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Favourite Cover Versions

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Tsuga

01:01 / 11.10.06

I always wanted to hear a bluegrass version of "Black Hole Sun". Like, real bluegrass. I heard some of the Hayseed Dixie stuff, it's not really bluegrass. I mean, it kind of is, but it's too slick, the instrumentation and harmonies are not quite there. I did find Handsome Hank and His Lonely Boys' cover, it's a western swing version, and pretty sweet. Mimi Goese does a spacey version on her solo album that sounds pretty damn good.
For you Radiohead fans, I found it mentioned one other time here, there's Rodeohead, which is psuedobluegrass, also, and after the intro pretty fun to listen to.
I think Hayseed Dixie stumbled onto a good idea, though, many songs would translate fantastically into bluegrass.
Speaking of Radiohead, the version of "Just" by Mark Ronson with Alex Greenwald wasn't too bad, though I'm sure many of you are familiar with that. Great video.

whistler

14:09 / 15.10.06

I've always found Travis's own stuff pretty insipid, so it's sort of nice that the one thing of theirs I do enjoy a lot is their cover of Britney's 'Baby One More Time'. Perhaps this is because they're being ironic and therefore manage for once to achieve an optimum level of delicious mawkishness (as perhaps demonstrated perfectly in 'Leave This City' by The Sundays or almost anything by The Smiths).

grant

17:59 / 27.10.06

Was just reading the fine stuff on coverville and came across the intriguing news that Scarlett Johansson is releasing an album of Tom Waits covers.

I don't know what to make of this news. She's doing it with Tom Waits.

My head hurts.

---

18:15 / 27.10.06

AFI's version of NIN's Head Like A Hole really did it for me. There's probably others but that one came to mind first, and it's awesome.

CameronStewart

02:32 / 05.11.06

My favourite album of the moment is the Easystar All-Star's "Radiodread" - the entirety of Radiohead's "OK Computer" redone as reggae. It sounds like a dumb gimmick it really works, there's something about it that I find hugely satisfying - the original album's melancholy (which isn't itself a bad thing) is replaced with a celebratory joy, particularly on their version of "Let Down," which makes me smile every time I hear it.

Sample tracks here.

Haus of Mystery

07:57 / 05.11.06

My favourite cover version of the moment is Baron Zen's cover of 'Walking On Sunshine'. Taken from the recent 'At the Mall' compilation of the best of his frenzied output from the latter end of the 80's/early 90's. Four track fuzzy nastiness with the most bore, pissed-off Wooo-hooo's ever committed to music. Kind of like Devo played by an illiterate talentless mall-rat. It's great, and it puts the nail in that dreadful song once and for all.

pangloss

22:55 / 12.11.06

Here are a couple of covers I particularly adore.

The first is a jungle-ish take on Rock the Casbah (The Clash) by "Solar Twins" - about whom I know nothing beyond this track. Despite the different style and female vocals, it *feels* oddly similar to the original.

The second is the Scissor Sisters doing Franz Ferdinand's 'Take me out', and this one totally changes the feel of the original. It's downtempo, lingering on the lyrics, drawing out the sadness in them. It turns what was an jangly and catchy in the original into a bittersweet, half-amused resignment at the way of the world.

And yes, I confess: both these are sexy female vocals. What can I say? It's my niche, and I like it.

grant

02:17 / 16.11.06

LISTEN LISTEN NOW TO THIS THING I JUST HEARD on the RADIO which is a review of a NEW ALBUM OF A TUVANESE THROAT SINGER who sings "LOVE WILL TEAR US APART" and is the MOST BEAUTIMOUS THING IN THE whoooooole wiiiiiiide

WOOOOOOOORRRRRLD!!

(why is this bedroooooom sooooo cooooold.)

grant

02:17 / 16.11.06

He also sings "Black Magic Woman" and is awesome.

grant

21:46 / 16.11.06

Yat-Kha has a web space with mp3 of "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and Motorhead's "Orgasmatron".

Throat singing.

Liner notes say this about Joy Division song:
"This band wasn¹t well known in Russia but some band made big
name and good career during USSR time copying and imitating the likes of JD.
I like the mood and guess our manager Jim likes them very much."

Oh, man.

ghadis

22:00 / 16.11.06

I'm again blown away by The Raincoats cover of Lola tonight. Don't have a link but it is one of the best covers i've heard.

bjrn

21:29 / 20.11.06

I liked Rodeohead, but one I liked even more (now we're talking about country style covers) is Purty Vacant by The Kingwoods, a cover of Sex Pisols' Pretty Vacant.

