[tehpressman]

studio:
Primus - Have A Cigar (Pink Floyd)
Primus - The Thing That Should Not Be (Metallica)
Primus - Hello Skinny + Constanintople (The Residents)
The Dillinger Escape Plan w/Mike Patton - Come To Daddy (Aphex Twin)
Foo Fighters - Baker Street (Gerry Rafferty)
Lovage - Sex/I'm A (Berlin)

live:
Les Claypool's Frog Brigade - Animals (Pink Floyd - entire album)
Mr. Bungle - What The World Needs Now (?)

 

[grinch]

Quote:

Originally posted by kerelybonto grinch, good call on "Where Did You Sleep Last Night." That one of my favorite Nirvana songs off MTV Unplugged. Cobain just puts so much emotion into it on that one.

i agree. have you ever heard leadbelly's version? i got a cd of his stuff that was totally saved by the smithsonian foundation and remastered from acetates! quite crackly, but pretty amazing music.

kelly: i had no idea "dead souls" was a cover! that's really cool and such a great track. the crow soundtrack was always awesome.

i just thought of a few more:

1. "smells like teen spirit" - tori amos (nirvana)
2. "angie" - tori amos (the rolling stones) - on same ep as above track
3. "savory" - jonah's onelinedrawing (jawbox)
4. "easy" - faith no more (lionel richie)
5. "something vague" - every time i go to an indie acoustic show, somebody covers this song and it generally always works (bright eyes)
6. "no quarter" - tool (led zeppelin)

 

[zowie]

Quote:

Originally posted by ArChaos Tori Amos-Angie

Man, I couldn't stop playing that one for weeks when I first got it! The low end of the piano sounded great with Grado's extra warmth.

Another of my favorite covers is Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual" done by the Wild Colonials as a ballad with an electric violin solo.

 

[zowie]

I can probably think of 100s of good covers, but here's a few where I think the later artist did something creative that made it very different from the original:

Styx' Sailing on the South Park soundtrack. A riot.

Byrds, Mr. Tambourine Man.

Led Zep, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.

Jennifer Warnes, Famous Blue Raincoat (Tori's later version, while nice, is a knock-off of Warnes' and not recorded as well)

Marcels, Blue Moon. If you hear the original you'd hardly know it was the same song.

 

[neil]

Eva Cassidy doing Fields of Gold (Sting cover).

The album page with the preview link (track 8)

 

[daycart1]

Quote:

Originally posted by ArChaos [BThe more "personal" and not "copied" from the original - the better I like them... provided of course that the new interpretation has "character" and is not bad by itself... [/B]

This is so true. One of my pet peeves is "artists" who "cover" a song by copying everything: vocal mannerisms, instrumentation, etc. And make a lot of money from it, probably because they pick good tunes and top-40 listeners don't remember the original.

I think this kind of evil copying was popularized by Elton John's miserable, imitating copy of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". [I suppose some might say he was making a brilliant postmodern comment on the practice of covering others' work] Another example is the Lemonface imitation of "Mrs. Robinson".

Good covers are creative: the Hendrix Watchtower is a perfect example. It is hardly the same piece as Dylan's, but somehow at the same time completely respects the original. I don't think anyone has mentioned the CSNY cover of "Woodstock" Joni Mitchell's original is better, but the cover is a real re-creation.

There are zillions of good covers in the jazz tradition, they're harder to find in pop.

 

[zowie]

Quote:

Originally posted by daycart1 I think this kind of evil copying was popularized by Elton John's miserable, imitating copy of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". [I suppose some might say he was making a brilliant postmodern comment on the practice of covering others' work] Another example is the Lemonface imitation of "Mrs. Robinson".

This kind of copying was popularized decades earlier by a racist music and radio industry (or arguably, consumers) that would have white artists re-record songs by black artists so they could sell them or play them to audiences or in places that found black artists unacceptable. That is why they are called "covers."

 

[daycart1]

Good point.

Is that really the origin of the term, "cover"? Interesting.

But I'll bet most of those "covers" were not even good imitations! And later, mostly British rock bands did do creative covers of authentic american music.

