These are, in order and sequence, the Top 15 Cover Songs that (the royal) we here at Terrible Analogies obsess over on a daily basis. It’s understood that many of these songs can be had from multiple sources, so please forgive me if I don’t recognize your album of choice.
And with that, please accept as gospel…
#15) Orgy : Blue Monday
Album: Candyass
Originally sung by: New Order
There have been more than a dozen remakes of New Order’s Blue Monday by just as many bands, but in 1998 Orgy put their industrial/electronic/rock stamp on the song and rode that baby for all it was worth before flaming out in spectacular goth-rocker fashion. This was, without doubt, Orgy’s biggest hit (pop quiz hotshot…can you name another song by Orgy? I didn’t think so).
#14) The Postal Service: We Will Become Silhouettes
Album: Such Great Heights (EP)
Originally sung by: The Postal Service
What the hey? It’s a band covering one of their own songs? Yep, you caught me. This is The Postal Service covering their song We Will Become Silhouettes, but this is an acoustic version that can only be found on their Such Great Heights EP. It’s definitely more upbeat than it’s predecessor, and if I had to make a life-or-death decision I’d have to say that this is the preferable version of the two. Track this song down and give it a spin, then try to call me a liar.
#13) Red Hot Chili Peppers: Higher Ground
Album: Mother’s Milk
Originally sung by: Stevie Wonder
From the opening bass line to the group sing-along chorus, the Red Hot Chili Peppers upped the funk on this Stevie Wonder classic. Higher Ground allowed the RHCP to break into the mainstream, setting them up perfectly to jump record labels, hook up with Rick Ruben, and two years later give forth upon the world Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik. (check out their “making of” movie Funky Monks for some great insights behind Blood, Sugar, Sex, Magik. You can thank me later).
#12) Seu Jorge: Rebel Rebel
Album: The Life Aquatic Studio Sessions
Originally sung by: David Bowie
The first of several David Bowie cover songs on this list. This is nothing more than Seu Jorge with an acoustic guitar giving us a Portuguese language cover of Rebel Rebel. Even if you don’t know the language this song instantly seems recognizable, familiar and comforting.
#11) The Smashing Pumpkins: My Blue Heaven
Album: The Aeroplane Flies High (box set, disk 5)
Originally sung by: Gene Austin
Originally written 1927, My Blue Heaven is a standard which has been covered by over 100 artists. It’s a shock to hear Billy Corgan in such stylistic alien territory, accompanied by piano and soft violin. Once you’re able to accept this odd premise, My Blue Heaven quickly grows on you.
#10) Concrete Blonde: Everybody Knows
Album: Still In Hollywood
Originally sung by: Leonard Cohen
If you’ve seen the movie Pump Up The Volume, then you’re familiar with this version of Everybody Knows. The original song by Leonard Cohen clocks in at nearly six minutes. Concrete Blonde axed a few verses from the song, tightening it up and bringing it down to 4:45. Being a Cohen fan I’m a bit torn by this, but it becomes readily apparent that Concrete Blonde injected this downer tune with their unique vibe and made this song their own.
#9) Fishbone: Freddie’s Dead
Album: Truth And Soul
Originally sung by: Curtis Mayfield
Gone is the funk, replaced by rock, punk, and ska. Freddie’s Dead originally appeared in the soundtrack to the amazing 70′s exploitation film Super Fly. Freddie’s Dead was the opening salvo from Fishbone’s landmark album Truth And Soul. Propelled by Freddie’s Dead, Fishbone managed to extend their identity and presence beyond the confines of the college rock/alt scene. In my mind, Curtis Mayfield will always have top billing whenever I think of Freddie’s Dead, but Fishbone isn’t far behind.
#8) Lemonheads: Mrs. Robinson
Album: It’s A Shame About Ray
Originally sung by: Simon & Garfunkel
Simon & Garfunkel’s hippy/folk song Mrs. Robinson was transformed by the Lemonheads, who stretched and pulled at the weak points, bending and flexing the entire piece until it barely resembled the original product. Evan Dando managed to stay off the needle long enough to turn this 70′s relic into an uplifting song well suited for pool parties, dorm room keggers, dusty old overhead supermarket speakers, and clumsy suicide attempts. The Lemonheads permeated the culture with this most excellent of covers.
