and he wanted to be more positive. Here’s an idea: write your own damned song then, you turkey.
That makes it even creepier for me! Probably one of the earlier examples of “lyrics down(beat), song up(beat).”
Had her and had done with her. Clapton and Patti Boyd divorced in 1988 and the acoustic version of Layla was recorded in 2004.
Brandy by Scott English.
It could do without the early 70’s orchestral and choral distractions, but in essence it’s rather spiky, rather powerful and rather good.
Title changed to Mandy by Barry Manilow, and suddenly you have a piece of blanded out pap.
Here’s the original: Brandy - Scott English ( original version of Mandy - Barry Manilow ) - YouTube
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Boy oh boy do I disagree with all of this. There is no way a song describing the night of a boyfriend killing his girlfriend in a car accident can be anything but sad. The original version makes absolutely no sense as the peppy 60s beat. Pearl Jam nailed it.
I can’t say the same for the subtext or whatever about Disturbed’s version of Sound of Silence other than it takes the original’s creepy vibe and makes it more powerful.
If wikipedia can be believed, the acoustic version was recorded in 1992.
Which doesn’t affect the point that LoneRhino’s description is both artistically and factually accurate.
This was going to be my contribution as well. It’s absolutely horrible.
When I heard about this, I figured that Weezer would totally make fun of the song. But instead they went for a respectful, note-for-note cover. Maybe they really *like *the original? Who’d a thunk it?..
Mea culpa if my date was in error, but 100% agreed on Lone Rhino’s accuracy.
The ones that first came to mind have all been mentioned: Madonna’s “American Pie,” Lenny Kravitz’s “American Woman,” any cover by Smash Mouth (I was thinking “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby” myself), all just suck the soul and charm out of the originals and add nothing in the remake.
Except for one. Maybe I’m a little hard on the song–I don’t remember it really showing up much on “bad covers” types of threads or lists-- and I do like Phil Collins, though more for his Genesis work and drumming (though “Calling the Air Tonight” is fantastic). But his version of “True Colors” by Cyndi Lauper also fits my definition of a bad cover by sucking the soul and charm of the song and turning it into just an adult contemporary shade of beige.