Do you have any favorite covers? Mine should be called uncovered. Rod Stewart remade this song and did a nice job but I'm not sure it does justice to Tom Waits original.
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Covers
Do you have any favorite covers? Mine should be called uncovered. Rod Stewart remade this song and did a nice job but I'm not sure it does justice to Tom Waits original.
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That Tom Waits video is remarkable. Look at the way he dances and moves! He is truly an artist whose whole body is his medium, his voice his instrument. What an original. This was a great reminder of why I love that guy so much.
A few come to mind:
Dear Prudence - originally by the Beatles, covered by Siouxie and the Banshees:
The Beatles
Siouxie and the Banshees
Tainted Love - originally by Gloria Jones, covered by Soft Cell:
Gloria Jones
Soft Cell
I Got You Babe - originally done by Sonny and Cher, covered by UB40:
Sonny and Cher
UB40
UB40 has a slew of great covers on their two Labour of Love albums.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"I only know what I hear on the news." - Dear Leader
Mas Que Nada - Originally by Sergio Mendes, Covered by The Black Eyed Peas.Originally Posted by RC Vikings
Alone Again, Naturally - Originally by Gilbert OSullivan, Covered by Vonda Shepard
A song that should never be covered is Brick, by Ben Folds Five. What an intensely personal song. Speaking of misheard lyrics, when this song first came out, I thought he was singing "Sheesh, I'm breaking up, drowning slowly..." when he was singing "She's a brick and I'm drowning slowly."
Last edited by Katy Lied; 02-21-2009 at 06:56 AM.
Good thread idea.
One of my favorites is Mad World by Michael Andrews and Gary Jules from the film Donnie Darko. Original by Tears for Fears.
"There is no creature more arrogant than a self-righteous libertarian on the web, am I right? Those folks are just intolerable."
"It's no secret that the great American pastime is no longer baseball. Now it's sanctimony." -- Guy Periwinkle, The Nix.
"Juilliardk N I ibuprofen Hyu I U unhurt u" - creekster
i just posted about this cover a week or two ago, although now I don't remember why.
Fitter. Happier. More Productive.
I'm witrh you on soft cell, Il Pad, but not dear prudence. I know your love for all things 80s, but I think souixies' version is an abomination.
As far as covers go, this one is better, IMO [YOUTUBE]IMk8GIOQHvY[/YOUTUBE]
Sonny and Cher's song is really sort of a vaudeville act so its hard to take it or the cover too seriously.
SPeaking of Rod Stewart, has anyone ever gone from being so good to being so bad in their career? OK, lots of people have but man I liked some of his early stuff with the small faces: [YOUTUBE]m4PXMCCTMwM[/YOUTUBE]
or this:
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PLus, you get the gah-roovy 70s clothes in these clips and, in the second one, one of the faces (bass player) about gets it in the face from Rod's mike stand.
As good as rod was there, I think he should leave Tom to his own stuff. Who does Waits better than waits? I can't think of anyone.
Sergio Mendes? That is a good cover and it picked up some decent residuals for Sergio. SIde Trivia: Brasil 66 once borrowed my uncle's drum set for a concert in Utah and they let my uncle sit in for a couple of songs to thank him.
FInally vonda shpherd. No, sorry, just not gonna cut it. Here is the original:
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It is better with full lryics. Moreover, VOnda Shepherd just has too much happy in her voice (and ti is not a good vocie at that, at least not in that song). You can practically hear her pop open that big toothy grin of hers between phrases. That will not do for this song. GIlbert has those droopy sad eyes and his voice, while not husky, at least evokes lonliness. I will grant theat gilbert looks silly in the video, but the voice says 'alone again' much more natrually. I do concede that part fo the problem fo rme may be that I know vonda did this song for Ally NcBeal and, well, I just can't take much of that. The other probolem is that I like covers to add something. If you are goign to cvover a song, you shoudl augment the origianl vision, or change the vision a bit. THe sergio M cover does that. VOnda does not do it. Instead, she just slows it down a bit (zzzzz) and then cuts some lyrics.
Oh yeah, I have opinions.
PLesa excuse the tpyos.
My favorites:
Nirvana-The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie)
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Disturbed-Land of Confusion (Genesis)
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Alien Ant Farm-Smooth Criminal (Michael Jackson)
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Cascada-Listen to Your Heart (Roxette)
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"I don't know the origin of said bitch booming."-Art Vandelay
"Hot Lunch posted awhile back on this. He knows more than anyone except for maybe BO."-Seattle Ute
I feel ashamed to admit this for some reason, but I kind of liked the Ataris doing Boys of Summer:
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Man you should be ashamed. Don't take this personally, but that is in the top 5 of my list of horrible covers. Do those guys even understand the point of the song? They take a reflective and introspective song of lost love and lost youth and strip it of all nuance. I swear these guys so completely missed the point, the meaning and essence of the song, all without adding any musicality or artistic vision of their own, that I can't imagine a more dreadful cover.
This song has one of my all time favorite evocative lyrics:
"Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac; a little voice inside my head said don't look back, you can never go back; I thought I knew what love was, what did I know? Those days are gone forever, I should just let 'em go but, I can see you . . . ."
There should be a law against singing that verse unless you are at least 35 years old, because until then you just can't really appreciate what he is talking about.
Again, nothing personal, its only rock and roll, but i like it. I am obviously a very grumpy old man.
here is Henley:
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PLesa excuse the tpyos.
