In a circular karmic sort of way, both Bono and Don Henley come up again - Bono for his wretched cover of “Hallelujah” on a Leonard Cohen tribute album the name of which escapes me, and Henely for his even worse hatchet job on “Everybody Knows” from the same album. The only mitigating factor for anyone covering “Hallelujah” is that next to John Cale’s version, even Leonard Cohens is crap.
I considered Leonard Cohen’s okay… Jeff Buckley sang the definitive version for me. It’s so sad that it makes me ache.
To prevent hijacking this thread, I will also nominate Tiffany’s I Saw Him Standing There. The reason? Well, epinions.com said it better than I could. They had a hip, young teenager cover a song released before she was born in order to sell tickets to both teenage girls and their mothers. Smart marketing, bad reason to cover.
I’ve called the Guns ‘n’ Roses cover of Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door a crime against humanity. I stand by that. As for Molly Hatchett’s cover of Dreams (Allman Brothers Band)… well, I think the word Hatchett pretty much takes care of it.
This is clearly the winner. I was gonna post it, and thought it would have been ranked higher, much higher. Clearly the most blasphemous cover ever. End of discussion. She shat on rock. Damn her to hell.
No, you were right in your first sentence. I just don’t get the love for his version (even from Reznor) - the NIN version at least doesn’t sound like a drunken geriatric wino in a back alley crooning to his bottle of meths as he pisses his pants. The Cash version does.
Oh, and Britney Spears doing Joan Jet. That was bad.
Mary J. Blige also mangled “One” on the most recent American Idol. They should have let Elliott Yamin sing it on his own instead of forcing a duet with her.
That’s unbelievable. Celine Dion covering any AC/DC song would be in contention for the most horrific cover of all time, but YSMANL adds blasphemy to the monstrosity.