Worst Covers Of Songs You've Ever Heard.

Old Master 3.0

Old Master 3.0

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Black Thorn
What remakes of other people's songs can you absolutely not tolerate listening to?

I'm sure there will be others on my list, but my biggest one right now is one I just finished listening to a few minutes ago: Marilyn Manson's version of "This is Halloween". Repulsive.
 
Buffy Summers said:
Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt. Horrible.
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I love this.
The Song has so much power and emotion and the Video is very touching, considering the deaths of both Johnny and the wifey.

I've generally thought that the version you hear first, if you like the song, is the one you will prefer.
For example, I love 'Kiss' by Tom Jones but cannot stand it by Prince, though I do like him.
I don't mind Dance Remix/covers because thats more about mixing an old song with a good beat.
I also REALLY like Punk/Ska Covers of songs, Save Ferris does a great job of 'Come on Eileen' but what I really really hate are the teeny boppers covering classics.

They may have been the ultimate cheese in the first place, but I don't won't some candy covered 13 year old girl dreaming of Zac Efron(sorry to the Zac fans, he's not the problem the teeny boppers are) while singing lyrics that really are too old for them or 14 year old sex crazed teenage boys singing about love when you know all they want is to see a girl naked and be able to not blush.
 
I don't know what band or group or whatever this one belongs to, but I hear it on the radio all the time and it makes me cringe....the cover of Kenny Rogers' The Gambler......eeek. It's an ok song, I guess...good beat and all that, but there's just something so. wrong.
 
Old Master 3.0
Old Master 3.0
Indeed! What's next...death metal versions of Judy Garland songs?? The world has gone crack-smoke happy!!
sharkshark said:
I don't know what's up with the Mandy Moore version, but lately it's apparently the hip thing for indie rock bands to cover it live. It's truly bizarre.
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Live on stage, I have no issue(and it's not that new a thing either).
Fact is, I like it when in a live performance someone 'covers' a big recent song, but when its released, thats when my issue comes up.

In this case, if its a commercial cover, we've only just got rid of the song, why would someone thing its a good thing to re-record it?


Ohh and please tell me you aren't suggesting Mandy Poor is 'Indie'!
 
Might sound dumb, but anyone covering Imagine and Unchained Melody. I don't know why, but it annoys me and then I just get narky that they've ruined a perfectly good song just by trying to put their spin on it.
 
Kelly Clarkson's cover of the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Maps is awful. Although she called it Since You've Been Gone.

Take that, Clarkson!

Also, Buffy Summers, while it goes without saying that I respect your right to an opinion and tastes, Jesus Christ woman, have you no soul?!?!? NO SOUL!!?!?!?

I love Arcade Fire more than I love air, but their cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart along with U2 is agony. It's not their fault, really, but the fact that Bono is rolling around on the stage in a seacaptain's hat, and not one of them is stamping on him, is damning enough.

Karmically, it's cool though: because Arcade Fire's songs are so technically complicated to perform, it's practically impossible to cover their stuff well. Which brings us to my nomination for the single worst cover version ever, Foo Fighter's cover of Arcade Fire's Keep The Car Running for a BBC radio recording. I was never a huge Foos fan, but hearing Dave Grohl declare that he listened to the song every morning right before he forgot the words wins hands down, for me. Even if he'd just forgotten them, or mixed them up or whatever, I could get over it. Not only does he do both, he then trys to fix it by humming. Humming?

Yes. Humming.

Humming...

God, Dave Grohl, you are a professional musician!

: erm :
 
Jill_Valentine said:
but hearing Dave Grohl declare that he listened to the song every morning right before he forgot the words wins hands down, for me. Even if he'd just forgotten them, or mixed them up or whatever, I could get over it. Not only does he do both, he then trys to fix it by humming. Humming?

Yes. Humming.

Humming...

God, Dave Grohl, you are a professional musician!

: erm :
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That is pretty bad, but once, Leslie Feist forgot the words to her own song when I saw her live.
 
I have a live album of the Beach Boys where Mike Love forgot the words to "Alley Oop." You can tell he forgot them, because right in the middle of the song, he goes, "Whoa, I forgot the words!"
 
sharkshark said:
That is pretty bad, but once, Leslie Feist forgot the words to her own song when I saw her live.
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Ack. Oh Feist. I so desperately want to like you, and then... first she roots for iPod, Lacoste and literally half a dozen other ad campaigns, and ... seriously, forgot her own words? Was the song a new one at the time? Please tell me it was a new one...

I have a live album of the Beach Boys where Mike Love forgot the words to "Alley Oop." You can tell he forgot them, because right in the middle of the song, he goes, "Whoa, I forgot the words!"
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lmao... Nice recovery, Mike, I'm sure nobody noticed. 😀

Another horrible Arcade Fire cover - Norah Jones - NORAH POXY JONES! - covering Ocean of Noise. Norah dear, it takes ten people to make that music. Ten of them. And they play so hard they bleed on the instruments and collapse onstage with alarming regularity. Playing music in an elevator (YouTube - Arcade Fire - Neon Bible live in an elevator!) is not to be confused with elevator music. By an extraordinary coincidence, she attempted Ocean of Noise at the very time that a member of the band happened to be in the building. Richard's verdict on hearing one of the most boring singers on earth tackle one of their songs was, bless his Canadian politeness, was that it was... "Weird."

Incidentally, if I seem a bit Arcade Fire heavy lately, it's because I'm seeing them live in Phoenix Park in four days and I'm nearly queasy with excitement.

Anyway.

Jose Gonzales' Heartbeats is actually a good cover, but I do wish that the original was more widely known. Just because The Knife are creepier than a Victorian funeral doesn't mean they shouldn't be beloved for their brilliance.
 
Jill_Valentine said:
Ack. Oh Feist. I so desperately want to like you, and then... first she roots for iPod, Lacoste and literally half a dozen other ad campaigns, and ... seriously, forgot her own words? Was the song a new one at the time? Please tell me it was a new one...
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I love Feist, I'm seeing her next month, actually, but with her music being in so many ad campaigns lately, it's starting to alienate me a little, she's becoming way too commercialized and weird.
Unfortunately, this was last September and the song was One Evening, so it wasn't new. And she said, "I can't believe I'm forgetting the words, I still remember all the dance steps!"
Keeping on the topic of cover songs, though, she still remembered all the words to Inside and Out and Secret Heart, which are songs she didn't write, but somehow forgot the words to what was possibly her biggest hit at the time. Sigh. Silly woman.
 
I saw her a few weeks ago, and she was terrific. The ad campaigns are reaching saturation point, IMO, it's starting to make me bored of the songs, but I have to say, when she started up Mushaboom and 1234, the crowd went nuts. Most people knew My Moon, My Man - more than she expected, I think - and most people knew The Water or whatever, but everybody knew those songs from the ads.

It sits uncomfortably for me to see an artist I admire, particularly one from the kind of wilfully uncommercial community that Feist is part of, to be on quite so many ads at once... but all the same, it got her music out there in a way Amy Millan's isn't, say.

Hmm, I believe I shall make a Canadian music thread. For I love Canadian music.

Anyway... cover versions. Oh Christ, how could I forget Madonna's American Pie?!?!? I must have repressed the memory. Jesus wept...
 
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