Good and bad song covers?

Covers of songs you like can either be really good or really bad. Which covers do you think suck and which do you like?

Bad Cover: If I fell. Original by The Beatles, covered by Evan Rachel Wood

Good Cover: 99 Problems. Original by Jay Z, covered by Hugo

(Can you tell im bored?)

Van Halen did a shit-ton of covers, and every one of them fuckin' owned the original (my apologies to Bowie and Orbison)

If the band make the song their own, you would barely remember the original ...... stand outs for me are:

Mrs Robinson ...... Lemonheads covering Simon & Garfunkel

Mad World ...... Gary Jules covering Tears For Rears

Always on my Mind ....... Pet Shop Boys covering Elvis Presley

Suspicious Minds ......... Fine Young Cannibals covering Elvis Presly

Ever Fallin' In Love ...... Fine Young Cannibals covering The Buzzcocks

The Banana Splits Theme ....... The Dickies covering whoever sang the theme

Take on Me ...... Reel Big Fish covering A-Ha

Take A Chance on Me ...... Erasure covering ABBA

I Will Survive ...... Cake covering Gloria Gaynor

I am sure there are plenty more I can't think of at the moment.

Bad covers .......... anything done by some corporate invention of the day, doing pretty much a karaoke version, usually with some rap in the middle of it by the favourite black rapper of the day.

Good: Roll Over Beethoven - Electric Light Orchestra covering Chuck Berry.

Bad: Feeling Good - Muse covering Nina Simone.

Absolutely love the cover of Hallowed be thy name Cradle of Filth did. I know lot of people hate them but I don't fucking care. I like it.

I really enjoyed Fiver Finger Death Punch's Bad Company cover.

Any of Relient K's Is for Karaoke EP Part 1 & 2 are great.

I'm a huge fan of Metalica's cover of Stone Cold Crazy.

No idea why I chose these two, I mean, I really like them both but I just picked two at random.

My favorite is The Gourds cover of Snoop Dog's Gin and Juice. It's a hootenanny!

This topic pops up every now and then on these forums...I've gone into better detail replying to some of those.

Top 11 Best Song Covers. (IMO) by Raven_Sword

Any Amazing Song Covers?

Unquie Song Covers -- Go!!!

What's your favourite cover song?

Covers that are better than the original?

Worst Cover Songs

Worst cover songs ever? ("Punk Goes.." songs not preferable)

@Contrarian said:

…by the favourite black rapper of the day.

Because rap was invented by Eminem, clearly.

@Catarrhal said:

@Contrarian said:

…by the favourite black rapper of the day.

Because rap was invented by Eminem, clearly.

Yeah that was a really questionable qualifier...

@Meowshi said:

@Catarrhal said:

@Contrarian said:

…by the favourite black rapper of the day.

Because rap was invented by Eminem, clearly.

Yeah that was a really questionable qualifier...

I have no idea what is going on here .......... in case that needs clarification, I mean something like talentless Katy Perry with Snoop Dog (for example - I don't listen to commercial pop, but I hear it incidentally at times). I say black rapper because they are the ones with the talent (as opposed to most white wannabes), not as a derogatory term and can't understand why they work with such corporate dross - other than money and the producers who want their act to seem cool by association. I am sure this will just dig me deeper, but try not to read into something that isn't there.

I am the worst thing since Elvis Presley, to do Black Music so selfishly and use it to get myself wealthy

  Here's a good one.

Five Finger Death Punch's remake of Bad Company's "Bad Company", and Volbeat's "I Only Wanna Be With You" . While its not really a remake, when Alice in Chains & Gretchen Wilson covered Heart's "Barracuda" on Rock Honors, I was blown away.

There's an awful AWFUL cover of Beat It (which you can find on YouTube) by Amy Winehouse and some other chick. The other singer holds her own and does a great job, but Winehouse is fucking out of it. The drugs have destroyed her singing by this point. It's kinda sad, but also hilarious. RIP

I love this cover of When The Levee Breaks by A Perfect Circle :

And the new cover of Immigrant Song by Trent Reznor and Karen O is pretty awesome :

And unfortunately these covers by Audioslave are pretty terrible, especially Killing In The Name :

I absolutely love the EBA version of Jumpin' Jack Flash.

My Vitriol are the best at covers. These two especially are amazing. 
 
  

Behind Blue Eyes - Limp Bizkit.....one of only a few good songs by Fred Durst, too bad he couldn't make an original song this good.

