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Has to be either Al Green doing the Bee Gees,Kris Kristofferson, The Doors etc many more
Or David Bowie Pinups album or Across the Universe and a few more
Both artists wrote great songs
Any other you can think of
On STW? Got to be Joe cocker hasn't it.
The Associates cover of “Love Hangover” is sublime.
Just sublime...
I think the best ones are where the original artist says it's no longer their record.
Best example I can think of is hurt by NIN covered by Jonny Cash.
Similarly watched a video last night on "House of the rising son" didn't realize it's almost a public domain folk song. But again Dylan cover someone's version at which point the public thought it was his son then The Animals released it and Dylan had to stop playing it.
Or Foo fighters playing the Bee Gees to protesters.
I think the best ones are where the original artist says it’s no longer their record.
Yep.
NIN is a great example.
As is this. Especially as it's a band that's easy to dismiss.
Or this banging cover of a belter
And quite a few labbi siffre songs although in that case most covers struggle to match the original.
Can never get enough of the Dead Kennedy's, so naturally I love this raw footage of them knocking out a cover of Rawhide (eventually!)
Got to be the Ramones too with Baby I Love You.
The Clash. I Fought The Law
I have a love of odd cover versions particularly those with odd instruments. A couple of favourites:
Novelle vague - a brilliant multi language joke!
The reggae / prog fusion with bagpipes?
https://youtu.be/bsoiupLME-w
Ca plane pour moi. Check out how many bands have covered that
Tragic circumstance around the actual recording of this one and fitting tribute to the original artist.
Not what I'd call my "favourite artist" but she's got a belter of a voice:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOwblaKmyVw
I think the best ones are where the original artist says it’s no longer their record.
That'll be Johnny Cash then. What. A. Song.
And funny to think of it, but this is a cover.
Thou put all their Nirvana covers on an album called "Blessings of the Highest Order" last year, which I enjoyed:
https://thou.bandcamp.com/album/blessings-of-the-highest-order
I think the best ones are where the original artist says it’s no longer their record.
Yep. I don't think Dolly Parton is much worried about Miley Cyrus doing that. Miley Cyrus just isn't a great singer, she tries to cover great songs but lacks the vocal range or musical imagination to turn it into something new. Here's the original Jolene, the Miley Cyrus version does nothing to improve it.
More on the Miley Cyrus thing, her cover of Heart of Glass was just awful. She has a dreadful voice but tried to sing a song that was beyond her. If she'd reimagined it to suit her voice, it might have worked, but this was horrible.
The original (sung by a great pop singer):
The cover (sung by a worse singer who made a great song sound horrible):
Nouvelle Vague cover of the Dead Kennedys, Too Drunk to...
This is a good site I sometimes look at:
https://secondhandsongs.com/
I like daft covers, but I like daft covers more when they're also great:
A particularly appropriate cover…
And a nicely understated version by Gabriel. Plus there’s a connection between them.
I’ve loved Shawn’s music from her first album, and she’s done many covers, her second album is called Cover Girl, and it was a while before I realised this was a Talking Heads cover!
This is, properly speaking, a cover. It was originally written for another artist, but Elvis finally recorded it for an album of songs he wrote for other artists.
And here’s the same song by the original singer, Aimee Mann.
I guess this could be called a cover, it’s David Bowie singing an Arcade Fire song, backed by Arcade Fire. Dunno, but it’s a blistering version regardless!
Came on here to say Johnny Cash - Hurt. Am not disappointed to see its already been said.
So my second choice would be Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground
Surely the best Dolly Parton cover is Dolly Parton on a slow day.
Quite a few but this one comes to mind:
‘One Note Samba’ by Antônio Carlos Jobim with Portuguese lyrics by Newton Mendonça. The English lyrics were written by Jon Hendricks. It was first recorded by João Gilberto in 1960.
Lush. Kitchen disco static sparks. Polishing lino with swift woolly socks…
How MC5 took Jerry Lee Lewis’s croony slowsmooch ‘Ramblin’ Rose’ (Fred Burch, Marijohn Wilkin) and smashed it into distorted-guitar-fuelled super-lewd proto-punk.
Johnny is the obvious one
One of my favourite every songs though is Metallica, Turn The Page
But I do like the Bob Seger original almost as much
I love the lunatic genius that is Leo Moracchioli:
Metal covers of just about anything, one guy doing all the music and videos (usually) alone, and he manages to pump out a new one every week!
Speaking of Jolene:
Johnny Cash. It’s almost unbearable to listen and watch that song and video. I’m not always able to make it through the whole thing.
Sublime.
Rosalía doing some genre busting:
The be good tanyas:
Luna:
https://youtu.be/g-G8LwaE4S0
https://youtu.be/kC14c4z63pg
Toots:
https://youtu.be/zZ8AIBRAQwc
?
toots is winning so far on the oddness count! Brilliant
for another cover where the writer ( Bob Seagar) considered the thin Lizzy so good that it now was their song
Jeepers Lizzy were good if badly dated now
There’s the usual suspects - Dylan covered by The Byrds or Hendrix, Bowie & Leadbelly by Nirvana, NiN by Johnny Cash etc. Then there’s a few others:
- Nothing Compares 2U by Chris Cornell (Sure, someone here put me on to it.)
