Great songs. Great covers.

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Over the last several years, I have encountered numerous covers of favorite songs from my childhood (and beyond) that have occasionally become my preferred version. Today, I came across another cover of a personal favorite - “Sultans of Swing” by Dire Straits and it got me to thinking...

What are some of your favorite covers that you feel improve upon or change the original in new and interesting, beautiful, or awesome ways?

Starting with the previously mentioned, here are a few of mine:

- Leo Moraachiolli/Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing https://youtu.be/x0RV0kgdqJU

- Janet Devlin/The Who - Behind Blue Eyes: https://youtu.be/-kGl_uD9TkQ

- Matt Andersen/Bill Withers - Ain’t No Sunshine: https://youtu.be/jLsye_LJ_Ks

- Shinedown/Lynyrd Skynyrd - Simple Man:
https://youtu.be/HPVDj-wqgP4

- The Wackids/Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name: https://youtu.be/wdepf8H4Lgc

- Steve n Seagulls / AC/DC - Thunderstruck: https://youtu.be/e4Ao-iNPPUc

- Meytal Cohen/System of a Down - Toxicity:
https://youtu.be/WMKmQmkJ9gg

- Ariel McCleary / Camila Cabello - Havana: https://youtu.be/S9cI-Z6i_aQ

I am a big fan of Hey Jude by Wilson pickett

Some of the greatest blues guitar riffs/solos I've ever heard.

Absolutely haunting.

Man, I have quite a bit of covers in my playlists. I really like the ones that break genre and go in a completely different direction from the original. Scrolling through my playlist here are some of the ones that jumped out at me. And now I'm realizing I have a crazy amount of covers in my playlist.

[edited to make proper Youtube links]

The Cardigans - Iron Man. They completely strip out the main hook, gives the song a very cool vibe.

5 finger death punch just released 2 covers on their new album that just came out.

Postmodern Jukebox does nothing but covers, taking great (and some not so great) pop songs and putting them into a vintage style. Their version of Radiohead's Creep with Haley Reinhart elevates the concept to ridiculous levels and still blows me away every time I head it (and I've heard it a lot).

Fiona Apple's cover of Across the Universe is another that always jumps into my mind of covers better than the original. Could be sacrilegious to say that about a Beatles song, but it's true.

And an obscure one that just came up on shuffle on my ipod the other day. Vanessa Daou's cover of Jane's Addiction's "I Would For You". This was the only version of the song I found on youtube, posted 8 years ago and has less than 1500 views.

I don't know why, but I've always preferred this version.

I love covers! These are some of my favorites. Some are a little weird I know.

That Stone Sour - Heading Out To The Highway is great.

Switchyard - Hybrid Moments (The Misfits)

All of El Michels Affair's Enter the 37th Chamber (Wu-Tang Clan)

My favorite is Shimmy Shimmy Ya

CONTINUED....

Shakey Graves - Kiss The Girl (The Little Mermaid)

The Fearless Flyers - Under The Sea (The Little Mermaid again. I promise I'm not obsessed with covers of Disney songs.)

Edit to add one last song....

Ane Brun covered Bjork's Joga for the Polar Music Prize Ceremony in Stockholm. f*cking beautiful.

That Black Betty cover reminds me of this, one of my favorites:

Which led me down a rabbit hole of other versions, this one is pretty rad too:

My current favorite cover. That bass drum and banjo get my head bobbing every time:

Also, damn:

Lake Street Dive does a bunch of great covers, but I love this one, of nothing else than for getting to watch Bridget Kearney play that bass:

So hard not to overdo it, so sticking to The Misfits:

I love this thread.

I have actually been constructing a Spotify playlist of all my favourite cover songs, which can be found here! More for my tastes really, but feel free to have a look to see if there is anything you like. Especially if you're a Bob Dylan fan, as there is an absolute glut of amazing Dylan covers out there.

Personally, my favourite cover of all time is by a little known artist called AA Bondy, who unfortuntately has not released anything for a while despite being brilliant. This cover of "I'm so lonesome I could cry" is the most beautiful song I have ever heard. I often think slow acoustic

Then a few others:

Oh, I love that Beck cover, I had not heard it before. That song is very dear to me and he made it even more beautiful.

Edit to add more JC

Jason Isbell is known for his songwriting but he can pull of a nice cover or two as well:

And you can't have too much Larkin Poe in this thread:

I was going to recommend the AV undercover channel but it seems they took down all their old videos. Which is a shame because there were so many good ones...

ranalin wrote:

I was going to recommend the AV undercover channel but it seems they took down all their old videos. Which is a shame because there were so many good ones...

Yeah, it stinks that a lot of those are missing. Luckily this one can still be found:

I love that cover so much.

My current favorite for some time has been that Disturbed Sound of Silence cover. I like the original song, but this slowed down version is beautiful and gives it a completely different tone. There's actually a cool VR music video for this on the LittlStar app on most VR platforms. I love this one!

Last fall, I went to see Apocalyptica, which is a cello band that has some original songs, but mostly plays Metallica covers, and it was awesome! For the first half, they played their original Plays Metallica Album, and the second half, they brought in a drummer and upped the stage show a bit.

I've actually been pretty impressed with Pentatonix's covers, and find it hard to believe the variety of sound is coming from five people, and no instruments. This is probably one of my favorites; I love the drum and guitar effects when they really get into it:

I know there's more, but this will do for now. Great thread.

Off the Garage, Inc. CD, Metallica did a fine cover of the Blue Oyster Cult classic Astronomy

And I recently stumbled over a cover from Corey Taylor (frontman Slip Knot and Stone Sour) for the Dio tribute album. Rainbow in the Dark, I like it and I'm pretty picky about Dio covers.

It's probably cheating to post it in this thread, because it's not precisely a cover, but:

... which I find preferable to the original. It's a very, very pleasant song in this arrangement.

This is one where I can hear the compression somewhat; this is nicer at higher bitrates. Clicking up to 1080p might help a little.

Here's a few I like:

Badferret wrote:

Jason Isbell is known for his songwriting but he can pull of a nice cover or two as well:

His cover of Born In The USA with his wife, Amanda Shires, is hauntingly beautiful.

cheeze_pavilion wrote:

I love that cover so much.

Man, I'm glad to see some love for Lucero here. They're one of my favourite bands - so many Jameson-soaked nights spent with their music! I think I prefer it when they play that cover stripped back:

Argh, quote is not edit.

ranalin wrote:

I was going to recommend the AV undercover channel but it seems they took down all their old videos. Which is a shame because there were so many good ones...

Yeah, that's a real shame. Luckily you can still find the audio to some of them:

halfwaywrong wrote:

Man, I'm glad to see some love for Lucero here. They're one of my favourite bands - so many Jameson-soaked nights spent with their music! I think I prefer it when they play that cover stripped back:

With them based in Memphis i essentially grew up with them. So many shows and experiences with them. They'd come to Knoxville all the time. I initially went looking for their AV Modern Love cover, but it looks like it's gone.

Speaking of Sturgil Simpson I love his In Bloom cover

Yea he's known as a major country artist but he can rip when he wants. I totally recommend folks check out his Sugar Baby song as the title track for the Vinyl HBO show.

A more recent Nirvana cover...

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