@NipCrip66: It's kind of strange to say Audioslave covered Killing in the Name since Audioslave is pretty much Rage Against the Machine with Chris Cornell instead of Zack de la Rocha.

i was always really fond of this cover

in fact alot of the covers on their B-sides and rarities album are fantastic

as far as bad covers go most of the songs that get released from the UK version of the xfactor are terrible, but this one rubbed me the wrong way particularly, im not even that much of a fan of the original

Good Cover, Need to understand the song and when its an anthem for a Genre it has to be done right. While I think that most covers should be original enough to make it a new song. Anthems change the rules.

The Specials: Monkey Man

Reel Big Fish: Monkey man

Bad, it has people around that understand how to do the song......how she dosnt.

An official Cover after that.

Bird and the Bee surprisingly does a great cover to a song I don't like, A cover of Rihannas Dont stop the music.

my favourite cover:

ozzy should be proud

Bad: Anything on Glee

avenged sevenfold butchered pantera's awesome song "walk." i heard it made dimebag roll in his grave. even before that, i'm still having a difficult time figuring out how avenged sevenfold ever made it to where they are today. they're an awful band. i hate them even more for fucking up "walk."

the good:

i think these kids are better than many adult cover bands.

@Contrarian said:

If the band make the song their own, you would barely remember the original ...... stand outs for me are:

Mrs Robinson ...... Lemonheads covering Simon & Garfunkel

Mad World ...... Gary Jules covering Tears For Rears

Always on my Mind ....... Pet Shop Boys covering Elvis Presley

Suspicious Minds ......... Fine Young Cannibals covering Elvis Presly

Ever Fallin' In Love ...... Fine Young Cannibals covering The Buzzcocks

The Banana Splits Theme ....... The Dickies covering whoever sang the theme

Take on Me ...... Reel Big Fish covering A-Ha

Take A Chance on Me ...... Erasure covering ABBA

I Will Survive ...... Cake covering Gloria Gaynor

I am sure there are plenty more I can't think of at the moment.

Bad covers .......... anything done by some corporate invention of the day, doing pretty much a karaoke version, usually with some rap in the middle of it by the favourite black rapper of the day.

I love Take on Me by reel big Fish!

Good-Mad World covered by Gary Jules

Bad-Mad World covered by Adam Lambert

Good Cover; Hurt written by NIN covered by Jonny Cash

Bad Cover; Hurt written by NIN covered by Leona Lewis

Puddle of Mud covering Give me shelter is an insult to the Stones

@EuanDewar: I bet 1 million gazillion pounds that nobody other than me and you know what song james blake is covering in the wilhelm scream. A gazillion.

Possibly the best cover version of anything, ever:

Possibly the blandest cover version of anything, ever:

I love Queens of the Stone Age, but god, that arrangement of White Wedding could not be more crawling and... well... boring. And-- well actually, my anger's fleeting now. It's not as bad as I ever remember it. Hmm. Oh well, take it for what it's worth.

Also, hey, it's my first forum post on GiantBomb! Hey, GiantBomb! :D

I really like the Disturbed "Land of Confusion" cover. 
Also, Quiet Riot's cover of Slade's "Cum On Feel the Noize" is so eponymous with the band it's impossible to imagine anyone else doing it.

Good Cover; Hurt written by NIN covered by Jonny Cash

Bad Cover; Hurt written by NIN covered by Leona Lewis

Good covers: Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of this) , Orgy - Blue Monday, Rammstein - Stripped, Smashing Pumpkins - Never Let me Down Again, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds - Death Is Not the End.

Bad Covers: H.I.M - Wicken Game.

Here's a damn good alice in chains cover.

Raintime - Beat It

I love this. Just discovered this band last month. Fun cover.

@PenguinDust: Yup. Great cover.

I'd have to say my favorite cover would be.......

@RubberBabyBuggyBumpers: I don't know if you're familiar with professional wrestling in the form of WWE or ECW, but I think this is the best cover of enter sandman.

Coalesce (a hardcore band) covering a Led Zeppelin song (with hardcore vocals). Kinda bad. In a fun way.

The Pixies covering a Jesus and Mary Chain song. Pretty good.

@Contrarian:

You are SO right about "Always on my Mind". The Pet Shop Boys fucking made that song. But it wasn't originally by Elvis.

Good - Hurt by Johnny Cash. Amazing cover of the original, and even somewhat better.

Bad - Fortunate Son by Dropkick Murphys. Normally, I love them.. but this was just a bad cover. It was way too fast paced, and Ken Casey's voice, while usually great, just doesn't do the song any good.

  The RATM cover of Renegades of Funk is awesome and the video pays tribute to the spirit of the original
  

I swear there was a thread like this a few months ago....