Favorite Cover Songs That Are Much Faster Than Original

practically every single cover I hear is faster than the original! I may come from a different world than the original poster.

Some examples:

anything by Less Than Jake (Grease soundtrack, tv covers, Muppets, I Think I Love You
Slayer: In A Gadda De Vida
everything off the 6 volumes of Punk Chartbusters

 

Devo - Satisfaction
Bauhaus - Third Uncle

 

It's not a cover, but Queen performed "We will Rock You" with a faster tempo. I really like it:

 

Lots of disco/hi-NRG covers qualify:

Gloria Gaynor and Communards covering the Jackson 5's "Never Can Say Goodbye"
Donna Summer covering Barry Manilow's "Could It Be Magic" and Richard Harris's "MacArthur Park"

Also Postmodern Jukebox (with Dave Koz) covering Wham's "Careless Whisper":

 

Carpenters vs. Shonen Knife - Top of the World. Great cover...

 

Book Of Love-Tubular Bells
Ian Mcculloch-Lover, Lover, Lover
Armageddon Dildos-Everyday is Like Sunday
Dario G- Heaven is Closer
Girls Under Glass-Frozen (Madonna)
Ministry-Under My Thumb

 

Heavier, but the tempo doesn't seem much faster than Mick & Co.

 

"Unchained Melody" by Vito and the Salutations!

 

Surprised nobody's mentioned this one yet...

 

Trampled By Turtles - Open All Night (Bruce Springsteen)
It's not on YouTube unfortunately, but you can listen/stream here: https://longdistancesalvation.bandcamp.com/track/open-all-night

 

wow. just....wow.
i 'd love to hear what they'd do with 'marquee moon' or 'venus', but i suppose that's asking for too much, right?


cheers,
rob

 

Costello managed to reduce this Sam & Dave classic to less than 2 minutes...

 

Megadeth's cover of These Boots.

 

i kinda stopped thinking of this one as a cover a while back...the huskers version totally takes the song to a different place and meaning to the point where it's completely their own. i love them both, and while i can't say i 'enjoy' the rage and paranoia of the huskers version as much as the airy, crystalline beauty of mcguinn and company, i can say that it provides a catharsis like no other piece of music ever and at one long ago point in my life may have kept me from doing something really really stupid.

cheers,
rob

 

Is their cover of 'Third Uncle' really faster? The original is frantic.

 

Most of the Stones mid 60s blues covers.
Lone Cowboys' You Light Up My Life
Yardbirds really sucked the soul out of Smokestack Lightnin with this move.

 

Oh, and their cover of Wire's 'Strange' is much, much faster and much, much less interesting than the original.

 

yep

yep. maybe not by much, but by the end it's going at a really incredible pace.

cheers,
rob

 

Lou Reed: This Magic Moment
Charlie Rich: Mood Indigo
Roy Orbison: Danny Boy
Ray Charles: Yesterday
Herbie Hancock / Stevie Wonder: St Louis Blues

 

Ramones - I Don't Wanna Grow Up (Tom Waits)

Probably every Ramones cover is faster than the original.

 

David Bowie's "Let's Spend The Night Together"

 

Yup (bet Wire enjoyed the checks though)

 

W

Which cover version?