And I’m not saying that the original is bad. You have to have a good song to have a good cover in my opinion. But sometimes the cover artist just understands the mission and takes what the original song did and expands on that a hundred times over.
What’re some of your guys’s favorites?
Alabama 3’s (A3 in some places) cover of John Prine’s “Speed of the Sound of Loneliness”. This is the song before “Woke up this Morning” on the album “Exile on Cold Harbour Lane”, and the two together tell a story.
Nirvana’s version of The Man Who Sold the World.
This is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I quite liked the original even.
A Perfect Circle’s version of Imagine by John Lennon is my favorite cover song. They add so much groove, atmosphere and melancholy to the song. It’s beautiful.
Goldfinger version of 99 red balloons absolutely nails it in my opinion
Still one of the greatest live acts around.
I prefer the 7 Seconds version
Aretha Franklin - Bridge Over Troubled Water (originally by Simon and Garfunkel)
Sly & The Family Stone - Que Sera, Sera (originally Doris Day)
The Isley Brothers - Love The One You’re With (originally Steven Stills)
Bruce Springsteen - Staying Alive
That’s awesome
Isn’t it?! I believe it’s a tradition, or an ancient charter or something, that he does a cover of a local act wherever he plays. I think as an encore. This was in Brisbane a few years ago. Edit: Wouldn’t you know it? There’s a playlist
I really enjoy this cover of Dead Man’s Party
Megan McDuffee’s dark synthwave cover of Blink 182’s song Dammit
The Z-Trip remix of I Want You Back, which is more of a demix than a remix or cover. It strips away a lot of the production and emphasizes the subtle guitar riff really nicely
Crooked Fingers - Long Black Veil
Johnny Cash - Hurt
Erasure - Take A Chance On Me
That whole “Abba-esque” EP of Abba covers by Erasure is a real treasure. Any of the tracks on there qualify for this thread.
Obediah Parker – Hey Ya (Originally Outkast)
Tool’s cover of No Quarter by Led Zeppelin. Page was channeling future Adam Jones with those riffs. It’s s a shame that the only official release of that song is on Tool’s coveted “Salival” album which is notoriously hard to get ahold of for anything even resembling a decent price if you can even find a good copy. Damn, I wish they would re-release that album.
