Cover me
Jim Booth has some musings on the logic of cover songs over at sirpaulsbuddy, and he’s right. You have your “makes perfect sense” category and your “wtf?” category. I have not much to add there.
But it did make me think a bit about what makes a great cover. For me, faithfulness is not only not important, it can be a drawback. I hear Gwen Stefani and No Doubt doing “It’s My Life,” and I think okay, you could be a good Holiday Inn band (which, btw, I’d much prefer to Gwen’s recent solo album, in case she’s reading this). So what. When you’re 15 and learning to play, there’s great value in trying to mimic the legends, a process that’s well articulated by Eliot in “Tradition and the Individual Talent.” But once you’re a real artist?
No, I need the cover to bring something new to the song. This can take a lot of different forms – instrumentation, playing style, lyrical/political recontextualization, etc. But at the end, the song needs to have grown from your embrace of it.
All of which leads to my nominations for the “greatest covers ever” Hall of Fame (in no particular order):
- “Sweet Jane” – Cowboy Junkies doing VU
- “Hurt” – Johnny Cash doing NIN
- “Paint It Black” – Space Team Electra doing the Stones
- “Pretty Woman” – VH doing Roy Orbison
- “Imagine” – A Perfect Circle doing Lennon
- “All Along the Watchtower” – Hendrix doing Dylan
- “You Were Always on My Mind” – Pet Shop Boys doing Elvis
- “Tutti Frutti” – Pat Boone doing Little Richard*
Anybody else have ideas? 
* – just making sure you’re awake.
lullaby pit 
Lenny Kravitz’s cover of “American Woman.” Awesome.
Oh, and Dave Matthews Band does an amazing cover of “All Along the Watchtower,” but they only do it live.
Probably because that song should only ever be done live. 😉
first one that comes to mind is “voodoo child” covered by stevie ray vaughn. love that cover….
but i am sure i can think of more, given the chance…
hopefully will chime in. i know he has a long list of good and sucky covers.
A little known version of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” from Robert Plant and the Band of Joy. (John Bonham on drums.) It’s got a totally different groove plus Plant’s wailing blues vocals. Kicks ass!
Cover galore
Also, Petra Haden covered the entire Who album, “The Who Sell Out,” a capella.
Fischerspooner–the 15th (Wire)
The Hold Steady–Bring It On Home (Led Zeppelin)
Nostalgia 77–Seven Nation Army (White Stripes) I almost like this version better.
Hmmm…I know of more, but don’t remember the artists who covered the songs. There’s a totally sweet cover of a song from Willy Wonka (“Imagination”) but I can’t remember the artist. I want to say Karate, but I could be wrong.
Stevie Ray Vaughan doing “Taxman.” Just about the only Beatles cover I have ever heard that I prefer, in some ways, to the original. He hits a snarling tone that works.
Three off the top of my head
My favorites are complete recontextualizations, and favorite artists covering favorite artists (or songs). The (to me) rare “improvements on original songs” is a distant third. One of each:
1. Red House Painters’ cover of the Cars’ “All Mixed Up”. Takes you about two minutes to figure out what song it is, and then it makes sense. (Runner-up is an early entry in an seemingly endless string of mid-to-late-90s power-ska covers of 80s songs: Reel Big Fish doing A-ha’s “Take On Me”. At least, it was one of the first that I heard. And loved. But boy, that tactic sure got old fast.)
2. Teenage Fanclub covering the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man”. Not a radical reworking, but it sounds like the most fun TFC has had in years.
3. Marshall Crenshaw with Richard Thompson’s “Valerie”. Okay, we don’t have RT playing guitar, so we’ll have to make do with… um… Sonny Landreth on slide! (And MC’s guitar.) Maybe — heresy! — a hair better than the RT album version, and probably the only rockin’ RT cover I’ve ever liked. (Bob Mould’s “Turning of the Tide” was good, if a little slavish.)
Also, that entire Luka Bloom album sirpaulsbuddy mentions in his entry is almost uniformly wonderful, from the cover of U2’s “Bad” to the Abba and Cure (!) covers.
This too long enough to write that I can think of about fifteen more that I love, but I’ll stop there.
-steve
“Got the Time” – Anthrax covering Joe Jackson. One of my favorite covers EVER, and not just because I once won a radio station contest because I was able to recognize this song within the first four notes.
“Pictures of Matchstick Men” – Camper Van Beethoven doing Status Quo
“Top of the World” – Shonen Knife doing the Carpenters
“You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby” – Kirsty MacColl doing the Smiths. God, I miss Kirsty MacColl.
“Down in the Park” – Foo Fighters covering Gary Numan. As creepy as the original, and the thrashing guitars make it sound even more threatening.
And for sheer weirdness value: Ben Folds’ cover of Dr. Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit.”
Of course, all of these (and more) can be made available to you on CD if you want.
–debby
As an anonymous SBU student who is choosing not to use the anonymous feature, let me just say that covering “Imagine” is one of the worst mistakes ever made – preceeded only by reality TV, the formation of the MLB, and me eating that cheese off of the counter earlier, the horror of which I’m only beginning to realize. It’s my personal belief that I could cover “Imagine” with more success without playing a single instrument or singing a single note. While others might find it an “interesting interpretation” or an “artistic translation,” I find it to be “basically a piece of crap.” When asking myself whether or not coving a certain song is a good idea, I ask myself the following question: Does it make the plotline to ABC’s “Blind Justice” seem enjoyable or even rational? As in this case, it does not. Moral of the story: Don’t watch Blind Justice. Well, that and coving “Imagine” is the biggest bunch of “bs” to ever be contemplated. Hasn’t this song been through enough? First it was used in every patriotic montage following 9/11 and now it’s been covered by a group whose rendition makes Bob Woodward seem energetic and lively. Honestly, and I’ve given this a lot of thought, the worst tragedy of 9/11 was the overuse of the #3 best song ever (according to Rolling Stone… an account of which can be found here: http://www.xanga.com/item.aspx?user=Gramstand&tab=weblogs&uid=225199280 ) Maybe that’s an insensitive thing to say, but it’s right and if you disagree – oh, how do I put this? – you’re wrong. Long story short (ironic rimshot), covering “Imagine” was a terrible choice, and adequate punishment should be pursued by the general public for that travesty.