Weird/ironic song covers

Cafe Society
21

Oh man… far too many to mention. Here’s off the top of my head:

Reel Big Fish - Hungry Like the Wolf (Duran Duran)
Revolting Cocks - D’Ya Think I’m Sexy (Rod Stewart)
Pain Station - Safety Dance (Men Without Hats)
Wesley Willis Fiasco - Girls on Film (Duran Duran)
The Cure - Foxy Lady (Jimi Hendrix)
Goldfinger - Rio (Duran Duran)
Fountains of Wayne - Baby One More Time (Britney Spears)
Brandywine Valley Green Grass All-Stars - Paradise Certy (Guns ‘n’ Roses… “where the grass is greens and the girls are purdy”)
Dead Kennedys - I Fought the Law (Sonny Collins), Viva Las Vegas (Elvis), Theme from Rawhide, Take This Job & Shove It (Johnny Paycheck)

I’m sure i’ll have some others later.

22

Melt Banana’s cover of Surfin U.S.A. is pretty far out there. they are a noise core/punk band from Japan.

23

All too relevant.

24

Pretty much all of Laibach’s catalog consists of cover tunes. Their rendition of Sympathy for the Devil is fan freakin’ tastic, IMHO.

Danielle Dax did a great trippy cover of the Beatles Tomorrow Never Knows.

25

Ted Leo does a really nice acoustic medley of “since u been gone” and “maps.”
In a similar vein, JAWBOX does an awesome cover of “cornflake girl.”

Also, Burning Airlines’ cover of “back of love” is worth mention.

26

In the Your Favorite YouTube thread a folkie (I dunno who) does Outkast’s Hey Ya. It’s like the exact opposite of ironic. It’s earnest. I love it.

27

Obadiah Parker, which is the band’s name, not the guy. I’m also a fan. Somewhere out there is the Outkast video synced with the Obadiah Parker music, and it’s kind of cool.

28

The Slits’ cover of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” It’s not played entirely for laughs like some others listed in this thread, but it is definitely off-kilter and somewhat demented, especially Ari Up’s amusing failure to switch the gender pronouns.

29

I think what Motley Crue was Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room wasn’t what Brownsville Station had in mind.

30

Wall of Voodoo do a freaky version of both ‘Ring of Fire’ and the theme music from ‘The Good the Bad and The Ugly’.

I wish I was in Tijuana…

31

That would be the Circle Jerks’ “Golden Shower of Hits.” I think they do a cover of the Soft Boys’ “I Wanna Destroy You” on the same album, with Debbie Gibson singing backup.

32

“Sad Kermit” singing “Hurt” by NIN. The video is one of the weirdest/funniest things I’ve seen recently.

33

Type O Negative. Hit Me Baby One More Time.

The weird thing is that it really works.

34

If we’re looking for wonderfully weird, the Puppini Sisters are it. Actually, whether they’re actually weird or not, I don’t care…I just wanted to tout them!

They’re a swing revival group who do authentic 40s music as well as covers of more modern songs in 40s format. If you go to their page, you can cycle through about four songs, two of which, I think, are covers of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” (and if covering Kate Bush in swing/boogie-woogie style isn’t weird (although a REALLY good weird), I want you to tell me what is!)

Edited because Ms. Bush sang about more than one Wuthering Height…

35

Fountains of Wayne also did a cover of that song, which supervenusfreak swears by.

36

The Cardigans did “Iron Man.”

37

“Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio as performed by Battery
“Push it” by Salt n Pepa as performed by Numb
(see clips for the above here)

“1999” by Prince as performed by Xorcist (see clip here)

“Fade to Black” by Metallica as performed by Apoptygma Berzerk (see clip here)

“Straight Up” by Paula Abdul as performed by Dismantled (see clip here)

38

The Butthole Surfers cover of The Guess Who’s American Woman is angry and hysterical at the same time.

39

Ozzy Osbourne once covered the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive.

One of my favorite cover versions of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire was played by Social Distortion.

40

All their covers were twisted (I think you got them all), but this one’s the best. They turned it into a commentary on the murder of Harvey Milk, and changed the chorus to “I fought the law and I won.”