Usually I enjoy a good cover attempt especially when the band does something new with the song.
However, I agree with Creekster on this one. That was an abomination.
I really enjoy this cover. Insanely catchy. I'm not ashamed to express my occasional appreciation for progressive house music, though. Eight years with a Norwegian step-family has made me come to enjoy it.
Visca Catalunya Lliure
No worries, I expected to get reamed for posting that. What can I say? I like Blink-182 and other bands with a similar sound. I like the Don Henley version, too.
You want bad covers, try New Found Glory:
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I may be one of the few that does not enjoy covers....at least, not for the most part.
I generally find them to be very forgettable.
One bad cover....U2 trying to do Helter Skelter. Interesting because at the beginning of the song, Bono claims that the band was taking the song back from Manson. They were not successful, in my opinion.
While I agree with EPU about Tainted Love, I wonder if our opinions are a bit skewed on that one......the first time I heard tainted love, I had no idea it was a cover. Not until later did I learn that it was not a Soft Cell song. Had I been 40 years old when Soft Cell released its version, I likely would have found the Marc Almond rendition to be forgettable, as well.
A quirky cover that I still enjoy to this day is Devo's post-punk version of Satisfaction. However, I enjoy it for the kitsch, not because I think it is superior to the original.
If I had to pick one cluster of covers that I really respect.....it was Rick Rubin producing all those remakes with Johnny Cash...Hurt, In My Life, One, Personal Jesus, etc...Something about the Man in Black singing those tunes that resonated me with. I don't find any of his remakes to be superior to the originals, but his interpretation was very respectable. And Double R's decision to strip the instrumentation raw makes for some very emotional covers. His version of Redemption Song with Joe Strummer still gets me.......when Strummer comes in with the "emancipate yourself from mental slavery".....I love that version.
Fitter. Happier. More Productive.
You Really Got Me: Van Halen
When it comes to Beatles covers I've always enjoyed the job Elton John did on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds".
What about Oingo Boingo's version?
What about Van Halen's Happy Trails?
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John Coltrane - My Favorite Things
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Last edited by MartyFunkhouser; 02-21-2009 at 12:25 PM. Reason: Better version of the same song
The crux of what has traumatized us about CUF/CG is that we thought they were our friends. And their identity as BYU fans turned out to be the most important thing to them. What empty lives! What a damning indictment of the LDS Church!
--SeattleUte
He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. The logic is impeccable.
--Charles W. Bamforth, Ph.D.
Nothing tops this abomination of a cover:
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The Man in black at his best.
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I like Boingo but I didn't know they had a version. Just checked it out on youtube - I'll stick with VH.
Good call on Happy Trails, bombadeeda, bombadeeda, bombadeeda....
I'm with you, DDD. I've never been into covers, really. When I played in bands in college, I insisted that we wouldn't do a single cover. Finally after a few years I relented, but only because I wanted to re-arrange Jackson Browne's "Somebody's Baby" (which, oddly, Phantom Planet did a terrible fast cover of). I wanted to do it slower and with a piano track. It sounded pretty good.
Visca Catalunya Lliure
Fair enough, as I feel some covers are abominations as well. One in particular that I find highly offensive is the cover of Tear's For Fears Mad World by Gary Jules. I want to stab my eardrums whenever I hear it.
As for Tainted Love, I only knew that Soft Cell did a cover because a neighbor of mine who used to babysit me when I was a kid loved Gloria Jones and would bring her vinyl copy of whatever album that was on and play it incessantly. I'll admit that I had forgotten that it was a cover the first few times I heard Soft Cell do it.
I do like covers, but tend to prefer the original artist almost every time. I once read somewhere that the general consensus is that Hendrix's cover of Dylan's All Along the Watchtower is the best cover ever and probably agree. I can agree with this.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"I only know what I hear on the news." - Dear Leader
I see I poked the bear on this one. I give you that Gilbert OSullivan had more pathos, but he's also weighed down with his peculiar canuck phrases. Vonda is more mindless, but I like her smooth singing.
Now I'm too chicken to pull out my Roger Clinton cover of Ride Captain Ride.
I much prefer the original by The Kinks.
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy; its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill
"I only know what I hear on the news." - Dear Leader
Stevie Wonder - Jesus Children of America
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Soulive - Jesus Children
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Last edited by MartyFunkhouser; 02-21-2009 at 12:43 PM.
The crux of what has traumatized us about CUF/CG is that we thought they were our friends. And their identity as BYU fans turned out to be the most important thing to them. What empty lives! What a damning indictment of the LDS Church!
--SeattleUte
He who drinks beer sleeps well. He who sleeps well cannot sin. He who does not sin goes to heaven. The logic is impeccable.
--Charles W. Bamforth, Ph.D.
Boingo's version is not as good as the Kinks', and I love Boingo. This goes to my theory that covers are usually forgettable and not as good as the originals.
Fitter. Happier. More Productive.
You have no idea.
Smooth? Hmmm. Did we listen to the same video?I give you that Gilbert OSullivan had more pathos, but he's also weighed down with his peculiar canuck phrases. Vonda is more mindless, but I like her smooth singing.
Please do. With a tease like that you should be a DJ.Now I'm too chicken to pull out my Roger Clinton cover of Ride Captain Ride.
PLesa excuse the tpyos.
Now this is a good cover.
Note this is the first studio recording, not the album version. Janis was quite a talent, however.
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PLesa excuse the tpyos.
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