Covers of Songs You Like, That You Hate

[Lowerdeck]

Decent: Sepultura's cover of U2's "Bullet the Blue Sky"

So-So: Killswitch Engage's cover of "Holy Diver"

Awful: Any upbeat 80s song by a male lead that gets slowed way the fuck down and is covered by a generic female lead singer. You generally hear this shit walking around a Kohl's store. I forgot what Genesis song this bitch did, but it was dreadful none the less.

Even worse: 80s songs which get covered by house or dance DJs. Well, except the one for the Flashdance theme.

Dreadful: The cover of Steve Winwood's "Valerie" by dance DJ Eric Pyrdz (IIRC) ... who decided to call the cover "Call On Me" instead. Jesus fucking Christ protector of all that is good and holy... why?

[YI]

Even worse: 80s songs which get covered by house or dance DJs. Well, except the one for the Flashdance theme.

DJ Sammy, "Heaven"...sod off...the Bryan Adams version is like a fucking abortion, it's awful.

In fact, most/all cheesy as hell dance tunes covering 80's tracks are immense.

Edited March 23, 2008 by YI

[VerbalPuke]

That post reminded me of how terrible that Audioslave cover of "Killing In The Name" is. Ugh. Cornell's voice sounds so emotionless and like he's just going through the motions. Really bad cover.

This reminded me of RATM's Renegades of Funk album. Most of it isn't too bad, the covers of Renegades of Funk and the Cypress Hill song are very good. However, I don't like their MC5 cover of Kick Out the Jams at all, their sound just doesn't translate well for Kick Out the Jams.

[Cactus Drags]

Pistol Grip Pump is excellent.

[Skummy]

Yeah, "Kick Out The Jams" is pretty much the only weak track on the album, the rest of it's brilliant, one of the better covers albums out there, and pretty much the only Rage album I ever listen to in its entirety. Come to think of it, has anyone ever done a truly GREAT cover of Kick Out The Jams? Everyone and their mother seems to have done a version of it, some of them are pretty good or at least passable, but I can't think of one that's made me think "Fuck, now that's a good cover".

[New Damage]

I love RATM's cover of "How I Could Just Kill A Man". 'One-time just came up in my home, tried stealing my chrome, so I yelled "yo it's on". Cooool.

It may not be a cover, they'd call it a "sample" but that Rick Ross chap who "sampled" the Scarface theme (Paul Engemann's "Scarface (Push It To The Limit)") deserves to be shot himself.

He takes a classic and fucks it over with his generic rap.Plus he looks like a bald Mark Henry, and a full-head-of-hair'ed Mark Henry isn't good. Yeah, you guessed it, I hate rap.

Edited March 24, 2008 by TheModernWay

[Nerf]

Velvet Revolver's cover of Mr. Brownstone when I saw them live was fucking AMAZING.

[Benji]

I LOVE the cover, but then, I love the original too, the RATM changes it up in tone, but loses the soul of it, it's neither worse nor better in my book.

[Cactus Drags]

I don't think I've ever heard the original Kick Out The Jams...

[MalaCloudy Black]

Yeah, "Kick Out The Jams" is pretty much the only weak track on the album, the rest of it's brilliant, one of the better covers albums out there, and pretty much the only Rage album I ever listen to in its entirety. Come to think of it, has anyone ever done a truly GREAT cover of Kick Out The Jams? Everyone and their mother seems to have done a version of it, some of them are pretty good or at least passable, but I can't think of one that's made me think "Fuck, now that's a good cover".

Bad Brains did a cover of it with Henry Rollins that I thought was quite decent.

KICK OUT THE JAMS, MOTHERFUCKER!

[Skummy]

That's it, though, just "pretty decent"...and I've heard the Bad Brains/Rollins version, and that's all it is. No one's done a GREAT cover of it. It just seems that an infinite amount of pseudo-punk bands think it'd be cool to cover it because The MC5 said "motherfucker" when no other band really did, but none of them really achieve anything by doing so. As I said before, I don't really see the point in straightforward cover versions, either completely reinvent the song a la Tori Amos' "Raining Blood", or at least put your own twist on it to make some kind of a point - Patti Smith's "Hey Joe" is a fine example or, to use an example brought up earlier in this thread, Saul Williams' "Sunday Bloody Sunday" - it sticks to pretty much the same structure as the original, but puts enough of the artist's style on it to make it worthwhile...there's no point doing a cover version if it's just going to seem like bad karaoke.

Edited March 25, 2008 by Skummy

[Farmer Reil]

Ohh dear, I just heard Avantasia's cover of 'Dancing With Tears In My Eyes'.

I love you, Tobi. But that was a really bad idea. A really, really bad idea. Don't do it again, naughty boy.

Edited March 25, 2008 by Farmer Reil

[New Damage]

I personally prefer the RATM cover of Kick Out The Jams to the original, mainly because the RATM version is longer, and is of better quality. But still good though.

I don't hate it, but Between The Buried And Me's cover of Soundgarden's "The Day I Tried To Live" is NOWHERE NEAR as good as SG's, they've made it too, y'know 'growly'.

[VerbalPuke]

I don't think I've ever heard the original Kick Out The Jams...

You're missing out then, there is nothing quite like the MC5, especially after a few high powered ales.

It does my heart proud that the MC5 are Michigan boys, don't know why, just a sentimental thing I guess. They're probably one of my favorite bands of all-time, they really turned rock and roll upside down at the time, and I'm fond of any band that rejected the hippie subculture.

The Bad Brains and Henry Rollins cover of Kick Out the Jams, man, haven't heard that one in awhile. It's not so bad, but Skummy really hit the nail on the head, nobody seems to be able to really capture it's magic.

The RATM cover is too slow for me, and I don't like Zack's vocals for it. And the good quality of it hinders it for me, I don't think I can appreciate that song if it's not the live version. It just has that real energy behind it, as opposed to the watered down version RATM and so many others have attempted.