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The Best Cover of All Time

by Scott H. Payne

I’m feeling very non-politic-y today, as you no doubt can tell. And so part of the trade off you accept for the benefit you receive from the brilliant political analysis we provide day-in-and-day-out is that your have to humour our random tangential posts from time to time. The President has a “bully pulpit”, we have a “dork pulpit” — you get the idea.

Anyhow, I’ve been doing a lot of You Tube listening today and would like to submit the following as a contender for “The Best Cover of All Time”:

Into The Mystic by the Swell Season,


I’d be interested to see what entries the commentariat comes up with, we can create a short list and then have a fight to the death in the comments. Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley is ruled inadmissible for being too meta.

And….. go.

Woah, hold the presses! Much as I love the above cover, this gem from ‘92 clearly blows its doors off…




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19 comments

1 Jonathan { 12.11.09 at 1:15 pm }

OK, I’ll bite, quickly off the top of my head (and I reserve the right to come up with others later):

Placebo – “Running Up That Hill” (or should we disqualify anything that’s been on the O.C.?)
Cake – “I Will Survive”
The Afghan Whigs – “Creep” (the TLC song, not the STP song)

And, for the holidays:
The Sheila Divine – “O Holy Night”

Scott H. Payne
December 11th, 2009 at 1:52 pm

The Afghan Whigs – “Creep” (the TLC song, not the STP song)

Nice, good call.

2 Jonathan { 12.11.09 at 1:21 pm }

Yeah, now I’m going to be obsessed.

Buckley might be out, but Rufus Wainwright does a good version of “Hallelujah”.

Better yet, Wainwright and Ben Folds doing “Careless Whisper” live.

3 John Henry { 12.11.09 at 1:22 pm }

You have to rule out Hendrix’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’ and Cash’s ‘Hurt’ too, don’t you? Any time the original artist has come out and basically said ‘it’s not my song anymore,’ I’d say you have to limit it to lesser known covers.

Scott H. Payne
December 11th, 2009 at 1:26 pm

I’ll buy that. So decreed.

4 Jaybird { 12.11.09 at 1:23 pm }

Sisters of Mercy: Gimme Shelter

Jaybird
December 12th, 2009 at 7:55 am

I don’t know if Dread Zeppelin ought to be disqualified but, if not, I’d submit their cover of Stairway. If Stairway happens to come on in the car, I’m pretty likely to crash it in my haste to change the channel.

I can listen to this, though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7DqjyNGHJU

Jaybird
December 12th, 2009 at 8:18 am

I don’t know if this even qualifies as “cover” music but…

http://www.dictionaraoke.org/

The basic idea is to use the word pronunciation files for a song. It’s like the matrix. It cannot be explained, it can only be shown.

I wanna be sedated by The Ramones:
http://www.archive.org/download/dictionaraoke/The_Ramones-I_wanna_be_sedated.mp3

5 joeyhepatitis { 12.11.09 at 1:38 pm }

I had never heard The Afghan Whigs cover of “Creep” before, and being a huge fan of the original I was expecting to be let down, but they pull it off really well. It’s pretty interesting that 3 rather popular songs were all named “Creep” and were all released close to a year of one another – TLC, STP, Radiohead.

I’d submit -

Paul Westerberg – These Days
Cat Power – I Found A Reason
Langley Schools Music Project – Desperado

Although Hendrix doing All Along The Watchtower and Ike & Tina doing Proud Mary are tops

6 Scott H. Payne { 12.11.09 at 1:45 pm }

I think it was Suderman over at TAS who called out this version of Crazy in Love by Antony & The Johnsons & Metropole Orkest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0ob52GyXl4

That’s pretty skook in my books.

7 Emily { 12.11.09 at 2:07 pm }

Shouldn’t you also rule out Aretha Franklin doing “Respect?”

8 62across { 12.11.09 at 11:06 pm }

Chris Cornell’s Billie Jean

9 Sam M { 12.12.09 at 10:15 am }

Modest Mouse does a great cover of Sleepwalking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP3VVsA_xXc

Added lyrics and everything. Awesome.

10 Clint { 12.12.09 at 12:22 pm }

My top 3:
1. Built to Spill doing “I Try” by Macy Gray
2. Nick Drake version of Bobby-D’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright”
3. Otis Redding’s cover of “Satisfaction” at the Monterey Pop Festival

Will
December 12th, 2009 at 12:42 pm

Unlimited guest-posting privileges to whomever finds a youtube of BTS covering Macy Gray.

11 Will { 12.12.09 at 12:57 pm }

The Gourds covering “Gin and Juice” is in the running for best [novelty] cover:

http://s0.ilike.com/play#The+Gourds:Gin+and+Juice:59030:s49024507.12311043.22181825.0.2.166%2Cstd_f8fbfc2c988b47458cc26222512e3228

12 Clint { 12.12.09 at 1:56 pm }

Forgot about the 2 volumes of brilliance on the “Guilt by Association” compilations (http://www.myspace.com/guiltbyassociation). Three standouts:
1. Suprechunk doing “Say My Name” by Destiny’s Child.
2. Despite being close to sacrilege, the a capella version of “Don’t Stop Believin’” is astonishingly good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kXbHf1SwGk
3. Jukebox the Ghost recasting Ace of Base’s “It’s a Beautiful Life.” I’ve also seen them do a passable cover of “What’s this?” from Nightmare Before Christmas…

http://video.yahoo.com/watch/1170783/4192045

13 JosephFM { 12.13.09 at 1:22 pm }

All time really? These are all pretty recent?

Maybe just of the decade, like my once-favorite webzine Flak’s from the last decade.

In which case I nominate Jose Gonzalez, though I can’t decide which of his is the best. (I’m leaning towards his version of Massive Attack’s “Teardrop”

14 db { 12.13.09 at 5:03 pm }

Scissor Sisters–Comfortably Numb
Eric Clapton–After Midnight
Nirvana–Where Did You Sleep Last Night
Screeching Weasel–Let the Sunshine In
Johnny Cash’s American series generally. Some of the absolute standouts that really elevate the often mediocre originals: One, Personal Jesus, Won’t Back Down, Mercy Seat