| Author | Message | ||
     kevin Member Username: Kevin Post Number: 667 Registered: 05-2005 |
In response to the Great Covers thread, lets flip the coin Paul Young - Love Will Tear Us Apart UB40 - Red Red Wine David Bowie - China Girl (is it possible to cover a song you wrote? Iggy did it first and best) | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 442 Registered: 04-2005 |
Rather than go the "terrible artists butchering good songs" route, here are a few artists I normally like who got it all wrong with these covers. Roxy Music - "Eight Miles High" and "In the Midnight Hour" (from the "what were they thinking?" Flesh + Blood album) R.E.M. - "Wall of Death" Ted Leo - "I'm Looking Through You" Gang of Four - "Sweet Jane" Yo La Tengo - "The Whole of the Law" | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 569 Registered: 03-2006 |
Dolly Parton - Stairway to Heaven. But, truth be told, I probably don't hate it as much as the original. Just the lyrics of that song alone give me the heebie-jeebies. If your dog ate a Tolkien novel, then puked it up, then someone transcribed the results, you'd have "Stairway". Wait, it'd probably be better. Also, if I were King of the World, just uttering the phrase, "I am a golden god", would be cause for summary execution. | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 58 Registered: 05-2005 |
Mott the Hoople - 'Sweet Jane'. Love this band but have to admit this is a 'candy ass' version of a classic. Kiri Te Kanawa - 'Wouldn't it Be Loverly' (from My Fair Lady). Not just a terrble cover version but one of the most appalling things ever commited to record. Complete with the worst faux-Cockney accent in history. Deserves to be a cult classic. | ||
| Kurt Stephan Member Username: Slothbert Post Number: 447 Registered: 04-2005 |
I read somewhere that Ian Hunter didn't like "Sweet Jane" or the Velvets, and was distinctly unimpressed when he met Lou Reed. His vocals do sound pretty half-hearted. I think Mott covered it because Bowie wanted them to and/or Mick Ralphs wanted to play the famous riff. And similar to Kevin's "China Girl" comment, how about Bowie's inferior version of his own song "All the Young Dudes"? | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 156 Registered: 01-2005 |
A cover of "Sweet Jane" that doesn't suck, but was slowed way down and also include the missing 'heavenly roses' line, was the Cowboy Junkies version. I seem to remember Lou saying that it was his favorite version of the song. The Scissor Sisters version of the pink floyd song "Comfortably Numb" blows major chunks. I have to dump that cd from my collection soon! | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 45 Registered: 09-2006 |
Rita Coolidge doing (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher...Lady Moan takes a song that's all about intense, nearly breathless joy and sings as if she's had one too many ludes and Kris has to keep nudging her awake at the mike. The arrangement is in perfect keeping, chugging along in a lovely simulation of near-stasis. | ||
| Randy Adams Member Username: Randy_adams Post Number: 626 Registered: 03-2005 |
Bad covers? I can't believe I let this one slip by when it was first started. How about nearly everything by Linda Ronstadt? Ok, that's overly harsh and I like her version of "Different Drum." But her version of "I Can't Let Go?" Uh uh. Hardin, I LOVE the daft idea of a cover of "Stairway to Heaven" by Dolly Parton. Never heard it though. I'm always raving about Jackie DeShannon but that doesn't mean that she didn't do some really bad things. One that comes to mind is a cover of "Sunshine of Your Love." Horrible song and the effort by her and her backing band including Dr. John and Barry White only drive it deeper into the mud. How about Sandy Shaw's "Sympathy for the Devil?" And the normally superb Scott Walker sucked all the air out of the "Dusty in Memphis" classics "Just One Smile" and "No Easy Way Down." | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 280 Registered: 01-2005 |
Bad Cover - Nazareth doing "Love Hurts" minus any pathos what so ever. Has anyone heard the Everly Brothers version of it from the early 60's? I take it that was the original version unless the songwriters F&B Bryant recorded it first. | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 995 Registered: 03-2006 |
