Last week’s X Factor had a group called Miss Fitz auditioning with an Andrews Sisters style version of Toxic. (Starts about at 2:15)
The Mike Flowers Pops version of ‘Wonderwall’
and also ‘Light my fire’
Rolf Harris - can you guess what it is yet?
When he was asked to cover the song, he had never heard the original and just looked at the lyrics and basic tune. He was told to make it as ‘Rolf Harris’ style as he could make it.
Jason Mraz does Blitzkrieg Bop.
Heidi Berry covers “Up In The Air” by Husker Du.
José González has a cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop (the song used as the theme for House)
It’s not ironic though, unless you derive irony from unironically covering a song completely off-genre.
And, for the record, people who use the term “unironically” make me want to murder. Chuck Klosterman does this all the time in his “irrelevant pop culture is extremely relevant!” essays. I’d like to unironically murder him.
I am not sure this qualifies—can you do a cover of your own song?
But when David Lee Roth did the Bluegrass version of ‘Jump’ it seems like it qualifies. Be forewarned though it is bad (in my opinion) and you may need to bleach your brain afterwards.
On a similar note, the Chieftains did a celtic-tinged version of Behind Blue Eyes, with Daltry on vocals.
It’s not softer so much as…less rough. Eh, I’m not really sure how to put it. Listen for yourself.
(Unlike the Bluegrass Jump, though, it’s actually good in its own right…I waver between ‘close to’, ‘equal to’, and ‘better than’ the original.)
I haven’t even clicked the link, but I’m 99.9% sure I know what it is.
There are quite a few soft covers of Stairway to Heaven on this disk (including dear old Rolf’s).
Similarly, the Violent Femmes did a mellower cover of “Crazy”, in tribute to the pretty straightforward Gnarls Barkley cover of their song “Gone Daddy Gone.”
I don’t think I’d consider most of the covers listed here as “ironic”. But then I believe there’s more actual “inter-artist” respect than we think there is. In other words (ans as an example), artists covering Britney Spears have more respect for her talent than we fans generally do.