I can’t find a video of it, but “Who Let the Dogs Out” as a polka really hurts.
Here is an up-tempo bluegrass version of Pink Floyd’s Brain Damage.
Bluegrass version of “Low”…
Mike Flowers - Wonderwall
Poppy lounge version of Oasis’ Wonderwall. I have no idea if this is even known in the US, but it reached #2 in the UK:
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Missed the edit: YouTube’s algorithms inform me that they also did this to Bowie. (The medley also includes, oddly, Let’s Spend The Night Together, which was, I think, the B side of something or other).
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Another one: I’ve always been fond of Australia’s punk pioneers the Saints’ version of Phil Spector’s/Tina Turner’s wall of sound masterpiece “River Deep, Mountain High”.
I was about to say “Bet no one here ever heard Barking Dog, they used to ruin NiWS…” I googled and wow, they didn’t fade away in the early 80s!
Maybe it’s just me, but I often find popular songs covered in odd or unexpected genres to be amusing and enjoyable, not “ruined” at all. Especially Bluegrass covers like these for some reason, even though I don’t usually listen to ‘serious’ Bluegrass.
No, it’s not just you, in fact I like the examples I posted and many of the others in this thread. I think we don’t have to take the “ruined forever” part of the OP too seriously.
Nope, I’m firmly in the “Cover songs should be different than the original” camp.
I teach a class in Creativity, and I tell of the time I was at a bar with live jazz. The band rollicked into a really fast swing number and part way through I heard “mohair suit” and realized they were doing an unrecognizable version of Bennie & The Jets. We all started singing along, and I swear to this day I could feel new pathways being formed in my brain.
So to stay creative, I have a playlist of covers. GOOD covers, not cutesy “Look, I did Ozzy but with a banjo!”… more like “Hurt” or " Me and Bobby McGee".
(See, I didn’t even have to identify the artists…)
I wouldn’t say these songs are ruined. Some profit by it.
My favorite is Big Daddy’s re-imagining Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will go on” from Titanic as an upbeat Elvis Presley song. The first time I heard it, I didn’t recognize what it was a cover of
Yep, understood. Maybe we need a “Popular songs made more delightful by being played in an odd or unexpected musical genre” thread.
Another “popular songs played in different genre” version I like is when songs are covered big band-style, like Postmodern Jukebox. Even though, like Bluegrass, I don’t typically listen to that genre of music. Here’s a nice cover of Talking Heads’ “This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)”:
Ooh, after that finished playing a very tasty version of “Hey Ya!” also with Sara Niemietz singing auto-played. I think I have a little bit of a crush on her now…
The “ruined” part was specific to the links in my first two posts – these were purposefully done to be terrible, rather than artful and interesting covers in different genres. But I welcome all these other examples that are not quite so awful!
Yeah, the only one in this thread I’ve listened to that really was ruinous was the utterly soulless, “white bread with extra mayo” Lawrence Welk singers’ cover of “One Toke Over the Line” that @Skywatcher posted.
It reminded me of a variety show Pat Boone and his family had back in the 70s-- one time they did a cover of the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive” as a skit while they were pretending to exercise. The Bee Gees version, with lily-white English guys singing about life on the streets is already a parody of itself, but seeing the Boone family doing calisthenics while singing “Whether you’re a mother or whether you’re a brother, just stayin’ alive, stayin’ alive…” takes the song to new depths of banal toothlessness. Even as a kid it was utterly surreal to witness. I tried to find a clip of it on YouTube but no luck.
Oh my god. never watch the video. It’ll induce suicide. Still, Johnny Cash owns that song now. Sorry, Trent.
For intertersting covers, compare Mad World by Tears For Fears
to Mad Word by Gary Jules
In that case, in addition to the thoroughly ruinous covers that I’ve already posted, I’ll offer up the theme from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, as re-imagined by The Propellerheads and David Arnold. I have no idea what this genre is called.
While I’m here, Magazine put a different sort of groove on an old Sly Stone favorite.
Magazine:
Original:
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Russian klezmer rendition of Rammstein’s “Du Hast”?
Certainly isn’t just you. It’s one of my favourite things.
Postmodern Jukebox (a variety of styles, mostly jazz variants, but also early rock and roll subgenres), Leo Moracchioli (metal), Mike Flowers (lounge, mentioned above) or Me First and the Gimme Gimmes (punk) are all great.
Since I couldn’t find a channel for Me First, and nobody’s linked them earlier, I’ll pop in a link to their cover of Take Me Home, Country Roads:
(I actually prefer Leo’s cover, but the Gimmes do it well, too…)
Still the same genre, but in the distinctive style of a different iconic band:
What if Iron Maiden had written Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”?