You, of course, Michael, have heard the Gram and Emmylou version, too? Also quite wonderful... Yeah the Nazareth version, is an excresence. Somebody should take that plumber's wrench offa that guys testicles, or as Borat calls them, "testes satchel"....Why do people like that strangled sounding yelping? When did that get inextricably associated with "heavy"? | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 281 Registered: 01-2005 |
LK, Gram and Emmylou's version has been a part of my life since 1975 when I bought Grievous Angel on vinyl. Then shortly thereafter I bought GP, The Gilded Palace of Sin, Sleepless Nights and Sweetheart of The Rodeo. I don't have the Everly Brothers version of Love Hurts from the early 60's. Do you? I have some crap from the mid 70's I bought on vinyl that I'll never get a cd version of. I'm glad that Nazareth never made it into my vinyl collection. Of course there is no excuse for those Uriah Heep albums though! | ||
| Little Keith Member Username: Manosludge Post Number: 996 Registered: 03-2006 |
An embarrassing admission, but when I heard Nazareth's version, I was a relative whipper snapper, and thought they wrote it, not realizing the great rich history of the song and the actually great versions of the song out there in the world, as opposed to Nazareth's butchery... Also embarrassing - I don't have the Everlys' version. I had a greatest hits I lost in a move, but I don't remember if that was on it. I should rectify that, because the Everlys were beyond wonderful... I remember hearing their version someplace though and thinking it was sublime. In a perfect world, we would be allowed to smack members of Nazareth in the face with dead fish for their crimes against music. Either that, or give them flesh wounds with small caliber handguns. | ||
| Michael Bachman Member Username: Michael_bachman Post Number: 282 Registered: 01-2005 |
I believe all the old Everly Bothers albums are available on cd finally. I'll do some browsing tomorrow on amazon. Did you ever see the movie Grace Of My Heart? It's a fictionalized story of the Brill Building with a thinly disguised Carol King, Lesile Gore, Beach Boys and also the Everly Brothers. The actors that played the Everly Brothers do a nice job singing a couple of EB type songs. Michael B. NP Talk Talk - Laughing Stock | ||
| Mark Leydon Member Username: Mark_leydon Post Number: 80 Registered: 05-2005 |
Since Michael has mentioned Nazareth in this thread I have to own up to a guilty pleasure - Nazereth's cover version of Joni Mithcell's 'This Flight Tonight'. As over-the-top as you would expect but somehow it works. I'm sure I read somewhere that even Joni Mitchell liked it. The only good song they ever did though... | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 13 Registered: 10-2006 |
Duran Duran released an entire album of covers entitled 'Thank You' in the nineties. Some are passable - Simon LeBon's camp sultriness works when he sings 'Watching the Detectives' (Elvis Costello), but he cannot pull off 'White Lines' or '911 is a Joke'. The LeBon whine is not conducive to 'Thank You' (Robert Plant) and too overpowering in 'Lay Lady Lay'. They are much better at their own stuff.... | ||
| Allen Belz Member Username: Abpositive Post Number: 59 Registered: 09-2006 |
Quintessential bad cover: Pat Boone doing "Tutti Frutti" | ||
| John B. Member Username: John_b Post Number: 24 Registered: 10-2006 |
Ugly Kid Joe doing Cats in the Cradle - it infuriates me that no one remembers the great Harry Chapin, RIP. The original version was one of my favourite a.m. radio tunes in the 70s. Dolly Parton doing Stairway to Heaven sounds seriously awful, but LK is right, the original sucks as well. May I also mention some cover-versions I like? The Lemonheads doing Mrs. Robinson Bauhaus doing She's in Parties The Walkabouts cover albums "Satisfied Mind", "The train leaves at eight" and "Slow days with Nina" | ||
| Elizabeth Robinson Member Username: Liz_the_new_listener Post Number: 17 Registered: 10-2006 |
Pat Boone doing 'No More Mr. Nice Guy' (original by Alice Cooper) on his unintentionally hilarious album 'In a Metal Mood'. Move over, William Shatner! |