What are some cover bands (or just individual covers) that you like better than the original group?
I realize that this is a bit of a faux-pas in some circles (:o), but I honestly think the ATeens, at least in their first album of all ABBA covers, are better than ABBA themselves. While I was thinking about it, I also just noticed that ABBA has two good-looking women and two relatively unattractive guys and the A*Teens have two relatively unattractive women and two good-looking guys. On preview: the word ATeens is in the same spot in both lines, weird.
Petra Haden does covers of Thriller, God Only Knows, and Don’t Stop Believin’ that are all better than the originals. I also quite like Type O Negative’s cover of Cinnamon Girl, and every version of *Hallelujah ***not **sung by Leonard Cohen or Jeff Buckley.
I know it’s sacrilegious to even mention it. But I saw the Australian Pink Floyd Cover band a few months ago play the entire Pink Floyd The Wall set. It was absolutely perfect. I never got to see Floyd play the wall, but I saw every show that came my way since.
I’m not going to say they are better, but right now, if I close my eyes, I can hardly tell a difference.
I love New Order, but Frente’s version of “Bizarre Love Triangle” actually borders on lyrical poetry, whereas pretty much any song that Bernard Sumner sings in my mind comes out of a rhyming dictionary.
Most Dylan covers, because I think the man’s got a crap voice but is a brilliant lyricist.
Vanessa Williams did a great postfeminist reworking of the Isley Brothers’ “Work To Do.”
Earth, Wind, & Fire did a version of “Got To Get You Into My Life” by The Beatles that crushes the original.
I think Britpop flash-in-the-pans Sleeper did a version of “Atomic” that is miles better than the Blondie original.
I definitely prefer Jim Sturgess’s version of “Falling” in Across the Universe to the Beatles original, mostly due to the “g” at the end of the title word. Jim-as-Jude drops it, The Beatles let it be. (Horrible pun is horrible.) It sound too proper and overly correct.
(It doesn’t help that I spend the first 30 seconds of the original trying to figure out what song it is, as the intro sounds more like Quichua Machis than any other Beatles song I know.)
The Dickies did the definitive recording of ‘Nights In White Satin’. Where the Moody Blues’ rendition was draggy and sodden with pathos, the Dickies’ version is frenetic and spews flames. Great stuff.
And to go in the other direction, Jim Capaldi recorded a nice, mellow version of ‘Love Hurts’ (the Nazareth hit featured lots of moaning and groaning and always sounded to me like they were having a painful bout of constipation).
But most music critics consider that a bad thing, you know. They compare it to karaoke and say that a cover should be significantly different from the original. I’m not saying that that band is bad or anything, just pointing that out.
This is eventually going to get me to start a thread one day, if I see it a couple dozen more times. For the record I am a WAY bigger Johnny Cash fan than I am a NIN fan (have loved JC my whole life; mildly liked NIN for a couple years in the mid-90s), but NIN’s version of that song is about 100 times better than Johnny’s. I wonder if a lot of the love he got for that song was because he was dying, or maybe just because it’s a lot cooler to like Johnny Cash than it is to like NIN these days. It was not a good cover, IMO.
Also, Bicycle Race by Blümchen, a cover of a song by Queen (it’s an…interesting music video). I love the “you say…I say…” parts; she sounds so German! Jasmin Wagner also has sexy eyebrows and looks good in a crown.
No, it’s because people really do think it’s a much better treatment of the song. In contrast, for example, I really don’t care for Cash’s version of “The Mercy Seat”.
Speaking of Nick Cave, He does a great version of “Mack the Knife” that I prefer to the original.
And Motorhead’s cover of “Motorhead” is better than the original version
STP did a cover of Led Zep’s ‘Dancing Days’. I think it’s much, much better. They changed the tempo and the whole feel of the song. It’s one of my favorite songs, STP, Zep or anyone.
You mean the Lotte Lenya version? I strongly disagree. Unless you’re speaking of the Bobby Darin cover version.
Joe Cocker’s cover versions of songs are nearly always better than the originals. Examples include “With a Little Help From My Friends,” “Feelin’ Alright?,” “The Letter,” “She Came in Through the Bathroom Window,” and “Cry Me a River.”
On preview: the word ATeens is in the same spot in both lines, weird.
