Entertainment For Lively Minds
When the cover version is better
Posted by Leedsboy on 30 September 2011 - 8:25pm.
Inspired by the SuBo thread, Mrs LB and I have racked our brains to see how many cover versions we could think off that were better than the original and we came up with these;
Are these exceptions to the rule or are there loads of cover versions that beat the originals?
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Come on, there are loads
Otis Redding - My Girl
John Martyn - Glory Box
HJHs - Twist and Shout
Ray Charles - Cry
Scott Walker - Sons Of
The The - I Saw The Light
Elvis - That's Alright Mama
Bowie - Sorrow
Grace Jones - Walkin' In The Rain, Warm Leatherette ... and I would heretically suggest Nightclubbing
Grace Jones & Nightclubbing
There's no heresy in my book. Absolutely fab version.
Having said that, in the light of the debate on the 80s in the Irritating Noises thread, I haven't heard if for years and it may well be laden with every 80s effect that people find so annoying.
Actually..
Nightclubbing is typical of most Compass Point studio recordings in that top musicians were captured with real ambience in, I suppose, a very pleasant environment (Bahamas) with, I suppose, the right drugs to get them to perform well. Eighties studio sheen, sure, but in a good way. The Nightclubbing LP still sounds fabulous IMO.
A lot of mainstream Eighties pop did sound generic with all the new thin synth sounds available and this strange aircraft-hangar drum sound. Then again, pop has always taken new technology on board and the ubiquity quickly becomes annoying in its overuse. The 50s had this slap-back echo, the 60s had mellotrons and phasing, the 70s was characterised by the rise of synthesizers. Even the solo was subject to fashion, baritone sax, then electric guitar, then alto sax, now a rap section. There's also way too much sampling and autotune, but the point is, these things have always been used because they're there.
No going back to everyone round a microphone.
I know
I was trying to get a thread going. This is another one for as well.
Seu Jorge - Bowie
and SAHB - Delilah
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie made Angel From Montgomery so much her own, that John Prine had to put a duet version on his Great Days Anthology (which is another excellent version)
Meanwhile Linda Rondstadt & Emmylou made a decent fist of Jackson Browne's For A Dancer
I think Jackson Browne himself topped his original version
of 'For a Dancer' in his album Solo Acoustic vol I. It's pared right back and very moving.
I have my own rules in judging cover versions
I don't really count songs as covers unless I was already familiar with the original. Respect was always an Aretha Franklin song to me and I'd never heard Tainted Love or Hurt previously so I don't really count them as "covers" as to my ear they are the original regardless of chronology.
A cover should make you think, "Wow, I never realised that was such a great song."
Which is how I reacted when I heard...
Tricky's version of Black Steel and
Take me to the River Talking Heads
I also should mention Jimi Hendrix's live version of Johnny B Goode which took one of the most famous, greatest songs in history and turned it up a notch so that every other version pales in comparison.
Hendrix may have
turned it up a notch, but he certainly didn't tune it up. It is so out of tune that it makes me wince, and this is coming from a live Hendrix aficionado who tolerates a bit of dissonance.
Nothing Compares 2 U
I Fought the Law
Handle With Care (by Jenny Lewis et al)
and, of course, Rik Waller's version of I will Always Love You blows Whitney's orig all to hell - hearing what he had done - taking the soul, the emotion but making it louder led to her crack pipe and dental issues - true fact.
Whitney's version is itself a cover
Dolly Parton wrote and performed the original in the early 70s.
Which Linda Ronstadt covered
pretty acceptably on Prisoner in Disguise in 1975. An album with nice covers of Love is a Rose.. and hell, the whole album is covers.
All Along The Watchtower
Hendrix's version is magnificent
It's THE version
never mind cover
True enough, but I still prefer Michael Hedges' version
EDIT:Sorry Whitehorsehill, just noticed your post of this further on.
John Cale doing Hallelujah
Simply beautiful. Miles better than Len's. Pisses all over Buckley.
But not as good as this
This is singing:
Edit: embedding doesn't seem to work. Here's a link:
http://youtu.be/Znb3nKwKxLA
Good, but I prefer Cale.