 

[zowie]

In the earlier days of recording, before the rise of the "personalities" many people would record the same song. People primarily wanted to hear the song, not the performer, and would eagerly await publication of, say, a new Irving Berlin tune, not a new record by whatever Bumblefuk Society Orchestra happened to record it. Sales of sheet music were a better benchmark of whether a song was a hit than sales of records.

It was a somewhat like classical music today. The performer was not irrelevant, but people gererally think to themselves "I'm in the mood to listen to some Ravel" not "I'm in the mood to listen to some Zubin Mehta."

As more personality-driven performers emerged after W.W. I, mostly from the stage (e.g., Valee, Jolson, Crosby), followed later by the great big bands and their outstanding soloists, things became more like they are today. But not quite, because most songs continued to be written by professional songwriters, not the performers. By and large, they were all recording other people's songs (many of which were written just outside my window, in the Brill Building). I think it was Hoagy Carmichael who said that "1964 [the arrival of the Beatles] was the year the amatures took over the [songwriting] business."

The "cover" concept, however, comes from the early Rock n Roll period white-guy-copy-black-record so we can sell it. A classic example is Shake Rattle & Roll. That's also what's behind that line in The Buddy Holley Story that went something like "If you can find me a white singer who sounds like a negro I'll make you a million dollars."

At any rate, Elton John has nothing much to do with the development of any of this.

 

[ArChaos]

Zowie - Very,very interestening *cover story*

. Thanks...
Led Zep, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.Didn't know it was a cover - whose is the original?

Daycart1- If I recall right your posts, you listen a lot to classical music and care much about the interpretation... The way I feel it - the interpretation there is not less crucial to the music than it is with the rock/pop/jazz music...although a question of personal taste - the same concert performed by Heifetz or Stern (both great violonists by any standards)can make a huge difference for me... as much as *like* or *dislike* the piece.

Kelly - yes, some very good choices:
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Slayer (Iron Butterfly) ROTFL - wow, man it's great...and funny...so different - instead of the bassy voice of I.B's soloist...this...very interestening although I like the original better.
Sign of the Southern Cross - Fates Warning (Black Sabbath)100%agree-great cover.
Diary of a Lovesong - Perfect Circle (Ozzy/The Cure)100%rocks-didn't know it was cover song...

Tori Amos realy rocks with cover versions. Her Nirvana cover is indeed something special. I would also recomend her covers for "Candle in the Wind" and "Killing me Softly".

Nana Moskuri - Ave Maria - very good interpretation.
Monserat Cabalier & Bruce Dickinson - Bohemian Rhapsody - this Queen cover really sky rocks

 

[zowie]

Quote:

Originally posted by ArChaos Led Zep, Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.

I think its traditional, but everyone was learned it from one of the early all-acoustic Joan Baez records. Also introduced Jackaroe (now associated by many w Jerry Garcia), and House of the Rising Sun.


Where's is the Tori Amos cover of Killing Me Softly to be found? I'd like to check that out.


And that reminds me of another cover, Robert Flack's beautiful First Time Every I Saw His Face is actually a cover. It was first done by Peggy Seeger, for whom it was written by Ewan MacColl.

 

[daycart1]

Quote:

Originally posted by zowie The "cover" concept, however, comes from the early Rock n Roll period white-guy-copy-black-record so we can sell it. A classic example is Shake Rattle & Roll. That's also what's behind that line in The Buddy Holley Story that went something like "If you can find me a white singer who sounds like a negro I'll make you a million dollars." At any rate, Elton John has nothing much to do with the development of any of this.

Well said, again, zowie. My crack about Elton John was about his trying to sound as much like the original as possible--why not just listen to the original except for the cult of the personality?

At least the Beatles got decent royalities. The white-guy-cover-black scenario was a financial ripoff of the original as well. But would you say that these "covers" were trying to sound like the originals? I'd have thought they were trying to change and popularize the authentic, less marketable sound of the original as well as substituting white faces for the record jackets.

 

[kelly]

I think it is mostly Michael Jackson profiting from Beatles covers which I guess goes one step further to prove that only a white man can make money in the music industry.

 

[daycart1]

Quote:

Originally posted by kelly I think it is mostly Michael Jackson profiting from Beatles covers which I guess goes one step further to prove that only a white man can make money in the music industry.

 

[shreya1515]

Hurt by Cash