By Under the Rock Girl
Inspired by bizarre cover song number 1 below, I decided to compile a list of five totally weird cover songs performed by other musicians in the industry. In fact, these may even be five of the worst cover songs though I am sure if I had a few hours to spare and surf CoverMeSongs.com, I’d be able to add a few more to this list.
So why weird you may ask? Well, to me a weird or even bad cover song is when you have a musician of one genre doing a song from another genre. Basically, a band chooses to cover a song that is totally out-of-character for them and will most likely do one of two things:
- Anger their fans for doing something so unlike their regular fare or;
- Anger the fans of the original recording for completely ruining their fave song.
Angry fan
So here they are, 5 Weird Cover Songs (according to me):
1. Jimmy Eat World covers Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
Hearing about this was just plain weird…and actually inspired today’s blog. When I heard about this, I was confused. This just doesn’t make sense. Well, it probably does make sense on a level relating to the fact that they are touring now. But anyways, just odd.
2. Pat Boone covers…Metal
So after the Jimmy Eat World/Taylor Swift bizarreness, I started talking to my boyfriend about writing this blog and he brought up “that poppy guy from the 60s who covered all the metal.” Um, hold the phone….hhwhat?
Turns out, he was right. For those of you who may not be familiar with Pat Boone, he was a pop singer from the 60s who was famous for his covers of R & B hits and was the second-biggest charting artist of the late 1950s with Elvis being first. In 1997, Boone decided he was time to be a bad boy (assumption made from the album title) and released an entire album of heavy metal covers entitled, “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy.” Covers include classics like Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another Thing Comin,” Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” and Ozzy’s “Crazy Train.”
Best part for all you vest lovers out there: Boone appears to be wearing nothing but a black leather vest on the cover of the album.
The… horror…
3. Jeff Beck covers Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance”.
Ok. I have to admit. I have never heard the original nor did I ever hear about this cover until I start researching for this blog. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, Jeff Beck is a guitarist from the UK who is of notable fame for playing with Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page for The Yardbirds. He also formed The Jeff Beck Group and Beck, Bogert & Appice.
So what was the feedback for this rock-out version of Gaga? Well, on a blog entitled Speakin’ the Blues, I came across an entry “Jeff Beck Plays Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” , Crowd Unpleased.” The article has only one sentence that apparently describes it all:
“I’ve never seen so many death stares in one room…”
Yikes.
Interesting note: On a website called Cover Me, they have over 50 Gaga covers submitted being, from what I can tell, the most covered artist on the site. Bizarre. Anyone out there ever cover Gaga?
4. Brent Amaker and the Rodeo cover of Kraftwerk’s “Pocket Calculator”
Sorry folks but I just can’t get behind this. Even though this band has a cool Johnny Cash inspired vibe to it that may even get people who would not normally listen to country tapping their toes, this is just worrisome for me. I guess primarily because it’s country doing….Kraftwerk.
I know I know. Kraftwerk are considered the pioneers of all music electronic. However, even though I love a lot of bands that may count Kraftwerk as one of their musical inspirations, I just can’t sit through another second of “The Robots”…ever…again.
Agggh, now it’s stuck in my head!
Seriously, check these out and see if you agree with me.
Here is the original:
Here is the cover:
See? Should have never been done.
5. “Love Song” by the Cure
I was going to write about the terrible version of this masterpiece that was recorded by The Brunettes and how hearing that cover threw me into a terrible rage for days until just now when I discovered that it has also been covered by….wait for it…Adele.
O.M.G. No. Seriously STOP THE MADNESS!!!
This song, in fact, ANY Cure songs, should not be covered by ANYONE, even by an artist closely tied into the genre.
Plain and simple.
