In the folk world, just about anything by The Imagined Village.
Favourites of mine by them include: Tam Lin, My Son Johnand their take on Slade’s Cum on Feel the Noize
I also like Nouvelle Vague’s very sweet and tender take on the Smith’s Sweet and Tender Hooligan.
Oh, and not to mention their absolutely adorable version of the Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen.
Awesome thread.
Kind of surprised no one has mentioned Tina Turner’s cover of Proud Mary. Both CCR’s original and her cover were big hits (It’s arguably Tina Turner’s most well known song).
Rebecca Black has been working on her singing big time, as she shows in this cover of We Can’t Stop: Miley Cyrus - We Can't Stop (Rebecca Black & Jon D Acoustic Cover) - YouTube
All my other nominations for covers have already been covered (no pun intended).
Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin* have recorded quite a few interesting covers, including
“It’s My Party” (look for Tom Dolby as “Johnny”)
“I’m In A Different World” (this is a Four Tops cover. Here’s s/G’s Extended version)
“Leipzig” (Tom Dolby cover)
- Not the Dave Stewart from Eurythmics with Annie Lennox. This Dave Stewart was in Prog groups like Egg, Hatfield and the North, National Health and others.
Well, that’s definitely an improvement. She does pretty well with the duet.
Snake River Conspiracy did a pretty decent rework of The Cure’s Love Song (which has been done to death, I know, but at least this one sounds different).
I also came in to praise Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World. It was originally recorded by Tears for Fears.
A while back Brickbacon mentioned the Travis version of Ooh Baby Baby, and Marty Casey was accused of stealing it for Rock Star INXS, but up until today Marty’s version was my favorite cover of all time
but now my favorite is the Boy and Bear cover of Crowded House’s Fall at Your Feet mentioned by Strangebird. I love this thread and hope it lives on.
In the same vein, I love this version of “Hey Ya” by the Blanks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8K0EAc3abq8
Bananarama’s cover of Venus was very successful and still get’s airplay today. It’s rather different from the original.
And of course Elvis’ cover of Hound Dog.
This is what I was going to say. The song is almost a cliche now, but Buckley turned a, well, “hallelujah” type song to one of pain and loss. Same song, but richer and much more nuanced. Kind of like what Johnny Cash did with “Hurt.”
tl;Dr
Rod Stewart’s Downtown Train, Tom Waits
Guns N’ Roses’ Sympathy for the Devil, The Rolling Stones
R.P. Greaves’ pop classic Take a Letter Maria was covered by Seattle’s Go Like Hell, but I can’t find a video on YouTube. Wonder if there were copyright issues? They used to have a video of it up.
4 Non-Blondes’ What’s Going On was covered by DJ Miko. Very different.
Santana’s cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Black Magic Woman”
Yes, it was Something. But it’s a little more complicated. George Harrison gave it to Cocker and Cocker recorded it before The Beatles did. But the release of The Beatles’ Abbey Road beat Cocker’s album by a few months.
The Fireballs did a very good hard rock version of Tom Paxton’s folk song “Bottle of Wine.” Paxton loved it, but remarked “If I tried to sing it like that, my thought would jump out.”
This is one of my favorite threads, I hope we can get it going again.
Wake Me Up by Avicii
Wake Me Up performed on violins, by Taylor Davis
Who’s done a good cover of a song by the Zombies?
Carlos Santana, “She’s not There”, which could fit the OP.
I’m not sure that Loreena McKinnett can be said to be COVERING the Mummer’s Dance, but her interpretation is so perfectly on the money in every respect that it’s difficult to think of another version that might top it.
As a variation of this, Joni Mitchell’s later re-interpretation of “Both Sides Now.”