I was reading this list of the worst music covers of all time(in their opinion). So, what in your opinion are the worst covers you have ever heard or seen?
Willam Shatner and Rocket Man.
When a bunch of guys in a gay bar tell you to turn off Madonna’s American Pie, you known it’s a very bad cover.
Aren’t the various Golden Throats albums essentially collections of the Worst Covers?
Actually, I have to disagree with some of the – I think Muhammed Ali (recording as Cassius Clay) actually did a great job with Stand by Me. And Jim Nabors, despite his inclusion, can actually singBut you really do have to wonder what possessed them to allow
Sebastian Cabot to cover Bob Dylan (really – there’s a whole album of this – Sebastian Cabot – Sebastian Cabot, Actor; Bob Dylan, Poet: A Dramatic Reading With Music (1967, Vinyl) - Discogs
Mae West doing Twist and Shout
Eddie Albert doing Blowin’ in the Wind
Jack Webb – THAT Jack Webb – doing Try a Little Tenderness
Andy Griffith doing House of the Rising Sun – with GREATLY changed lyrics
And, of course, William Shatner’s performances are legendary in their weirdness.
I can’t get behind that.* 
*semi-inside Shatner/Henry Rolins joke
mike ness from social distortion doing johnny cash …
Limp Bizkit’s “Behind Blue Eyes”. The Who’s original is one of the best rock songs ever, with awesome tension and dynamics. The cover? Takes every inch of life, meaning and punch out of the song. It’s atrocious.
Bryan Ferry doing the worst version ever of “I Put a Spell on You” while completely wasting Robin Trower on guitar.
[quote=“Dropo, post:8, topic:797600”]
Bryan Ferry doing the worst version ever of “I Put a Spell on You” while completely wasting Robin Trower on guitar.
[/QUOTE]Redemption!
Elton John’s disco version of “Johnny B. Goode”… Judas Priest also did a bad cover of this song. I don’t think Chuck Berry is the kind of artist whose tunes usually benefit from radical re-imaginings.
First, my disagreements:
#40 Power Station, Bang a Gong - it’s such a perfect 80’s cover with the slappin’ base and preening rockers. I loved it when it came out and I still do.
#31 Cowboy Junkies, Sweet Jane - yes, it’s a completely different style from the amazing VU version, but it’s a great interpretation.
And a couple additions to the list:
Celine Dion, You Shook Me All Night Long - what makes this especially awful isn’t the music, but Celine playing air guitar at the beginning
Evanescence, Heart Shaped Box - a big swing and a miss that removes all emotion from Kurt’s singing and replaces it with a lot of pitch issues
In light of the above cite, I would like to officially amend my previous post in this thread (#8) to read:
Bryan Ferry doing the worst non-instrumental version I have ever heard of “I Put a Spell on You” while completely wasting Robin Trower on guitar. And while this version can be considered no higher than #2 on a list of worst-ever versions of this great song, if there are any non-instrumental versions worse than Mr. Ferry’s version, I would prefer not to hear or even know about them.
There are a lot of good ones in there, but the biggest offense is these young whippersnappers with no sense of history. For example, this gem from The Blues Brothers Soul Man:
But this was their biggest hit—on actual album rock stations that wouldn’t play black artists at the time, no less…
Does this guy have any idea when the BB existed? Segregated music was a thing of the past in the late 70s. Has the guy heard of Hendrix? Sly Stone? Isaac Hayes?
When you need to start your criticism with “The guy who wrote and performed this song says it’s the best version of it but nuh uh!”, you should probably just hush up 
But I assume most of these types of lists intentionally have some terrible opinions in them just so the lists will get rage-circulated on social media.
They want examples of bad covers 
You can criticize The Blues Brothers as performers, but the vibe they gave off, and things I’ve heard and read about Belushi and Aykroyd, is that they understood, loved, and respected the music. It’s kind of like how The Princess Bride is making fun of fairy tales, by people who clearly love fairy tales. That earns them some props in my book, enough to take them off that list.
Really, though Sam and Dave could sing rings around them (and of course they knew that), their approach was authentic and respectful, as well as their backing band (heck, half of the Mg’s, Cropper and Dunn)
Surely Lt Kevin Riley’s cover of “I’ll Take You Home, Again, Kathleen” must count as a horrible cover!
They need to take The Blues Brothers off that list and add Crispin Glover.
I hope you were just using me as a starting point, because I love the BBers. I had the album when it was new. I wouldn’t criticize them at all.
But lots of black artists got played on AOR stations in the 70s, unlike what the yayhoo said in the linked piece.