Woah, that was great.
And now some lighthearted covers (okay, the second one isn’t “lighthearted” necessarily):
Judas Priest covering Joan Baez. “Diamonds And Rust.”
Not only is that awesome, it’s nice to know that I’m not the only person here who even knows who Peter Stampfel is. Totally O.T., but have you seen Bound to Lose?
I didn’t know there was a documentary on The Holy Modal Rounders, I will definitely check it out. I actually discovered Stampfel and company through The Unholy Modal Rounders (and Michael Hurley et al). Have Moicy! is definitely in my top ten personal albums of all time.
I’ll go with 2 Iconic songs:
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“Stop your Sobbing” - one of Chryssie Hynde’s staples with The Pretenders, which was originally a song by the Kinks HM for the kinks - you really got and the VH version
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This one blew my mind - “R-e-s-p-e-c-t” - originally done by Otis Redding and covered by Ike & Tina Turner before it became Aretha Franklin’s signature tune
Muse covering The Animals’ House of the Rising Sun
Rage Against the Machine covering Springsteen’s The Ghost of Tom Joad. Rage has an entire album of covers that are all pretty good. They cover Dylan’s song Maggie’s Farm, and The Rolling Stone’s Street Fighting Man, just to name a couple.
This one is really good: The Dead Weather covering Bob Dylan’s New Pony. I consider almost all of Dylan’s music to be unlistenable, because his voice sounds like a cat being passed through a meat grinder. I haven’t yet met a Dylan cover I haven’t liked.
Okay so this one isn’t a cover. It is a mashup of Wu Tang and Fugazi. This is my favorite of the whole bunch, but a mashup album was done, called 13 Chambers.
I love that whole Wugazi album. Sleep Rules Everything Around Me is probably tied with Forensic Shimmy as favorites from that project.
Original was good, this is better
And to keep with the theme here is my fave Ventures cover
Radkey - Teen Titans Go!
Seger is dandy, McGarrigles are quicker
(Shoutout to triggercut above for listing The Clash’s cover of “Police on my Back”! I might have gone with that plus I Fought The Law as well.)
Yours truly would be remiss if he didn’t remind y’all that you appear to be leaving out the greatest cover band of all time. OF ALL TIME! I am speaking of course of The Grateful Dead.
They certainly transformed any song they covered into something transcendent. I’m bringing you Not Fade Away. Originally by Buddy Holly and the Crickets circa 1957. The Dead are believed to have covered it more than 500 times live in concert. It was a mainstay and typically appeared toward the end of their second set. Custom was also that they would play into it from another song from their repertoire; that is, not finish one before starting the other. And they often played out of it as well. Furthermore they would usually sandwich one or more other songs inside “Not Fade Away” or expand it with extended less formal ‘jams’.
I’m dropping Not Fade Away on you from September 19, 1970 recorded at the legendary Fillmore East. It is night three of a four night run. Counting the two discrete ‘jams’ wedged inside NFA (The Youngblood’s “Darkness Darkness” and their own “China Cat Sunflower”) this rendition runs about 9 minutes.
EDIT: Of note, and I didn’t know this before just now doing a little background on this particular show, Jimi Hendrix’ death was announced either the day before or earlier in the day NYC-time. The Grateful Dead’s performance that night was dedicated to his memory.
If you play the YouTube recording that I uncovered it will start with Not Fade Away and continue into a jaunty 22-minute (Turn On Your) Lovelight which ends the show. (The Lovelight features a hilarious interlude in which keyboardist, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan advises the men in the audience on how to get laid; a classic “Pigpen Rap”.)
If you go to this link to the (incomplete) show on Archive.org you can begin with a beautiful 25-minute rendition of “Dark Star” which plays into a raucous “St. Stephen” which plays into Not Fade Away which plays into the aforementioned “Lovelight”; in all over an hour of unbroken playing and jamming. This would be annotated as Dark Star > St. Stephen > Not Fade Away > Lovelight in the vulgate. As rated by fellow Deadheads, the 1970-09-19 show is legendary; the versions of these fan favorites on this night are all exemplary and a peak performance. This recording, a matrix of the soundboard and an audience bootleg, is very nice as well.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the good old Grateful Dead!
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Is it bad that the very first example in the thread (John Denver covered by some reggae guy) was to me an example of something that was sublime (John Denver’s version) being turned into something kind of terrible? :)
Okay, to actually add some content, while I’m not sure this is a “great” cover, I at least think it is cute: Karmin doing Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass.
Some reggae guy???
Philistine.
What are others’ opinions of Devo’s sublime, subversive cover of Johnny Rivers’ serviceable pop hit “Secret Agent Man”? I mentioned it above but didn’t get any yeas or nays.
Heard this on Radio Paradise for the first time today. Doesn’t surpass the original but it’s different and it’s Luna who, as any reasonable young dude will tell you, beat out both Blondie and the Police combined!
Okay, I will fully admit to being ready to call that both pedestrian and pretentious…until I saw this:
Failure to mention her instrument of choice can easily lead to the wrong conclusion…
In light of the Jawbreaker news, here’s my favorite Jawbreaker cover, and as much as I love Beach Slang, it’s not from them