Listening to my XM radio today I heard a cover of “Is She Really Going Out With Him” performed by Sugar Ray. I was suprised to hear them do that song.
What covers were you suprised to hear?
Pearl Jam does a lot of covers, but I was really surprised to hear their version of “Last Kiss.”
There’s a wonderful band called Crooked Fingers who put out an entire cover album…well, an EP. They’re essentially an American(a) rock act, but they covered Prince, Under Pressure (Bowie & Queen), and some Neil Diamond as well. All incredibly well done.
Primus once covered a Peter Gabriel song. And a Metallica one. Oddness abounds.
Good call on Pearl Jam’s Last Kiss.
Hootie & the Blowfish did a faithful remake of the Orpheus classic “Can’t Find the Time” for the Me Myself & Irene soundtrack. What surprised me is that anyone besides me even remembers that great song.
Not too long ago, I forget where I was at the time, I happened to hear David Bowie singing “Waterloo Sunset,” which gave me a “whoa, he covered that?” sort of reaction. It takes balls to record a cover of a record as iconic and perfectly realized as “Waterloo Sunset” or “God Only Knows” (which Bowie has also done).
The title of which is taken from the Shangri-Las “Leader of the Pack” and/or The Damned’s “New Rose.”
Not quite a cover, but I was surprised to hear Brandy sampling Iron Maiden.
U2 covered Fortunate Son and Paint It Black. Interesting versions but the originals are still better, I think.
This goes back a long way, but acoustic (with plugged-in backup) folk guitar duo Brewer and Shipley, best known for “One Toke Over the Line,” did covers of both the Hendrix arrangement of “All Along the Watchtower” and crazed saxophonist’s Jim Pepper’s “Witchie Tai To.”
And this was before you youth invented irony. 
Gnarls Barkley doing “Gone Daddy Gone” by the Violent Femmes is just odd in general. That song I think is just so completely the Femmes its pretty ballzy to try to cover it.
Johnny Cash doing NIN “Hurt” wasn’t completely unsurprising… Him doing Soundgarden’s “Rusty Cage”… WTF!
And, who could forget Steve Lawrence and Edie Gorme with their remake of the Soundgarden hit “Black Hole Sun”. A really beautiful version believe it or not.
Husker Du released a 45 with a cover of “Love Is All Around” (The Mary Tyler Moore theme song) on the b side back in the olden days.
Rascal Flatts have covered “Life is a Highway”. Like most Rascal Flatts, it is total dreck.
Ah, that reminds me:
Leonard Nimoy - Proud Mary.
:rolleyes:
Oh Glory be! Which song(s)?
One of the Blaze Bayley ones, hold on…
Iron Maiden - The Clansman
to
Brandy - I Tried
Apparently she sampled Coldplay on the same album:
Twice, actually. They did “Intruder” on their first cover EP, Miscellaneous Debris, and “The Family and the Fishing Net” on their second, Rhinoplasty. The weirdest cover out of that bunch is probably “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” Primus is always odd, but the fact that they covered a Metallica song (“The Thing That Should Not Be”) isn’t that surprising if you know that Les Claypool and Kirk Hammett are old friends. Claypool actually auditioned to be Metallica’s bass player after Cliff Burton died.
Pat Boone’s heavy metal album. All good songs, just the fact that he covered them.
I just found this. The Wiggles apparently covered “Walk on the Wild Side” :eek:
Needless to say, there seems to be a dearth of transexuals and oral sex in their cover.
check out Coverville: a PodCast that posts an mp3 file of cover songs every week. I listen weekly and they have quite an eclectic collection of the most unlikely cover songs. Check it out… you will be glad you did…
There’s always The Cardigans cover of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man. I actually like it quite a bit.