- A Change is Gonna Come by Otis Redding - who also covered Satisfaction and Daytripper
- Previously mentioned Ca Plane Pour Moi and Oh Sweet Nuthin
- Night and Day by U2
- Hard to Handle by The Black Crowes
And a lot more besides!
From the Metallica ‘Blacklist’ covers album, one of my favourite artists, Phoebe Bridgers covering ‘Nothing Else Matters’.
And from the same album, the same song, handled somewhat differently. And, for what it’s worth, I like Miley’s voice, and she really uses her range on this; great arrangement, too.
A cover of one of my favourite artists, Spinifex Gum covering Tom Waits’ ‘Make It Rain’.
Absolutely stunning singing.
Old Andy Williams song my mum used to play, I think the Beat version so much better
Just shows how good Chrissie Hynes is .
An obvious choice . Who ever plays the Zutons version any more .
I posted inappropriate covers of metal songs so here's an inappropriate metal cover of a U2 song. Saw them do this live once and it was absolutely bloody brilliant
Glad Leo got a look in we earlier, his YouTube channel is a gloriously extensive pit of metal covers!
Violet orlandi who has done some stuff with him has a great metal cover of Eiffel 65 Blue with the Melodicka brothers.
Also DMA's cover of Cher's Believe on triple J like a version. It's a thing or gum chewing glory.
Not a cover but a mashup.... So apologies nor this breaks to the rules. But this shouldn't work as well as it does!!!
This one is interesting - I don't know the band but I believe the rest of the bands output is some kind of metal
I was surprised that Disturbed didn't appear sooner given how popular it seemed to be a while back. Not to my taste though - shouting "Sound of Silence" seems, well, odd.
I am very fond of a bit of reggae and reggae is full of cover versions. Sanchez who is covering this has a beautiful voice - but who thought this was a good idea?
Love these threads, really enjoy listening through the lot!
My favourite two groups for covers at the moment are Pompalmoose
And Larkin Poe
Mmmmm, loving the Larkin Poe cover! Shame they don’t seem to have an actual recording of it anywhere.
Just looking through Larkin Poe’s recordings and videos, and found this cover; always had a soft spot for the song, but this is gorgeous.
I’d completely forgotten this one, Aimee Mann covering Coldplay.
I’m not sure, but I think this might be one of the better covers of this song. I’ve seen the original artist quite a few times, and she’s never sung it live. One day, perhaps.
Someone posted up Nilsson covering Badfinger, personally I think his version knocks spots off the original; this is another Badfinger song, the original I really like, but Aimee Man really does a cracking version of it.
And Tom Waits…
Phoebe Bridgers covering Tom Waits:
And Patty Griffin:
First time I saw Patty she was supporting Emmylou Harris at the Royal Albert Hall, just a tiny figure alone on a big stage, but she was mesmerising, and just filled the stage by her presence. Amazing singer.
This is a great one - cover of Sly and the Family Stone.
And another by the same band - this time of Curtis Mayfield. Love the message of this song - and the original version too.
In a sort of Larkin Poe stylee, I love this
(Johnny Cash wins BTW)
As much as I love Johnny Cash - I think this is a better cover, especially as it is a live radio session.
Some great stuff in here. Keep 'em coming.
I'm sure there are loads that I don't even know are covers (including some in here), but if we're going with stuff the original artist supports I'll throw in this one. Billy even did a re-write and added some verses, although still kept that cringeworthy line about space hardware 🙂
Lianne la Havas does Weird Fishes
I quite like this one too although the penultimate note sounds like he's taking the piss 🙂
Nina Gordon doing Straight Outta Compton. NSFW. Delicious.
A sixteen year old girl absolutely nails it....
Not a massive fan of covers, but I love a Jack White/White Stripes cover. 3 different styles...
(Beefheart cover)
I guess a different arrangement of a traditional song counts? This one has real meaning for me. Its the song I used to sing to Julie as we wandered round the mountains and my friends sang it when we scattered her ashes. I love this version of it- very different to the trad arrangements of the corries or the country feel of the Byrds. Tears in my eyes everytime I hear it
It’s a wonderful song TJ - I personally love The Byrds version.
Far from my favourite artist but Harry Styles does some good covers. And I could watch Sarah Jones drum all day.
Sledge Hammer
Chain
IDLES ain’t bad at owning a cover
Just an excuse to post up some Pixies. Cecelia Ann.
Just another couple of the same Mettalica song covers for CountZero
Just so happens she's my cousin as well 🙂
This is fantastic and makes me emotional every time I watch it.
If we're doing Metallica covers how about some Mongolian metal.
The HU Sad But True
the slits-heard it through the grapevine
the stranglers-walk on by
the dickies-nights in white satin
https://youtu.be/_aLpwtaLDw8
I quite like PSB’s up-tempo version of BSP’s ‘A Boy Vertiginous’
And also BSP’s pre-emptive version of PSB’s ‘White Star Liner’
And last but not least a BFI video cover of BSP’s ‘From The Sea To The Land Beyond’