there’s “good girls go to heaven” that was done in the 80s by pandora’s box and then meat loaf covered it
originally it was written for loaf but he had a years long falling out with jim steinman so when steinman put together a girls group in the 80s he had them record it …
However there’s a japanese cover that might have been done before either of those 2 versions …
The original Barrett Strong R&B version of Money was never a hit in the UK
But early in their career the Beatles covered it sounding (as you would expect) very ‘Early Beatles’ and although popular it was never released as a single by them
However in 1979, in the UK, The Flying Lizards had a big hit with a very ‘New Wave’ version featuring deliberately flat spoken female vocals. If you watch the whole Flying Lizards video which is mainly very mundane there’s an incongruous moment when the singer suddenly ‘flies’ across the room during an instrumental break… Oh the late 1970s…
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Here’s a case of big and then bigger.
Vince Clarke left Depeche Mode after they first became successful and as Yazoo (a duo of Clarke and bluesy female vocalist Alison Moyet) they had a big hit in 1982 with the electro-pop Only You reaching Number 2 in the UK charts and a minor hit in the US
Just a year later The Flying Pickets took their version to Number 1 for five weeks over Christmas. Their version was A Capella and has male vocals. The Flying Pickets version never saw any action in the US charts.
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OK. The Flying Pickets Only You was the first ever A Capella Number 1 in the UK. The second was…
The Caravan of Love was a smooth R&B number by Isley-Jasper-Isley (who spun off from the Isley Brothers) and a hit in the US in 1985 but did nothing in the UK
Until the Housemartins did their UK Chart topping version in 1986
I don’t know how well known The Housemartins are in the US but members went on to form The Beautiful South and Fatboy Slim.
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Wow, I had no idea Iggy was co-writer, nor that he ever recorded the song. Fascinating! Thanks…
So This Mortal Coil is part of the @MrDibble music subculture?
Well how about Tim Buckley had little chart success in his own lifetime. But did get some critical acclaim for his 1967 album track Song To The Siren
The This Mortal Coil version (featuring The Cocteau Twins) version in 1983 was a modest success reaching Number 66 in the UK but it is credited with creating a renewed interest in Buckley’s music. (And it’s absolutely superb in my opinion. Absolutely ethereal.)
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Cliff Richard sang “From a distance”? Never heard it. The version I heard was faintly C&W and by an American guy I had never heard of.
Goth/Indie subculture, in case that wasn’t clear.
Yeah, then that wasn’t the original you heard. The original release was this one:
And this is the songwriter (Julie Gold) performing her song:
Hoagy Carmichael is famous for Stardust, but it was the Isham Jones arrangement that was the most influential.
Hoagy Carmichael, 1927 original
Isham Jones, 1930
Joni Mitchell wrote and performed Woodstock. I’m a huge Mitchell fan, but the song is very dreary sounding, and her performance is subpar IMO. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young took that song and radically changed it for the better.
I’ve always liked Mattthews Southern Comfort’s version the best. Born too late (1968) to catch the song when all those versions got released, that’s also the first version I heard, and for me its atmosphere and arrangement captures the hippie feeling best. And that’s a feat, to be more hippie than Joni and CSNY!
The original version of Piece of my Heart did nothing much for Erma Franklin on first release in 1967 (although a re-issue in 1992 after it was used in an advert made it a top ten UK hit)
I would suggest the iconic version (and many have covered it including Sammy Hagar) comes from Janis Joplin
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My favorite version is Dusty Springfield’s. Arranged by John Paul Jones, who also plays the exceptional bass guitar.
If I was being honest the Sammy Hagar version is probably my favourite but I would be too embarrassed to link to a version because I don’t think anyone else would agree.
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In 1986 Kate Bush released Hounds of Love as a single to acclaim and it reached Number 18 in the UK charts. She also directed the video
Since they managed to reach Number 8 in 2005 with their rather different version they were more successful. Here are The Futureheads
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You’d be mistaken: I love Sammy’s version.
I like Janis’ too
“I’ve Been Everywhere”, original Australian version:
The American version, which was covered by lots of singers but I’d guess the Johnny Cash version is best known:
They’re not too terribly different, except of course the towns were all replaced with American ones. And the Aussie version starts slow and then switches to a fast tempo when he’s singing the town names, while Johnny Cash sings at a more steady pace. And Johnny Cash sounds more intelligible to me, although that could just be my unfamiliarity with the towns in the Aussie version.
The Rednex made a big splash into pop culture with this:
in 1994, but it’s actually an old traditional song. It’s a real trip to hear earlier versions, like Nina Simone:
Less different is the old Leonard Cohen song Hallelujah:
which bobbled along under the radar for a number of years until Jeff Buckley got hold of it:
Although I still don’t know you’d call it a hit in the traditional sense
I can’t listen to the Johnny Cash version anymore because he means it.It’s a great song, but it makes me cry too much. Trent Reznor just sang it, but Cash lived it.
My contribution: Blue Monday
The original version by New Order was a New Wave hit in 1983. It charted all over the world and spawned several remixes.
In 1998 Orgy made an industrial version of the song. It also charted all over the world and (as I recall) got lots of airplay. These days, I would wager this is the version most people think of when you mention “Blue Monday.”
(Personally I think the Orgy version made the New Order original sound like a demo tape. I like New Wave, but that song needed more anger than that genre allowed for.)