Great cover songs

[JimPooley]

Simple question, do you know any cover songs better than the original?

Recently I've been obsessed with Hugo's cover of 99 problems, it was played at the end of the remake of 'Fright Night'.

Hugo - 99 Problems

[Hemingway]

Iced Earth's cover of the Judas Priest song The Ripper is miles better, in my opinion. Matt Barlow has an amazing voice, and it just sounds so gloomy.

Iced Earth - The Ripper

[Torch]

This brings up the circumstance in which people are unaware the song they are listening to actually is a cover song.

How many Hendrix fans are under the impression Jimi wrote "All Along the Watchtower"?

I even met one Metallica fan who insisted the band wrote "Whiskey in the Jar" because he had never heard any other version. *eyeroll*

[Samael]

Placebo's "Running up that hill".

Placebo - Running Up That Hill

[Oniya]

Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock n Roll'

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - I Love Rock N Roll

(Actually, any one of Joan Jett's hits.  That has to be the most famous cover band in history.)

[JimPooley]

Joan Jett's 'I Love Rock n Roll'

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts - I Love Rock N Roll

(Actually, any one of Joan Jett's hits.  That has to be the most famous cover band in history.)

Didn't even know that was a cover :/ who did the original?

[Oniya]

Alan Merrill and Jake Hooker, of a band called Arrows, released it in 1975 as a response to the Rolling Stones' 'It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (But I Like It)'.

EDIT:  Found a youtube of the original:

The Arrows - I Love Rock and Roll

[Shjade]

Unfortunately the best cover I can recall was a live amateur performance of Nerina Ballot's "This Will Be Our Year." Unfortunate because I can't really link a nonexistent video of a high school senior completely owning that song. D:

[Slaven]

These are all strictly opinionated.. That said, I could own this thread. >.> I live off of covers. The moment I ehar a song I like, I look for a cover I like more.

Walking in Memphis

Teenage Dream

Usher Medley

Misery

Human Nature

If I Die Young

[Mithlomwen]

There are a few that I really like....but I'll narrow it down to three.....

I love and adore the original version of this by Bad Company, but FFDP did and awesome job in my opinion:
Five Finger Death Punch - Bad Company

Disturbed did an excellent version of Genisis' song as well:
Disturbed - Land Of Confusion [Official Music Video]

I actually like Alien Ant Farm's version of this song better than the original:
Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal

[Oniya]

I have to add - I love Dennis DeYoung's Broadway renditions.  I'm not sure if you can call those 'covers' though, since so many people have performed them over the years.

[Inkidu]

I would necessarily say better, but let's just go with better. *nod-nod*

Richard Cheese - Creep

Richard Cheese - Yellow (Coldplay)

[Lilias]

Marvin Gaye's iconic hit 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine' is a cover - he got third time lucky, after Smokey Robinson and Gladys Knight.

Here's a couple of more recent covers I enjoy:

All Saints - Under The Bridge (Red Hot Chili Peppers cover)

Alanis Morissette - Crazy (Seal cover)

Lacuna Coil - Enjoy The Silence (Depeche Mode cover)

[Inkidu]

Scala and the Kolancy Bros. do good covers too.

Scala & Kolacny Brothers - Yellow (Coldplay cover)

scala creep radiohead

[Shjade]

I actually like Alien Ant Farm's version of this song better than the original

Blasphemyyyyyy~

[Kuroneko]

Marilyn Manson's cover of Personal Jesus

Marilyn Manson - Personal Jesus

Rob Zombie and Lionel Ritchie do Brick House 2003

Rob Zombie Brick House 2003 Better Version

[Samael]

These are all strictly opinionated.. That said, I could own this thread. >.> I live off of covers. The moment I ehar a song I like, I look for a cover I like more.

Walking in Memphis

Just wow...
That was a great rendition of the song.

[gaggedLouise]

Isaac Hayes' ten-minute version of  Walk On By is at least as good as Dionne Warwick's original - and very different. It's intriguing to have a powerful, big-boned man making this rejected-woman lyric his own  - and he still sounds dignified! Rich, lyrically intense, and a great display for Isaac's dark, velvet baritone.

Aretha Franklin's takes on The Long and Winding Road and, especially, Elton John's Border Song (both on Young, Gifted and Black) outdo the originals. "Border Song" is breathtaking, but then it was written as a homage to the U.S. civil rights movement and with a gospel tone, so she was kind of "bringing it back home" here.

