I have a CD made up of punk covers of Tom Waits songs. Great stuff.
Man, I’d love to hear that. There is another Tom Waits tribute album out there, with Neko Case doing a cover of “Christmas Card From a Hooker In Minneapolis” that I’d especially like to hear (my favorite female singer covering my favorite male singer). Then Holly Cole has an entire album of Tom Waits covers called Temptation.
I thought this was going to turn out really well, but I’ve listened to it and there’s not one track on there I like.
Tom Jones did it way more betterer.
Dread Zeppelin, anyone?
The tradition of orchestral versions of rock songs goes back at least to the mid-60’s, when Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops covered the Beatles.
Just wait until you hear the mambo “Sunday, Bloody Sunday.”
Recommendations out of my Cover Songs MP3 directory.
Seriously. A reggae band with an Elvis impersonator as lead vocalist doing cover versions of Led Zeppelin songs. They don’t get much stranger than that.
I have the London Symphony Orchestra version of Jethro Tull that RealityChuck mentioned (A Classic Case). I’ve also got orchestral versions of Pink Floyd (Us and Them) and Yes (The Symphonic Music of Yes, though I can’t find it on-line at the moment.)
I have Common Thread, which is a collection of Eagles songs performed by country artists.
I also have a collection of Beatles songs performed by various jazz artists but I can’t find it referenced on-line either. I can’t put my hands on it at the moment either but I remember it was put out by GRP records.
I have a CD of instrumental bluegrass covers of U2 songs, called Pickin’ on U2. It is cool, but they have an entire series of these, even Pickin’ on Creed. (Shudder.)
Thanks for your list, Hal. Freeze Frame? I loved that song back in the day. I’ll give Less Than Jake’s version a shot some time.
RE: Dred Zeppelin- I do believe my friend has one of their albums. I’ll ask him to bring it over… No wait. It’s on cassette, and I don’t have a tape deck. 
Lou- Bluegrass U2 sounds interesting. Creed? Anything even remotely related to that band’s tosh makes me want to vomit. I think I’d have to puncture my eardrums with a pointy stick.
This CD is kind of amusing.
I just recalled that Pepper Mill bought a record of Beatles hits rewritten as Baroque pieces a la Johann Sebastian Bach. Imagine PDQ Bach doing “Eleanor Rigby”.
Especially when you consider that the name of the group is The Benzedrine Monks of Santa Demo. Is that the kind of music you’d listen to if you were tweaking?
I especially liked the clip of “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Not that this has anything to do with the topic at hand, but I just noticed all my spelling errors in this thread. Ugh! Thanks for being kind.
Actually, Amazon cut off part of the name–it’s the Benzedrine Monks of Santa Demonica.
Bjork recently released an album comprised entirely of remakes of her hit Army of Me (with all profts going to UNICEF).Linky!
I really like the version by Grisbi . It’s got a latin/lounge feel and the girl has a gorgeous voice. I cannot wait for Grisbi to release their first album. Check out snippets on the Media link.
D’oh!
My favorite cover ever is The Slits doing “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” They give it a sort of English punk/post-punk/reggae spin to it. You can listen to a clip of it here.
Save Ferris has a great punkish cover of “Build Me Up Buttercup.” And, um… yeah. Everyone else has mentioned the others I was gonna say.
The OP’s mention of AC/DC cross genre covers reminds me of the many Black Sabbath ‘tributes’
Sabbatum By Rhondellus - “12 Black Sabbath classic songs played by middle ages music band Rondellus and sung in Latin language”
Black & Bluegrass By Ironhorse - “A Bluegrass Tribute To Ozzy Osbourne & Black Sabbath”
Bhangra Bloody Bhangra By Opium Jukebox - ‘An Indian Bhanga Tribute To Black Sabbath’. Opium Jukebox also does tributes for the Stones & The Sex Pistols.
Andy Votel does a somewhat decent electronic version of Sabbath’s ‘Hand of Doom’ on the Grand Central Various Artists compilation, but usually electronic versions blow chunks. The 1st 2 in my collection that come to mind are: ‘The Electronic Tribute To The Doors’ - Which ranks somewhere between awful & unlistenable and ‘Sympathy for the Devil Remixes’ - Where Fat Boy Slim, Full Phatt & Double D should’ve left their turntables home that day.
Does anyone have or heard the reggae tribute to Bob Dylan: Is It Rolling Bob?? I recommend it for Dylan fans - but am not well-versed enough in reggae quality to make the same recommendation to fans of the genre.
Not to mention With A Little Help From My Friends