The slightly more deadpan singing emphasizes the rather wonderful lyrics more than KD Lang's, admittedly fine, but more "performed" vocal does.
Can't find a clip
of the studio version, but the cover of Different Drum by Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet if far superior to the original. Linda Rondstadt's emotionless braying usually makes me switch off after about 30 seconds. Susanna Hoffs has developed a very nice rough edge to her voice which suits the song.
The other songs they do on their Under the Covers albums are serviceable but uninspired facsimiles of the originals.
What about the original though?
Ha!
I knew he wrote it but I didn't know he had it floating around that early.
People Are Strange...
...by Stina Nordenstam
(not really sure why the video is 6.08 long when the song ends after 3.30. Maybe an extra couple of minutes for the whole whattheheck-ness to finally settle)
Wonderwall
By The Mike Flowers Pops.
Cuts it in half with a superior arrangement.
How often does Elvis come second?
Well, at least once at Casa Ref:
Fine Young Cannibals (with Jimmy Somerville)- Suspicious Minds
You could not...
be more wrong. Roland Gift had the most grating voice this side of Florence Welch, and the arrangement is atrocious.
Wow
One voice, and two 'could not be different opinions"
i love listening to him.
Can we agree on Mr Somerville?
Not sure this is better than the original
but it's certainly different...
(ZZTop/Viva Las Vegas)
No
I think you're right. This is tons better than the original.
Quality song.
Then again, there's this.....
Ronnie Dyson...
...did much better than the Delfonics' original on this.
(When You Get Right Down to It)
Linda Ronstadt - You Can
Linda Ronstadt - You Can Close Your Eyes
A beautiful version of a beautiful song.
Jumping Jack Flash
I always thought Johnny Winter's full on version made the Stones sound pedestrian.
I can feel a Johnny Winter mood coming on...
oh yeah.....
... and the way the band jumps up and down in unison is fab too...... soooooooooooooooo wrong....go and play the Stones again..... and reconsider darlin' !
The Stones
Just fine, but JW goes for it. He did loads of Stones covers and allegedly they wrote "Silver train" for him.
Agree
I love the Stones studio version, but JW nailed it live far better than the Stones (although the Ya Yas version is alright). The version on Johnny Winter And is the definitive version for me, although I love that OGWT version just for the sheer exuberance of the band.
Capture Live
Terrific album. I perfectly understand why people wouldn't like endless verses of Johnny and Floyd Radford blazing away over "Bony moronie" or "Highway 61" but i love it. The JW And studio album is a guitar rock classic.
In an utterly bizarre moment
I have never heard or listened to Mr Winter.
I listened to the radio for precisely 5 minutes this morning (NPR if you're interested).
Anyone want to guess who the interviewee was?
I Can't Make You Love Me, Bon Iver
Give it a go, it's beautiful.
Bon v Bonnie
I had a listen as the song is one of my all time favorites and I likes a bit of Bon, Skinny Love one of the best few songs of last few years.
But the mistake that Bon makes, that others like Prince and George Michael, bless him, have made is they go for overwrought. Slam it into emotional 5th and push the pedal to the metal. The best thing that Bonnie Raitt in her reading does amongst many other great things, is that she understates, under - wroughts - if you will.
She lets the regret, the denial, the ache just speak for itself and the song is monumentally, but softly, powerful as a result
Come Together
Aerosmith
Yeah right...
... that's so much better than the original.
Isn't it just!
So's this
I'll give you that one...
... but not Aerosmith.
Bobsongs are better done by other people
Laura Nyro La la means I love you
Bob and Marcia - Young Gifted and Black - actually a Nina Simone original but her version is rather too slow and stately once you've heard Bob and Marcia's.
Eva Cassidy - Fields of Gold
Emmylou Harris - She
Laura makes the Delfonics original a much more emotionally soulful song.
The amazing Laura
whose fame was made by others' versions of her inventive, soulful and melodic songs which rank alongside the best by Bacharach/David or Smokey or Brian Wilson.
Yet, one of her greatest albums featured her covers (with a little help from Labelle) of some soul classics that informed her own work - as in the title track "Gonna Take A Miracle".