Char Aina

23:56 / 20.11.06

that is a great version.
thank you john peel.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

00:45 / 21.11.06

I am too drunk to read the whole threead again,. but I'm assuming I've already mentioned This Mortal Coil's Song To The Siren. If I haven;'t, I've been terribly remiss in not doing so because it is the best coiver ever.

grant

19:29 / 21.11.06

Stoat. Listen Kuvezin/Yat-Kha. Do so NOW.

iconoplast

20:02 / 21.11.06

I heard the throat singing on NPR and downloaded it. I second grant's audiogasm. You know how people downtune their guitars to get that scary, sludgey sound? He's doing that to his VOICE. Then he's singing Joy Division.

The clip of Black Magic Woman was rightly described as being Shamanic.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

20:16 / 21.11.06

I had 8 eMusic downloads left... I'm d/ling the first eight tracks from Re-Covers now...

grant

21:31 / 21.11.06

From the above-linked page:
Black Magic Woman (Carlos Santana version).

"One more my favourite artist. This song is somehow connected to Siberian black shaman women whom I like very much."

murphy

01:25 / 27.02.07

I'm really rather fond of the following covers:

Elvis Costello- Knowing Me, Knowing You
Gourds- Gin and Juice
Me First and the Gimme Gimmes- Mandy
Donnas- Build Me Up, Buttercup
Johnny Cash- any cover he's ever done with Rick Rubin
John Cale- Hallelujah
Dropkick Murphys- Which Side Are You On? (and their take on any traditional Irish ballad)
CCR- House of the Rising Sun
Jerry Lee Lewis- Memphis
Twisted Sister- Leader of the Pack (probably the first cover I knew was a cover)
Anthrax- Pipeline

murphy

01:26 / 27.02.07

And REM- Pale Blue Eyes

Janean Patience

09:37 / 27.02.07

John Cale- Hallelujah

I could be wrong, but if that's the version that sounds like it's done by one man in a yellowing hotel bedroom with only a Bontempi organ for company then it's by JJ Cale. Or I've always thought it was.

You're wrong.

I am wrong. The cover I'm thinking of may be by JJ Cale but it's another song entirely. So Long, Marianne or That's No Way To Say Goodbye? I can remember the beginning of it, but not where it goes...

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:38 / 27.02.07

Ah! That reminds, me that there is an entire album of startlingly literal cover versions of Leonard Cohen songs, produced by one of his backing singers - the one who went on, if memory serves, to reach number one twice in the UK with film songs, once with "The Time of my Life" and once with, erm, something else.

Anyway. This has a really rather good version of "First We Take Manhattan", which is also startlingly literal, as is, and this is the important bit of the whole process, the cover of the album, which is a picture of a raincoat.

Janean Patience

10:49 / 27.02.07

Jennifer Warnes, yes. Though the cover of Joan of Arc on there, which features Cohen, is much long than the original and kind of a strange reinterpretation of the song as a duet. Worth downloading.

Apparently Roberta Flack did a cover of That's No Way To Say Goodbye. I've been unable to find it.

Jack Fear

11:22 / 27.02.07

The Jennifer Warnes album is actually called Famous Blue Raincoat, though it's affectionately known in some circles (i.e. mine) as Jenny Sings Lenny.

Janean Patience

14:58 / 27.02.07

That's probably my favourite thing I've heard all day.

lekvar

20:23 / 28.02.07

Placebo does a better cover of Kate Bush's Running Up That Hill Than I would have ever given them credit for. It's a bit slower, and they definitely bring out the maudlin, but they do the original justice.

I've also really ben enjoying Fade to Bluegrass: The Bluegrass Tribute to Metallica. This is some toe-tapping stuff. Most of the covered tunes are from the Black album, as you'd likely expect, but there's also a great version of Ride the Lightning. The Black Album material makes the transition remarkably well, the lone-wanderer motif that runs through it fits the bluegrass genre well.

Closed for Business Time

21:10 / 28.02.07

I'm repeating myself, but feeling slightly patriotic, I'm going to plug the fantashtick Susanna and the Magical Orchestra's latest all-cover, no-bovver album Melody Mountain. Standout tracks for this here squire be Hallelujah (Lenny C), and Love will tear us apart. Well worth parting with some dosh for, alternatively it's out there in the torrentsphere. Their Hallelujah somehow reinstates a freshness, a melancholia that is as close as your jugular. I've cried listening to it. They also do an oddly sore version of AC/DC's It's a long way to the top, turning hard boogie rock into a post-pop lament.

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