The Leonard Cohen tribute CD I’m Your Fan is loaded with great covers, but the standouts are:
James “So Long, Marianne”
The Lilac Time “Bird on a Wire”
John Cale “Hallelujah”
R.E.M. “First We Take Manhattan”
I strongly recommend this CD to anyone who likes Leonard Cohen’s lyrics.
Ian McCulloch “Lover Lover Lover”
Still LC, just from a different CD
Hazies “Turning Japanese”
The original seems sedate compared to this.
Actualy, I liked the Lords Of Acid version…
Hmm… so many choices, so little time.
First, it would be criminal of me not to mention Toots and the Maytals’ version of “Country Roads”. Everyone and their momma covers this song (see: Me First and the Gimme Gimmes for a good punk version), but Toots just nails it.
Next, the only Dylan cover I’ve ever heard than I’ve liked more than the original. Mike Ness (lead singer of Social Distortion) does a rockabilly version of “Don’t think Twice” that is pretty much a polar opposite of Dylan’s version, and nearly makes me choke up. It’s unbelievable.
Third, a generalized vote for anything that the Grateful Dead ever covered. Now there’s a band.
Now, for the hijack. There are a lot of covers that shouldn’t have been recorded, but most of them (see: Limp Bizkit, anything with the label “rap-rock”, etc.) are excusable due to the fact that the band probably didn’t know any better. However, there are some that should. Like 10,000 Maniacs. They had no right to defame Patti Smith with “Because the Night”, and they should have known it. (Plus, I seem to recall that Natalie Merchant changed one or two of the racier lyrics, which really watered down the song’s intent.)
Finally, two good covers of songs that shouldn’t have been recorded:
Cake- “I Will Survive”
Pearl Jam- That damn auto-wreck song (I don’t really like Pearl Jam, and this isn’t the best possible cover of the song, but the song was so annoying in its first incarnation that anyone could do it better.)
M.
Moose Everybody’s Talkin’ (Harry Nilsson)
Brendan Perry Happy Time (Tim Buckley)
My Bloody Valentine Map Reference 41N 93W (Wire)
Roy Montgomery Used To (Wire again!)
Wire are like the Tim Buckley of punk… they get covered and covered and covered.
What else… any This Mortal Coil cover, but especially Another Day (Roy Harper) and Morning Glory (Tim Buckley again!)
Tricky Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos (Public Enemy)
Kendra Smith Bold Marauder (??? Farina… I forget)
-fh
Apocalyptica is a string quartet that has a disc of (purely instrumental) covers of various Metallica songs. I like it.
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Pearl Jam does any cover ever (and there’s been a lot!) Neil Young. The Who. The Beatles. They’re all good.
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Jimi Hendrix does “All Along the Watchtower.” Now tell me when you listen to Dylan doing his OWN SONG you don’t hear that guitar riff Hendrix throws in?
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Manfred Mann’s Earth Band does “Blinded by the Light.” God, how I would love to be able to hate this song. It’s so cheesy. It makes no sense whatsoever…and yet, I can’t help but think about little early purly coming by in his curly wurly and asking me if I need a ride.
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The Clash does “Time is Tight.” A punk band doing Booker T? F***ing amazing.
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The Who does “Young Man Blues.” Okay, I’ve never heard the original, but regardless, this is a very, very, very cool song.
My favourite covers:
Black Steel - Tricky
Tainted Love - Soft Cell
Everlasting Love - U2
Dancing Barefoot - U2
Dancing Barefoot - Johnette Napolitano
Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley
Everybody Knows - Concrete Blonde
Little Wing - Concrete Blonde
All Along the Watchtower - Jimi Hendrix
You Really Got a Hold on Me - The Beatles
We’ve Only Just Begun - Grant Lee Buffalo
Hazy Shade of Winter - Bangles
Baby One More Time - Travis
Bizarre Love Triangle - Frente
Brass in Pocket - Suede
The Loved One - INXS
It’s Oh So Quiet - Bjork
Being Boring - Merril Bainbridge
One - Johnny Cash
I love both versions of “Dancing Barefoot” - Johnette’s got the killer vocals, but the guitar in U2’s version is awesome.
With “Baby One More Time”, Travis somehow manage to simultaneously take the piss AND find the real heart and soul of the song. It’s genuinely moving!
And I’d agree that Westlife’s “Uptown Girl” is an evil abomination from the darkest pits of hell. It’s like A1’s “Take On Me”. I mean, really, how could you go wrong with classics like those? Easy - just make them as bland as humanly possible.
“Blue Monday” covered by Orgy(original by New Order)
“I Feel You” covered by Placebo(original by Depeche Mode)
And racinchikki, I second your choice of Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal”. I remember when the original came out, I loved it. Now that AAF made a cover of it, I love it even more.
Of course, there are those songs that are covers that I love that I am not aware are covers. Put those here, too.
eh, you know that after jimi covered “all along the watchtower” bob realised it was better that way and always played it like that in tribute?
good covers
jimi-watchtower
jeff buckley- hallelujah
nirvana- man who sold the world
bob marley- go tell it on the mountain
james brown- soul man
aretha- respect
otis redding- (can’t get no) satisfaction
praise you- fatboy slim
run on- moby
a sample of my eclectic musical taste.
bad covers
rainin’ men- geri halliwell (eat woman, for gods sake EAT!)
am. pie- madonna (hmmm…not well judged)
westlife. full stop.
under the bridge-all saints (why oh why, they did a bad lady marmalade as well)
i will always love you-whitney (leave it to dolly sweetheart)
the best cover of all time?
i reckon the time my friends and i sang “hey johnny” by paul brady at a wake for our best friend. but that’s my (humble) opinion.
Green Day - Eye of the Tiger
Nirvana - Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Live - Imagine
Can’t really think of any other ones.
Dweezil Zappa-Baby One More Time (Spears’ songwriter)
PM Dawn-You Got Me Floatin’ (Hendrix)
The Cure-Purple Haze (Hendrix)
The Cure-World In my Eyes (Depeche Mode)
David Arnold & Shara Nelson-Moonraker(John Barry & Shirley Bassey)
Bryan Ferry-Rescue Me (Miner & Smith)
Candy Dulfer-I Can’t Make You Love Me (Reid & Shamblin)
Battery-The Chauffeur (Duran Duran)
Limp Bizkit-Mission Impossible Theme (Instrumental only, thankyouverymuch)
Guns & Roses-Sympathy For The Devil (Jagger et al)
…now putting on flame-retardent clothing for that last one
Fun Boy Three-Our Lips Are Sealed (Go Gos)
The Byrds - “Mister Tambourine Man” (Bob Dylan)
Deep Purple- Hush (Joe South)
The Beatles- *I Wanna Be Your Man * (The Rolling Stones)
Not sure if this counts as a cover, since Mick Jagger wrote it for her, but, The Rolling Stones- As Tears Go By (Marianne Faithfull- her voice is just a bit too sweet for this song)
Nazereth- Love Hurts (The Everly Brothers)
Honorable Mention- Spirit in the Sky (Norman Greenbaum) Dr. and the Medics did a pretty decent job with this one, and I heard a country/western version of it once that was just awesome, but I don’t know the name of the band that did it.
Juice Newton’s Queen of Hearts (original by ?)
Duran Duran’s White Lines (Grandmaster Flash?)
Rolling Stone’s Ain’t Too Proud to Beg (?)
Eric Clapton’s Bell Bottom Blues (Bob Dylan)
Kim Carnes’ Bette Davis Eyes (Jackie De Shannon)
Tesla’s Signs (Five Man Electrical Band)
Chrissy Hynde’s I’m not in Love (10 cc)