It’s good, but the original is just electrifyingly good. Not sure it can be improved upon.
Different? yes. Successful? Only in a purely white-bread Republican sort of way. Geesh.
I listened to all of these and a couple others on Youtube as well, and they were all fun, but my favorite version was The Outlaws’ version. Just had more depth to it than the others. The acoustic versions just don’t have the power to convey hellish sky riders rolling across a jagged cloudscape that the electric versions do. Generally, I dont find taking an electric ballad acoustic to be an improvement. It’s a very standard way of re-interpreting a song and most of the time is not an improvement, IMHO.
I was not expecting to like this one, but reinterpreting the song as an edgy jazz piece totally worked.
yeah, Deep Purple’s reinterpreation of “Hush” is original and stands on its own. Much better than the orginal song as well. Their version of “Kentucky Woman” likewise.
No sooner than I say acoustic covers don’t generally work that well than you have to show me an exception. Thanks a lot!
Absolutely Sweet Marie - Bob Dylan (original)
Absolutely Sweet Marie - Jason and the Scorchers (cover)
Jason gave it a great cowpunk twist.
Smashing Pumpkins cover of Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide”. Tori Amos also has a somewhat less radical cover.
Marilyn Manson’s cover of The Eurythmics “Sweet Dreams”.
In this same vein how about Elvis Presley’s cover of Big Mama Thornton’s (Stoller and Lieber) Hound Dog?
I agree with most of what you have posted. The problem is that if you don’t know the lyrics an all instrumental version like Duane Eddy’s won’t scare the crap out of you. You will just think, wow this is a nice tune.
My personal favorite veersion of this song is this one done by Johnny Cash.
Now if somebody could combine his vocals with Duane Eddy’s guitar…
50 Cent’s Ayo Technology covered by Milow
A college acapella group covered Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance that I thought was pretty cool.
Scissor Sisters cover of “Take Me Out” by Franz Ferdinand
Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” by Dolly Parton
Joe Cocker’s cover of “With A Little Help From My Friends” by the Beatles
Amy Winehouse’s cover (1, 2) of “Valerie” by the Zutons
Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s cover of “Blinded by the Light” by Bruce Springsteen
Al Green’s cover of “How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” by the The Bee Gees
Maxwell’s cover of “This Woman’s Work” by Kate Bush
Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics
Marc Ronson’s cover of “Toxic” by Britney Spears
Travis’s cover of “Hit Me Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears
Cake’s cover of “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor
Rufus Wainwright’s cover of “Across the Universe” by the Beatles
Gnarls Barkley’s cover of “Gone Daddy Gone” by the Violent Femmes
Seu Jorge’s cover of “Life On Mars” by David Bowie
Marie Laforet’s cover of “Paint It Black” by the Rolling Stones
Cat Power’s cover of “Sea of Love” by Phil Phillips
The Glee cover of “Dancing With Myself” by Billy Idol
Gary Jules’ cover of “Mad World” by Tears for Fears
I think Jann Arden does a very nice job with You Don’t Know Me as well (I don’t think it’s been linked here yet).
But it’s so good I want to make it easier to get to -
Laibach are the kings of reworking a classic song and twisting it into something wonderfully twisted and awe-inspiring, in my humble opinion - to wit:
Jesus Christ, Superstar:
The Beatles’ Across the Universe:
And here is a playlist of 5 other songs off their remake of the ‘Let It Be’ album:
Even a song like In the Year 2525:
Okay guys, I bringing out the big guns now.
First off, Betty Lavette’s album of covers of British rock is fantastic, which she was inspired to do after the praise she received for her absolutely brilliant rendition of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” And it’s clear that Townsend, Daltry and Streisand all agree. And if you aren’t hip to Bettye, it’s time.
But the topper has to be Chris Cornell doing Billie Jean. And really, to do it justice, you need to be able to crank it to get the full impact…
Evil, I think you misinterpreted Biggirl’s post. You came to the same conclusion. The only way for that song to be more whitebread would be an Andy Williams cover.
Jose Feliciano, however, did a fine job with it.
Although the Young Rascals’ Good Lovin’ is a fine piece of music, The Gilberto Sextetdid a Latin Boogaloo style cover that makes it seem like they did the original and the Rascals covered them.
Neil Sedanka’s ballad version of Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, a rework of his original uptempo version. Both versions made #1 on the charts.
H2O’s version of Like A Prayer is pretty kickass.
The White Stripes “Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself” revving the paranoia up to 11.