Aretha's own studio take isn't online, but there's a nice live duet between her and Elton here:

Aretha FRANKLIN -"Border Song" (LIVE/1993)

Simple Minds did a better job with this:  Street Hassle than Lou Reed. Sure, Reed is a hero but the cropped, mumbling way of singing he began using around the time of the Street Hassle album makes his tracks unengaging sometimes, and his own ambitious version doesn't really make it for me. Jim Kerr is much better at bringing out the drama of the song (they only do part of the complex original structure, but vital parts) and the rich, echoing production and gleaming guitar and drums are amazing. Many songs try to sound and feel like a good fuck, this one achieves it, it recreates that floating, exuberant feeling (only fully appreciated on the actual record, not on Youtube).

[Oniya]

Out of curiosity, did I misread the initial question?

Simple question, do you know any cover songs better than the original?

I interpreted it as knowing a cover song better than I knew the original, but I now see that it can also read as knowing 'any cover songs that are better than the original.'  In the sense of the second, I propose Roger Daltrey's versions of 'I Want It All' (Tribute concert, 1992) No offense to Freddie, but that growl makes me weak!)

Queen Roger Daltrey & Tony Iommi - I Want It All Live Wembley Stadium 1992

and 'Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me' (from the Lost Boys soundtrack)

Roger Daltrey-Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me

(It also makes me sad that some people out there think Axl Rose wrote 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door')

[Slaven]

Just wow...
That was a great rendition of the song.

Haha. All of Eli's covers are better than the originals. I love that man's voice.

[JimPooley]

Been a lot of debate over this one with my friends, I think it's a really good version though.
Muse - Feeling Good (Video)

Not sure what's up with the disorted faces though....

[gaggedLouise]

Many people would agree that Chaka Khan's I Feel For You outstrips the original version by The Time (written by their pal Prince), but then Chaka's version IS the primary track to most of us. I love that one, so bouncy and crammed with the joy of love.

Michael Jackson was a hard act to follow, but Miles Davis made Human Nature his own and there's a 15-minute killer version of it as the opening track of the Miles in Paris dvd (filmed in 1989, two years before his death). Slow, elegant start, then it rises and fills with more and more open longing and sensual drive in an incandescent saxophone solo by Kenny Garrett, with the rest of the band right behind him. It has to be seen and heard to be believed, perfect - and it's improvised. In an interview, Kenny noted Miles' tactics (witnessed by many other of his sidemen) of making his standard songs come out different every time the band played them - "if you didn't come up with new elements by yourself, he'd do it for you /in the course of playing/, change the rhythm, add unexpected key changes, rearrange the structure and so on - and you had to follow and reinvent it. So we did Human Nature a thousand times and I was never tired: new things would enter into it every time"

The takes that are around on Youtube are good but none of them fully match the Paris version. Not really a cover by some standards though, it's only at the opening it clearly states the original tune, then it rebuilds its own version from the elements of rhythm and chord progression of the first-hand song.

[Rhaegar14]

Covers I love:

"Cry Little Sister" by Seasons After, a cover of Gerard McMann.

"Apologize" by Silverstein, covering Timbaland/OneRepublic.

"Since You Been Gone" by A Day To Remember, originally by Kelly Clarkson.

"Imperial March" by Metallica, originally from Star Wars.

"Turn The Page" also by Metallica, a cover of a Bob Seger song.

"I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" by Disturbed, originally by U-2.

[Lilias]

Here's another:

Imelda May - Tainted Love (Soft Cell cover)

This is not strictly a cover, since it's still Queen, but I want it on the record, the great tribute to Freddie that Paul Rodgers delivers:

Queen + Paul Rodgers - I Want It All

[gaggedLouise]

Two stunning versions of Jimmy Webb's The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress.

Pat Metheny/Charlie Haden, 1996:

Charlie Haden and Pat Metheny - The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress

and the Norwegian jazz legend Radka Toneff with expatriate US pianist and composer Steve Dobrogosz, 1982:

Radka Toneff Moon's a Harsh Mistress


- and posting Metheny and Haden (that whole album is a keeper), well I'll have to add in this one, too, though it's not a cover but an original. Is This America? (Katrina) was premiered on the Elvis Costello Show after a talk with no less than Bill Clinton (who was quite impressed of course).

Pat Metheny & Charlie Haden: Is This America (Katrina 2005)