Last night my wife and I got into a debate. We heard Aerosmith’s cover of Come Together which we both agreed was better than the Beatle’s original. So we started talking about other covers that were better than the original. I threw out UB40s cover of Red Red Wine. She insisted that Neil Diamond covered UB40 (which is odd because she’s like a musical encyclopedia). What to do? Ask Twitter. It didn’t take long to confirm that UB40 was, in fact, the cover band. Since it seemed like a good theme, I asked people to help put together a list of covers that were better than the originals, and here’s what the social web said:
@FullQuieting: Comfortably Numb by Copper Box, Baby’s Got Back by Jonathan Coultan.
@sickrubick: Gin and Juice by The Gourds, Hendrix’s take on All Along the Watchtower.
@danlarsen’s wife: Urge Overkill’s cover of Girl You’ll Be a Woman Soon.
@danlarsen: I Want Candy by Bow Wow Wow (srsly, Dan?). Also Pearl Jam, Last Kiss.
@maxgladwell: Anything Jerry and The Dead covered from Bob Dylan. He also says that technically, “Georgia on My Mind” by Ray Charles was a cover.
@edubya: Obidah Parker covered Hey Ya. She also suggested B****’s Ain’t S*** by Ben Folds, but this is a family blog, so we’ll bleep that out.
@aaronh: Aaron brought his a-game calling out No Scrubs by Blink182, Oops I Did it Again by Travis, and Imperial March by No Doubt, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, Don’t Know What to Do w/Myself by White Stripes, seconded All Along the Watchtower by Hendrix, and The Sign by Mountain Goats. Apparently, Aaron listens to a lot of obscure bands.
@aaronh and @danlarsen independently called out Dynamite Hack’s cover of Boyz in the Hood, which I have to admit was pretty good.
But the call of the night was @andresmax who nominated Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door by Guns ‘n’ Roses. Anything by G’n'R Rocks.
If you love covers, check out the Coverville Podcast recommended by @FullQuieting. There’s some good stuff there. As of now, I’m officially a subscriber.
This list is no where even close to exhaustive. There are tons of cover songs out there that you might think are better than the original. What are they?
7 responses so far ↓
1 jehawbaker // May 10, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Check out “Toxic” by Nickel Creek
2 JohnB // May 11, 2008 at 12:06 am
NIN “Hurt” covered by Johnny Cash. Johnny knew hurt.
3 ronbailey // May 11, 2008 at 3:15 am
The Black Crows cover of Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle” rocks.
And even though they pretty much played it straight up, Sixpence None the Richer did a pretty job with the La’s “There She Goes”.
I liked Van Morrison’s cover of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” as well…
Damn Ryan, this could take a while!
4 WEB SHERIFF // May 11, 2008 at 8:08 am
WEB SHERIFF
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Hi Ryan,
On behalf of Reflex Muzic and UB40, many thanks for plugging the band … .. thanks, also, on behalf of the label and UB40 for not posting any pirate links to unreleased material and, if you / your readers want good quality, non-pirated, preview tracks from the band’s new album - “TwentyFourSeven” (UK street date 16th June) - both “End of War” and “This Is How It Is” have been officially designated as preview tracks for fans and bloggers to post / host / file-share in advance of release … .. check-out http://www.ub40.co.uk for details on 24/7 and the band’s 2008 shows, together with the band’s MySpace at http://www.myspace.com/ub40 - which also features UB40’s version of “I Shot The Sheriff” !!
To clarify the suggested / requested guidelines for 24/7, if you have a copy of the (UK) Mail on Sunday, 10 track promo, both Reflex and UB40 have requested that fans and bloggers simply keep these for personal use and do not post / file-exchange copies on-line – aside, of course, from the preview tracks.
Again, we’d like to thank everyone for their support and understanding in not posting pirate files and links and, as a further gesture of appreciation, there may well be additional previews made available this side of the 16th June, full album release – so watch the official sites for future developments.
Regards,
WEB SHERIFF
5 Michael Zensius // May 12, 2008 at 9:29 am
Calling out my own spelling error, cause it’s not Ryans…That’s Jonathan Coulton, natch. Sorry.
6 Stevievep // May 13, 2008 at 6:31 am
Nice carpet-bomb, Sheriff
It’s all good, right?
7 Eric // Jun 9, 2008 at 11:13 pm
Personally, I think the version of Southern Cross that Jimmy Buffett does is more fun than the original.
On the other hand, his version of the Dead’s Scarlet Begonias is only passable, and we won’t even talk about his version of Uncle John’s Band. I would like to see how he would do with Touch of Gray.
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