Some artists, most in fact, choose to rub their own stink on all over someone else’s song. A good argument could be made that this is really the only valid point of recording a cover, but in this case that’s neither here nor there. This isn’t about those songs.
This is about cover songs that are so spot-on, so close to identical to the original, that you have to check your device to see who the artist is when it comes on.
This might sound ridiculous…ok, it flat out DOES sound ridiculous…but one of my favorite cover versions of all time (and I listen to a lot of music) is Paul McCartney’s My Love, sung by Duke Chauppetta. I think it’s faithful enough to the original to qualify as a “spot on cover.”
You probably don’t know who Duke Chauppetta is…but if you grew up in the 80s and went to Showbiz Pizza, you might recognize the name Dook LaRue. He was…an animatronic dog. Yes, there was an animatronic band at Showbiz Pizza called the Rock-Afire Explosion, but unlike the one at rival Chuck-E-Cheese, Showbiz’s animal band had serious session musicians and voice actors behind the show programming, which was, to put it mildly, extremely ambitious. They recorded countless covers of popular rock songs, for the sole purpose of being performed by robotic animals whose movements were controlled by air compressors beneath the stage.
Chauppetta, a New Orleans Italian whose speaking voice sounds every bit of it, was nonetheless able to neutralize his accent to effectively cover any song imaginable. His trick, he once told me, was to hold his nose. (The guy’s my friend, so I’m not speaking strictly from an objective position here, I may be slightly biased.) I’m still amazed that he was able to channel McCartney so accurately.
Ho-ly crap. I always thought the Showbiz Pizza band was good. I thought maybe my Mom brain was fried and that’s why I liked it. Now, here’s the rest of the story. Tell your friend I said “thanks!”
Point of information, your honour! That’s a Mike d’Abo song, first recorded (or at least released) by Chris Farlowe. Rod Stewart and Stereophonics are both covers.
I had heard so much buzz about this before I listened to it, which made it all the more disappointing that there was virtually nothing to distinguish Weezer’s version from the original.
Along with the rest of side one of Faithful: Happenings Ten Years Time Ago, Rain, Most Likely You Go Your Way And I’ll Go Mine and Strawberry Fields Forever
Heart did a mean version of Love, Reign O’er Me, too. (with Pete’s brother Simon guesting on guitar)
The cover of the Tears for Fears song “Mad World,” made by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules for the Donnie Darko soundtrack, has had greater success than did the original (which came out about nineteen years earlier):