Fantastic song and great album too
It was recorded in about a day in a series of first-takes as they had spent most of the week-long session they'd booked having too good a time 'vibing'. Guess that's why it sounds so fresh.
How odd . . .
A covers thread and nobody's mentioned "anything Dylan wrote" yet? The Byrds' Mr. Tambourine Man springs to mind for starters.
Funny you should say that
Someone did
See 'Bobsongs are better done by other people' post, a few up from yours!
Much as I love the Byrds
I think the Counting Crows version of You Ain't Going Nowhere is even better than the one on Sweetheart Of The Rodeo.
And here's a bonus for all those Hootie haters. The Crows and Hootie on stage at the same time:
You just can't get enough of stuff like this.
More Hootie...
Their version of Closing Time knocks the socks off the Tom Waits original
May I suggest this
Not the cover
Elvis wrote Shipbuilding for Robert Wyatt. His own version is the cover.
That's a whole other thread
People covering their own songs. Costello is the obvious example ("All This Useless Beauty" etc.). Are there any others? I'm not sure McCartney jamming on "Step Inside Love" on Anthology 3 counts... does it?
I think Bowie may have done it twice with "All You Pretty things" (Peter Noone) and "The Man Who Sold The World" (Lulu)
Frighteningly, this is my second post in a fortnight to mention Peter Noone.
Dare I?
Well, dare I submit Yes America for consideration? (ducks behind convenient boulder).
The Clash - I Fought the Law
Every time I hear this, I can't believe that it's not a Clash original. How much more Clash could it be? None. None more Clash.
Almost the best covers band ever
quite apart from anything else. Their Time is Tight, Pressure Drop, Armagideon Time, Police and Thieves all give the originals a good run for their money.
Armagideon Time
I love it and the dub versions, but I've never heard the original and at the time of release I didn't know anyone else who had either.
Bobby Fuller.....
....was real rock 'n' roll.
Check his story out.
The Boss isn't ALWAYS the Boss...
MESS:
MAGIC:
(studio version...)
That live version
was entirely new to me and immensely satisfying. Thank you, sir!
Tainted Love
Soft Cell discovered a nervous bleakness in the Gloria Jones song and came up with definitive electro-pop sound. Video clip not necessary.
Sometimes - 1 great song inspires
Kirsty MacColl - A New England
Just magnificent!
A bit cheeky, this one
I think it's better than the (still v.good) Move original, written by yer man Lynne himself, of course.
Some will possibly object
but Shawn Colvin's Crazy (Gnarls Barkley not Patsy Cline) is truly fab:
Agree
Prodcued by, and featuring, the great Buddy Miller.
Very nice. Enjoyed that.
On her "Cover Girl" album, Ms Colvin also does nice versions of Judee Sill's "There's a Rugged Road" and Talking Heads' "This Must Be The Place".
And this one...
I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Originally recorded (twice) by the Miracles. Marvin Gaye recorded the definitive version next, although Gladys Knight & The Pips released it as a single before he did. I'm pretty fond of the Creedence Clearwater Revival version too
The Pixies' Cactus
performed by David Bowie on Heathen hits the spot every time for me. I just have to turn it up to 11.
Labelle's version of "Moonshadow"
Probably the best cover version ever - taking Cat Stevens' whimsical folk nonsense and turning it into a super churning funker! You have to stick with the full nine minutes for the bonkers band intro...apparently cut live in the studio.
Also - and this does appear to be a little wilfully obscure - but I'm a big fan of piano jazz and particularly some of the ECM label stuff that's come out in the last couple of years. Never a particular fan of Bjork - or Prince for that matter - but very much like Marcin Wasilewski's re-workings of "Hyperballad" and "Diamonds and Pearls"
I'll get my coat and beret...
Mr Morrison
Just had my first coffee of the day in NYC and that version of "Diamonds and Pearls" was perfect accompaniment. Never heard of the guy before. Shades of Brad Mehldau I guess but sparser, more feel, to these old cloth-covered jug-ears. Further recommendations in a similar vein welcome.
Now, will attempt to get dressed to the Labelle thing. "Moonshadow" transformed from whimsical to funkalicous sounds like a great idea
This is the best, surely..."Walk on by" by The Stranglers
Working Class Hero