The Best Cover of All Time – The Final Countdown
Well folks, it’s been a long and arduous journey, but I think we’ve done a half-decent job of rounding up some pretty good covers. The final list (complete with my top 10) will go up sometime Friday evening (Saturday afternoon?) – you have until then to submit your nominations. As always, sound off in comments or shoot me an email with any last-minute entries. A complete list of all previous submissions can be found here.
Scott, who kicked this thing off way back last week, submits three versions of Daniel Johnston’s “True Love Will Find You In The End” from Wilco, Beck, and Matthew Good.
Trizzlor nominates Man Man’s excellent cover of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind.”
Pat nominates Youngblood Brass Band’s cover of “Human Nature” and The Red Hot Chili Peppers playing “Love Rollercoaster.”
Nick emails with The Byrds’ cover of “Mr. Tambourine Man,” Dinosaur Jr. playing The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” and The Talking Heads’ version of Al Green’s “Take Me To The River.”
Alex votes for Cat Power’s “Sea of Love.”
Last but not least, I’m submitting Elliot Smith covering Big Star’s “Thirteen,” The Pogues’ singing “And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda,” (with a tip of the hat to our comrades on the Front Porch) Jukebox the Ghost’s version of New Order’s “Temptation,” The English Beat covering “Tears of a Clown,” and my main man Otis Redding absolutely killing “Satisfaction” and “My Girl.”
Otis Redding = victor.Report
I’m jumping in way late on this one, but I’ve got to say that you had Ray Lamontagne nominated, and a cover of Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy, but you have to check out Lamontagne’s cover of Crazy.Report
Link? If you can find it on YouTube, I’ll put it up.Report
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mEfDSP4g_UReport
Galaxie 500 covering New Order/Joy Division’s ‘Ceremony’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suxw2FcpKpI
The studio version is on a release of their album “On Fire”, I think.
Or Sonic Youth covering ‘Superstar’ by The Carpenters (got somewhat popular after it was featured in “Juno”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRAbpMQnz7cReport
Ceremony is such a fantastic song
The Go! Team’s cover of Sonic Youth’s Bull in the Heather:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P9k9GnjubUReport
Hip-hop covers that are released on albums seem pretty rare. The only one that really popped in my head was Def Squad’s cover of Rapper’s Delight, which improves on the original in that they cut it to a much more manageable length – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PKhMe3e0uU
But I think it’s a pretty big staple of hip-hop shows to perform covers, or at least snippets of covers, during live shows. Nas did Microphone Fiend or My Melody by Eric B and Rakim on some MTV special (can’t find the video) but the covers always seem to signal respect to the original rappers/producers as opposed to a re-imagination that the best covers do. That sort of re-imagination of hip-hop songs would be more of a putting original verses over borrowed beats, but I wouldn’t consider it a cover.
I love Susanna and The Magical Orchestra doing It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock & Roll but I can’t find a video.
Dinosaur Jr covering Show Me The Way – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8z8Sk2to1U
White Stripes covering Jolene – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE3-q-aoFZI
Dirtbombs doing Ode To A Black Man – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3ifQ7Se2JEReport
Unfortunately, there isn’t a good quality recording of it (for copyright reasons I imagine), but for sheer ridiculousness I really dig the cover of ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya” by my undead-revolutionary friends in Zombies! Organize!! But I am biased as they are friends of mine.
Crappy version here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLIrF1GognYReport
Did anybody pick Johny Cash’s version of “Hurt”? Or “All Along the Watchtower” by Hendrix?Report
Great songs, but I preemptively disqualified them. A little too obvious for this corner of the ‘sphere.Report
Okay how about Sam Cooke’s “Summertime“Report
We disqualified both along with Hallelujah by Buckley in the first post for being “too meta”, which was defined as when “the original artist no longer calls the song their own.”Report
What about Rufus Wainwright’s “Hallelujah” – it’s better than Buckley’s anyways.Report
Bite your tongue!Report
I second E.D.Report
The Byrds’ cover of Mr. Tambourine Man is vastly inferior to the original, not only does it leave out most of the verse, it’s also only about 1o% as beautiful. Their cover of Chimes of Freedom is astounding, though: they turn Dylan’s barely melodic drone into honest-to-God rock’n’roll.Report
For my money, I think that “Gimme Shelter” is the best rock and roll song of all time (yes, a bold claim). Better than Stairway, better than Satisfaction, better than Like a Rolling Stone, better than Are You Experienced? Yes, better than Funeral for a friend/Love Lies Bleeding (which I just found out that Dream Theater covered?!?)
It works on several levels. It’s discussing the war, it’s talking about how fragile everything is, the emotions are raw, the chord progressions themselves are threatening… and, at the end, it turns out it’s a hump song. The problem with the Stones’ version is that Mick communicates perfectly the hump song portion of the song without really carrying the threat promised by those opening notes on the the guitar.
The following songs fix that.
Merry Clayton has a “cover”, if you will, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCyTqnizcvI
Now, she was the amazing voice that upstaged Mick on the original. Since she sort of sang the original this probably doesn’t qualify but… man. She carries the entire song and puts Mick to shame.
Now the Sisters of Mercy also covered it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kVBdVBn9w
They, to my mind, do the best job of carrying the threat of the song. If anything, it reminds me of those old gothic cathedrals where you have to walk under the steady gaze of several gargoyles before you finally get to the safety inside the doors at the end.
Now if they could just get Merry to work with Andrew Eldritch…Report
I also prefer the Bauhaus to Bowie when it comes to Ziggy Stardust.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_YQXFs7Ts
But you probably could have guessed that.Report
faye wong is the bestReport