Einsturzende Neubauten’s cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “Sand”…by far the oddest addaptation of a pop song…
And while we’re at it, there’s Six Feet Under’s cover of AC/DC’s “TNT”.
Mae West does a brilliantly hyped of version of “Twist and Shout!” For an 80 year old woman, she rocks out.
You people haven’t even come close to the all-time champion – Lol Coxhill’s mind-boggling rendition of “I am the Walrus,” as chanted by a group of schoolchildren. Not only is it the strangest cover ever recorded, it raises the bar so high that no one has caught a glimpse of it since.
Perhaps a bit obscure, but Chicago-based art-rock band The Aluminum Group did a cover of G&R’s “Sweet Child of Mine.” To this day I’m not exactly sure what to make of it.
Tori Amos, besides doing a cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” also has covers of The Rolling Stones’ “Angie” and Led Zeppelin’s “Thank You.”
Limp Bizkit’s cover of both George Michael’s “Faith” and Bowie’s “Fame” in the same song has to rank up there as being totally f-in’ bizarre. And bad, IMHO.
Someone’s already mentioned The Residents, who excel at evil cover versions. The only thing scarier than their cover of It’s A Man’s World is their Paint It Black. Which makes the Rolling Stones version sound like something the Teletubbies would sing.
Also cool is OP-8 and Lisa Germano’s cover version of Sand, where they swap the male and female vocal parts.
And need I mention the Langley Schools Music Project ? You haven’t lived till you’ve heard these elementary schoolkids tearing through Space Oddity, or a 9 year old girl singing Desperado by The Eagles.
I forgot to mention Sid Viscious’ version of “My Way,” written by Paul Anka and done with such aplomb by both Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra.
One very bizarre cover that I think actually works well is Type O Negative’s rendition of Seals and Croft’s Summer Breeze. I hear that Seals and Croft were not pleased.
I heard a little of that Dolly Parton cover of Stairway on Howard this morning. He wanted to trash it, but didn’t get very far. I must say that, if I had never heard the song before, I would have said, “Oh, Dolly Parton sounds good on this song, not that I have heard her much. The melody is right up her alley, but the words are kind of bizarre.” In other words, it wasn’t too bad!
The Residents did a cover of Rolling Stones’ I Can’t get No Satisfaction that was basically a vocalist screaming into static atop some goofy sounding horns. If I didn’t see the song title on the CD I wouldn’t know what it was.
I’ll hurt this guy badly if I ever find the producer who thought that Kiss’s Rock and Roll All Night should be covered by Toad the Wet Sprocket. They made it sound like a funeral dirge.