Cover versions

Rambler

Awanturnik
I love cover versions, and the Telegraph have just put up a list of their critics' 50 favourites:

http://arts.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/11/20/bmcovercont20.xml

Obviously there loads of gaps, so here's the thread to post your favourite covers that should have been included.

Kicking things off, the Carpenters' 'Ticket to Ride'. Lightweight pop transformed into heartbreaking epic with just a single chord change and a little orchestration.
 

hamarplazt

100% No Soul Guaranteed
Bah, 50 cover versions and not a single one from Laibach. A pretty predictable list I'd say.

Anyway, some personal favorites:

Patric Catani: Commando (Rob Hubbard)
Laibach: Geburt Einer Nation (Queen)
Laibach: Alle Gegen Alle (DAF)
Laibach: National Reservation (JD Loudermilk)
Tuxedomoon: In Heaven (David Lynch)
Dragons: Get of My Cloud (Rolling Stones)
The Residents: It's a Mans Mans Mans World (James Brown)
Nico: Das Lied von Einsamen Mädchens (Heymann/Gilbert)
Natacha Atlas: I Put a Spell on You (Screamin Jay Hawkins)
Pet Shop Boys: What Keeps Mankind Alive (Weil/Brecht)
 

JimO'Brien

Active member
hamarplazt said:
50 cover versions and not a single one from Laibach

Who'd have thought it?

Anyway - some good covers:

Alabama 3 - Sound of the speed of lonliness
Associates - Heart of Glass
Johnny Cash - I see a darkness
Miles Davis - Time after Time
Dexys Midnight Runners - Marguarita Time
The Fall - White Lightning
Lambchop - This Corrosion
Aaron Neville - For your precious love
Pet Shop Boys - Its Allright
Kevin Rowland - Concrete and Clay
Mark Stewart/Maffia - Jerusalem
Hal Wilmer/Various - Stay Awake (album)
Yes - America
 

Woebot

Well-known member
4 Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley, 1993

orig. Leonard Cohen, 1984

If Leonard Cohen has a fault, it's a weakness for ponderous, synth-heavy arrangements, and nowhere was this more so than on his original version of this lyrically magnificent song. Then Jeff Buckley got hold of it, stripped it down, and sang it in his exquisitely pure chorister's voice. Definitive. Key moment: The serene, sustained falsetto note towards the end.


Never really got this Jeff Buckley bloke, but the John Cale version of this song (which definitely takes in Buckley's) is truly wonderful. And the weird thing is how it's lodged in the middle of the animated movie Shrek. Just love Cale's voice.
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
Cutty Ranks and Wayne Wonder ‘the lambada’
Coldcut ‘autumn leaves’ (Irresistible Force)
The Fall ‘ghost in my house’
Luke Kelly ‘joe hill’
Shneider TM – there is a light
 

Chef Napalm

Lost in the Supermarket
Nine Inch Nails - Physical (Adam Ant)
Tiga - Hot In Herre (Nelly)

The latter cracks me up every time I hear it.
 
JimO'Brien said:
Who'd have thought it?
Mark Stewart/Maffia - Jerusalem

Mr. Stewart also qualifies for 'obscure cover version passed-off as own work', after recording a version of David Bowie's 1966 effort "I Can't Help Thinking About Me", re-titling it "Shame" and then crediting himself as author. Naughty boy!! :confused:
 

mind_philip

saw the light
Hhmm

Smashing Pumpkins - Landslide (Fleetwood Mac)
Jason Falkner - Both Sides Now (Joni Mitchell)
Todd Rundgren - Lord Chancellor's Nightmare Song (Gilbert & Sullivan)
Chappaquiddick Skyline - Leave Me Alone (New Order)
Beach Boys - I Was Made To Love Her (Stevie Wonder)

The last one especially sounds almost identical to the original, but the vocal is one of my all time favorites.
 

grimly fiendish

Well-known member
surely johnny cash's version of "hurt" owns this thr ... oh, hang on, not on ILM now.

seriously, though: it's the classic example of this kind of thing. trent reznor's sub-adolescent whining transformed into this epic piece of rage against the dying and the shite. it's absolutely monumental. i love cash's treatment of most of the modern pop songs he's done (actually: i love johnny cash, simple as that), but this stands head, shoulders and big hat above the rest.
 

jwd

Well-known member
WOEBOT said:
Never really got this Jeff Buckley bloke, but the John Cale version of this song (which definitely takes in Buckley's) is truly wonderful. And the weird thing is how it's lodged in the middle of the animated movie Shrek. Just love Cale's voice.

Yeah, this is easily one of the best covers ever, one of the few pieces of music that can reduce me to a blubbering wreck. "Fragments of A Rainy Season" is an exemplary live recording all round though. Buckley's version is nice but pales next to Cale. I seem to recall Jeff B. doing a great version of Big Star's "Kangaroo" though. (Listening to Tim Buckley right now actually. Lovely version of Fred Neil's "Dolphins.")

That list was... okay, nothing special, surely the Residents' version of "Satisfaction" completely decimates the Devo version.
 

boomnoise

♫
I'm actually quite impressed with this list. Obviously not too idiosyncratic but nevertheless a nice little piece. I wonder how similar an OMM list would be?

But why oh why: 34 Fell In Love With A Boy - Joss Stone, 2003
 
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