Best Cover Songs

[Elevens]

Cover songs most often done by unknown bands trying to please live audiences with songs that most people are familiar with. Typically, if you've ever been to wedding with a band, all they typically do is cover songs, as made popular in the movie, "Wedding Singer".

Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are bad. I think the best ones are when both the original and follow-up version(s) are good. A good example is Lenny Kravitz's version of "American Woman" (original by The Guess Who). Lately I've taken more of an interest in them, because it's often amazing how one artist/band can make such drastic changes to a song, yet it's still the same. I believe that Marilyn Manson has also done a number of cover versions that meet this requirement.

Anyway, my hands down favorite is the song, "Hurt" by Johnny Cash that became extremely popular before his death, especially because of the touching music video that accompanied it. The original version was performed (to many people's surprise) by Nine Inch Nails.

However, I do have a dark horse favorite. And, there are three versions of this song, all of which are good in their own ways. The first version came out in 1988 by New Order. The song is "Blue Monday".

The next version was released ten years later by Orgy.

And here's the dark horse...

In 2002, a little known Norwegian band called Flunk, who is mainly known for their electronica music, release their take on "Blue Monday". The lead female singer sounds amazingly like Byork, but thankfully, their music is much better. This song gained some notoriety in the movie, "Walking Tall" starring The Rock.

What are your favorites?

NOTE: All music links are Amazon.com Windows Media Player sample versions.