#7) Bauhaus: Ziggy Stardust
Album: Swing The Heartache
Originally sung by: David Bowie
This cover became one of the go-to encore songs for what seemed like every tour Bauhaus went on. When you hear David Bowie sing this song it comes off as a personal, heartfelt, sincere offering. Bauhaus built upon this foundation, enlarging the sound until the band was the insignificant center of a larger work of art which took on a life of its own. My inner-goth child gives you a black nail polish ‘thumbs up’, guys.
#6) The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy: California Uber Alles
Album: Virus 100 – A Tribute To The Dead Kennedys
Originally sung by: The Dead Kennedys
Yes, yes…I know that this song appears on The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy’s album Hypocrisy Is The Greatest Luxury. It’s just that the version that they recorded for Virus 100 is tighter, angrier, with sharper teeth and delivery. If you’re a Dead Kennedy’s fan you’ll find it impossible not to sing along. ”Knock knock at your front door, let’s have big fun.”
#5) The Gypsy Kings: Hotel California
Album: The Big Lebowski (soundtrack)
Originally sung by: Eagles
The Eagles built a career around Hotel California. We’ve all heard this song morph through the entire range of stages from groundbreaking to passé, and had thought that it’d been forever driven into the ground by a generation of aging, drunken 70′s stepchildren, buried beneath years of emotional childhood trauma, remembrance of rejection by your first true love, and Ace Of Base’s single The Sign. That was until The Gypsy Kings wrapped their spanish-infused genius around this song and made it special once again. Their slow, tinkering lead-in eventually runs head first into a brick wall of rough, insistent vocals by Nicolas Reyes and manic ethnic guitar brilliance. Be sure to crank up the volume before the chorus hits, because for a non-rock song this thing is just so. Damn. Metal. “Welcome to ze Hotel California,” indeed.
#4) Nirvana: Oh, Me
Album: Unplugged In New York
Originally sung by: The Meat Puppets
It took a genius like Cobain to recognize the beauty in the poorly sung The Meat Puppets song Oh, Me. One listen to the original, it’s amazing that it managed to get pressed into wax. To say that The Meat Puppets couldn’t sing their way out of a heroin baggie would be an understatement. As I type this I’m playing the original in the background with cotton stuffed in my ears in preparation for the initial God awful high-pitched chorus. Then along comes Nirvana, who expertly molds and shapes this poor excuse of a song into a thing of pure audible beauty. I guess this is a prime example of when life gives you crap, you make crap-onade.
#3) God Lives Underwater: Fly On The Windscreen
Album: Music For The Masses – A Tribute To Depeche Mode
Originally sung by: Depeche Mode
For a band who admittedly sound a whole heck of a lot like Depeche Mode, God Lives Underwater turned their Depeche Mode dial up to ’11′ when they recorded this cover version of Fly On The Windscreen. Wow. For a solid tribute album GLU served up the best track. This album could have contained just this one song repeated ten times and I’d still plunk down my hard earned $12 to buy it.
#2) M. Ward: Let’s Dance
Album: Transfiguration Of Vincent
Originally sung by: David Bowie
M. Ward is an artist who can turn the most basic, joyless tune into something that can make you simultaneously laugh and cry uncontrollably. At first glance you could be forgiven for not identifying this song as a David Bowie property. M. Ward has so twisted the original work to make it sound as if it might have come from the pen of a decrepit Johnny Cash warped on a week long splurge of downers and whiskey, and originally sung by any number of ancient obliguious crooners that you might hear coming from the cracked speaker of your grandmother’s mono radio tuned to a forgotten out-of-band channel from the deep past. When it finally dawns on you that the faint scratching at the base of your brain is your mind trying to come to grips that this used to be an upbeat dance tune, you smile with the insight of an enlightened being at the cusp of nirvana, hit the ‘rewind’ button, and listen again with new ears to an amazing cover song.
#1) Faith No More: Easy
Album: The Best Of Faith No More
Originally sung by: Lionel Richie
Who would have thunk that a Lionel Richie song could rock so hard? I could go on and on about what an uberific, game changing cover this is, but chances are you’ve already heard it and understand that the world in which we live in today would be a much colder, starker reality if Faith No More never covered this tune. The opening piano riff lulls you softly and slowly in as Mike Patton’s vocals convey a sense of sad desperation and acceptance of a man lost in the world. Minutely, incrementally, the coolness of this cover song seeps into your consciousness, and realization of its divinity is solidified when Mike groans “Ungh!” just as the lead guitar solo kicks in. A better cover song there can not be.
