Cover versions we don’t need.

They weren't a very talented band (although I'll give them Einstein On a Beach - their only truly great song, a non-album cut). A lot of marginal stuff slipped through in the mid-90s when grunge had petered out a but but labels were still searching for the next alterna-pop hit machine.

 

Springsteen did a solid rendition on tour in 1984.




As did the Stones:

The Rolling Stones - Drift Away

 

Buckley's version was in fact inspired by John Cale's version....

 

Zep should of left "You shook me" alone IMO. Jeff Beck did it better IMO, even if it's not as good sonically as the Zep version.

 

Heino did some covers of rock bands including this one by Rammstein. Most acts were not amused (although Heino joined Rammstein on stage later.

 

I would love for Jesus and Mary Chain to cover this. Because it would then produce a phenomenal Pixies cover of the J&MC cover.

 

Sarah McLachlan's completely pointless photocopy of "Blackbird," for example.

 

The Boo Radleys' version, on the other hand, was great:

 

Now you're covering James Brown.

 

"Behind Blue Eyes" - Limp Bizkit

First band member: "I know how to make our cover of this Who song amazing, let's get rid of the bridge section and replace it with a Texas Instruments Speak & Spell spelling out L-I-M-P over and over."

Second band member: "Yeah man, that's gold!"

 

Cough...Hootie...cough...

 

So.

 

Girls Aloud and Sugababes covering Aerosmith's "Walk this Way". How dare they?

 

Any acustic guitar wielding, hush voiced, languid girl making acoustic and languid covers of metal, post punk, dance pop etc songs.
Hideous

Go f..k yourselves, Nouvelle Vague

 

At karaoke bars, many wanna-be’s have suffered a miserable on-stage fate to this very song. As Clint Eastwood so aptly said, “a man’s got to know his limitations.”

 

Pretty positive it was Sixpence None The Richer, and yeah, their version was very popular about 15 (20??) years ago. Sorry.

If it makes you feel better, Crowded House is so out-of-touch with today's popular music that no current Top 40 artist would DREAM (ahem) of covering it now.

 

No Doubt and Counting Crows. I don't mind the Crows one.... It was their last big hit, and when I spoke to Adam Duritz, he said they were simply big fans of Joni Mitchell and covered it for that reason. It was a hidden track on their Hard Candy album..... Not their fault that radio jumped on it. (They've also released pretty good covers of Gram Parsons, Faces, Pure Prairie League, Teenage Fanclub, and others... No muzak hits tho.)

Anyway. You know you're old when you're complaining about some young band covering an artist the current generation has forgotten about. You know you're REALLY old when the current generation has forgotten about the original artist AND the cover artist.

 

How could I forget Everclear's cover of The Boys are Back in Town?

 

The Bangles' version of "Hazy Shade Of Winter" is SO much better than S&G. Sorry, that's just science.

 

I was 13 when this came out.... And I'd NEVER heard the original.
Decades later I did. It's good too but the Tiffany version is fine. (Also makes more sense for an actual teenager to sing these lyrics over twentysomething Tommy James.)

Anyway. I can confirm that NO ONE my age or younger knows the Tommy James original, unless they've hunted for it. So for everyone 50 years old or younger, Tiffany is the definitive version now. Sorry, boomers.

 

Nah, I'll take the John Cale version that Buckley ripped off.

 

Not sure how could listen to August & Everything After with actual ears and say that.
And the ridiculousness of saying they were an attempt to capitalize on a "post grunge" landscape? August came out before In Utero. The album sounds like a mix of The Band and Van Morrison. They were completely out of step with the times and still became huge because the songs were just so good. (Einstein was a track from their original demo tape, when they still had some leftover 80s trappings. They gave it to their label for a compilation and radio played it as they were starved for new Crows material. It's still a good song but far from their best, probably why it's never played live.)

ANYWAY. [exhales] Big Yellow Taxi, agreed, isn't their finest hour. But they were always covering older songs by artists they liked. That one just happened to become a hit. Too bad their take on "Return of the Grevious Angel" didn't do the same... That one was great live.

 

Kylie Minogue - Locomotion

 

Lenny Kravitz - American Woman

What a total crime against humanity and my opinion of him couldn't get any lower than that.

 

Maybe not as bad as the others, but overplayed by radio (and played out):

Alien Ant Farm- Smooth Criminal
The Ataris- Boys Of Summer