I love covers when someone takes a song and really make it their own. I hate it when they just duplicate the original. I am always looking for new covers, anyone have any good ones?
I Just recently found system of a down (a band I don’t really care for) does a great cover of the song Metro by Berlin. Other favorites are the meatmen doing how soon is now, celtic frost doing mexican radio and social distortion doing under my thumb.
Chet
Social D’s version of The Psychedelic Furs’ “Pretty In Pink” is good, too.
Will Oldham’s slow, sad cover of Big Balls is good.
I really dig Goldfinger’s cover of 99 Luft Balloons. It’s even on the Gran Turismo 3 soundtrack!
–Dave
Reel Big Fish’s “Take on Me”
Tom Wait’s take on “Sea of Love” is pretty disturbing. (I’m pretty sure that was a 60’s song before the Honeydrippers did it.)
They are one of the few rock bands today with a fairly original sound. I may go so far as to say they are the best Armenian-American band of all time. And there are soooo many of those to choose from. 
Type O Negative doing ‘Highway Starr.’ Type O Negative doing… just about anything, really. They’ve covered Back In The USSR, Paranoid, a ton of Beatles and Sabbath songs, the odd Dylan song here and there, etc.
Ministry doing Lay Lady Lay was interesting. There’s some live bootlegs of them covering some 'Dead stuff, which was amazing. They didn’t sound like a toilet flushing, either! Imagine that.
Les Claypool always covers stuff originally (how could he not with his voice?) when he does it. He covers everything from Frank Zappa to Abba. Or, well, maybe not Abba, but AC/DC. It’s great.
Though my all-time favorite cover is still anything Jimi Hendrix ever did. The man could take anything by anyone and turn it into the most complete, fantastic, experimental-guitar song ever. Genius.
While Limp Bizkit has pretty much left any thoughts of originality behhind at this point, their take on George Michaels’ Faith was great for what it was: A loud, energetic concert song.
But George Michael’s original was much better, imo, which isn’t a nice thing to say about Limp Bizkit. Marilyn Manson butchered “Tainted Love” recently, and he seemed to do so without motive, but I still like his “Sweet Dreams” if only because that was the first time I saw him. The cover I truly hated was that redo of “Come on Eileen” from a few years back.
Need I mention The Gourds’ “No Diggity” and “Gin and Juice” again? Some guy also recently did a slow and folk-blues version of “Hit Me Baby One More Time”. Some old friends of mine that I met up with after E3 played it, they were really into it. It was ok.
Yeah, the lay lady lay cover is great. Also forgot cake’s monotone I will survive and Devo’s satisfaction.
For system of a down, my girlfriend calls them the new kiss/scary band of the decade. Instead of trying to dress up like a zombie or something - the lead singer looks 10 times more terrifying - he looks like he should be on an al-Qaeda wanted poster.
Live covers are cool, but I like when they actually go into the studio and work it. Live I once saw the replacements do nothing but cover requests from the audience for about 2 hours, then they ended with about 15 minutes of just doing the ‘hits’ from never mind the bullocks. Great show. Ween does a bunch of good covers live, they do a really good cover of fat albert.
Chet
If you and your girlfriend want scary, look up the videos for Slipknot’s “Spit” or Mudvayne’s “Dig”. The scary part is, these are not bands made up of a bunch of idiots. They do have gimmicks, but really try to get across messages, albeit somewhat warped ones, that do have merit. It is not a bunch of drunk guys singing about drugs and screwing. Although they do have a couple of those, as well.
Tyjenks, that is exactly what i meant. That crap you said is not scary. It is cartoonish. When I see that I just think ugly kid trying to be cool. It in no way bothers me, I don’t live in a tim burton world, that crap isn’t real.
Ohhh the one guy looks like a clown - but get this revolutionary step in underground culture - He looks like an EVIL CLOWN!!! Ahhhhhhh run everyone!!!
That is not scary.
But creating your band to look like terrorists - now that is scary. Those are images that haunt me.
Chet
OK, I’ll give you that. They do not scare me either. I think they just put on a good show for the peeps.
How 'bout this though. To borrow a phrase found in every 3rd PC game review, these bands are evolutionary rather than revolutionary and bring a tiny bit of freshness to rock band presentations that has been missing for quite a while.
But creating your band to look like terrorists - now that is scary. Those are images that haunt me.
Chet
They are actually Armenian-American and have had very political views on both their albums. One of which is pre-9/11. They are not attempting to look like terrorists. They just look how they actually are. Now maybe people being themselves in videos is foreign to you since it is increasingly rare and that is what scares you and your girlfriend.
As far as the lead singer looking 10 times more terrifying, I do not see it.[/quote]
You are dead on about George, but for a song to be so totally turned around and, imo, still be decent, I liked it.
It was the same with Manson’s version of “Sweet Dreams”. Annie Lennox brought so much to that song and made it a classic. Manson made it into something completely different and, while not a classic by any means, did scare the shit out of many young folks. Myself included. It pretty much launched his “big time” career. Although, I do think he is smart and creative enough that he would have made it eventually. It would have just taken longer
“Tainted Love” did suck ass and I had such high hopes for it. What a great song the original is!!!
“he looks like he should be on an al-Qaeda wanted poster.”
talk about your fucked up ethnic profiling.
I have a bunch of MP3s (and some old cassettes) of various Replacements covers, but the best by far is “Daydream Believer.” They also mixed “Fuck School” and “Let it Be,” which was… well, you probably had to be there. And drunk.
I always got straight, fairly sober Replacements shows in Los Angeles. And man… they rocked.
How bout any covers by Richard Cheese - he released an album called “Lounge Against the Machine”, and basically does covers of popular songs in Las Vegas lounge music style. Pretty funny stuff, like his lounge cover of Nirvana’s “Rape Me” or Nine Inch Nail’s “Closer”.
An eclectic collection:
Tori Amos does a lot of covers herself, doesn’t she? Didn’t she do “Smells Like Teen Spirit”? Oh and Boingo also does a great “You’re a mean one Mr. Grinch”
Also, “Dark Side of the Moon” isn’t a song. Does this band do the entire album? Wait, Grokster found “Brain Damage”, is that the one Sparks?