This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening To …. Bad Cover Versions January 7, 2012
Posted by irishelectionliterature in This Weekend I'll Mostly Be Listening to....Tags: cover version
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Prompted by the recent butchering of Damine Rices ‘Cannonball’, the seasonal playing of Ronan Keatings “Fairytale of New York” and being sent a link of Celine Dion & Anastacia covering AC/DCs “You Shook Me All Night Long” I put together a selection of awful and unlikely cover versions.
It was hard to narrow down and some of the suggested tracks weren’t actually that bad especially compared to some of the awful dirge that’s about.
Anyway it came down to The Corrs covering Jimi Hendrix, Susan Boyle covering Depeche Mode, Olivia Newton John and Leona Lewis ruining Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails) numbers, Dolly Parton doing Led Zeppelin, Take Thats brutal attempt at Nirvana (they narrowly beat the Miley Cyrus version), Peter Gabriel and Jamie Cullum both murdering Radiohead songs, George Michael slowing New Order down to half pace and more….
In the main, I avoided easy targets like Boybands, Crystal Swing, X-Factor contestants and the like, although Take That did make it!
Enjoy 🙂
I’ve thrown in a good lot as I’m sure you wont be able to listen to each song for too long 😦
Also I’m pretty sure I’ve missed a good few.
*and we have a little bonus non cover version at the end….
Take That – Smells Like Teen Spirit
Dolly Parton -Stairway to Heaven
George Michael – True Faith
Celine Dion & Anastacia – You Shook Me All Night Long
t.A.T.u – How Soon is Now
Peter Gabriel- Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Jamie Cullum -High and Dry
Bono – Hallelujah
Susan Boyle – Enjoy The Silence
The Corrs – Little Wing
Olivia Newton John – Ring of Fire
Leona Lewis – Hurt
Ultraviolence- Paranoid
Meaghan Smith – Here Comes Your Man
Bonus Non Cover Version …
Paul Gogarty is following in Dan Boyles footsteps in recording an album….
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Rolf Harris cover of Stairway to Heaan was criminal
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Another abomination for the list – Rod Stewart mangling Primal Scream:
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The Paul Young cover of Love Will Tear Us Apart was genius in the sense it missed the point of the original entirely.
Got to say IELB, that Celine Dion cover of AC/DC will haunt my dreams, and not in a good way, for years to come.
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Its absolutley shocking alright and whats worse they look as if they are enjoying it way too much.
I cant understand what would prompt a lot of these covers. … and did the artists actually think they did good versions of them?
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Well looking at Take That and Dion it’s clear they feel their inner rocker has to be given a spin. Problem is their inner rocker isn’t much of a rocker!
The Paranoid cover isn’t much cop either. Never liked that brand of techno.
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That’s was totally uncalled for.
“Shook Me All Night Long”
The horror, the horror
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I have always defended Bono. Not just cos it was unfashionable. But cos I thought they had that rare thing – a sound of their own- when I first saw them play in the Dandelion. And I was impressed when they came and played Sarajevo.
Bono’s duet with Leonard Cohen is embarrassing but the Edge really compensates.
But that cover is a defining moment.
That’s the ultimate Emperor Has No Clothes act.
That is pretentiousness of the worst sort.
Bobo – you’re cool as a tosser. You don’t need to try to be hip.
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Hmmm… agree U2 had a sound of their own, and I think the Edge isn’t bad, though he should have dumped the moniker years back (and on a different tack entirely so should Youth), but Bono. Hard to love. Or like. Or…
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The Rod Stewart cover of Downtown Train is pretty dire, in fact Rod Stewart post 1980 is himself an appalling cover version of Rod Stewart pre 1980.
The Metallica version of Whiskey In The Jar is a creation of Satan.
But worst of all is the David Gray version of Say Hello Wave Goodbye by Soft Cell which replaces all the sleazy sexually ambiguous glory of the magnificent original with the prototype whinge which launched a thousand painfully sincere Irish singer/songwriters. It also set a fashion for acoustic versions of old classics sung in that ‘sensitive’ manner which pepper ad breaks and cinema trailers.
Also, all those cover versions from Ray Darcy where rock versions of Hector covered songs in a way which showed that like at the end of the day like they were just like ordinary kinda lads who liked the oul racing and the few pints like. Abominable. Very popular with people obsessed with the property ladder these yokes were back in the old days. Like. So they were.
And I’ve never felt the same about Bruce Springsteen since hearing that version of Santa Claus Is Coming To Town where he invests the words, ‘You better be good for goodness sake,’ with the same passion and sincerity which usually informs his laments for the sake of unemployed steel workers struggling to get by in the rust belt as they watch Monday Night Football, remember their time in Man and wonder whatever happened to Cindy The Cheerleader who married their buddy round about the time OPEC caused the Chevys to line up at the petrol pumps and the front porch collapsed.
I love Christy Moore but he should have left Song of the Faithful Departed alone.
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Christy taking Chevron’s spit and anger and twiddly-deeing into ballad and booze is an unforgivable offence.
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And this might be heresy but some of the later Johnny Cash covers were pretty ropey too. His Personal Jesus isn’t much better than Susan Boyle’s Enjoy The Silence.
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Perhaps it counts as an easy target, but Madonna’s version of “American Pie’ is appalling. Combine it with a dreadful video (I am still perplexed as to why the American flag is backwards) that is thoroughly convinced it is saying something poignant and you make for one hell of an assault on the senses.
What little faith I had in humanity is now gone: Wikipedia tells me this track got to number 1 in about every country that had a hit parade.
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I played each of these for as long as I could stand. Here are my results:
Less than a minute: tATu, Olivia Newton-John, George Michael, Ultraviolence (are they Dutch or something?) tATu lasted eleven seconds, i.e. until the completely unchanged original backing track came in.
1-2 minutes: Susan Boyle (!), Take That, Celine Dion, Jamie Cullum. These were essentially “play until bored”, apart from the Jamie Cullum which was “play until sudden attack of revulsion”
Longer than 2 minutes: Corrs; you’ve got to admit the girl can sing. Dreadful guitar solo though.
All the way through: Peter Gabriel, Dolly Parton. Got a lot of respect for Dolly.
Didn’t even touch and don’t intend to unless someone offers money: Bono sings Leonard Cohen, Leona Lewis sings Trent Reznor. Both ridiculous and repulsive in different ways.
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Think of the amount of dross I had to listen to to even come up with that playlist !
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My main musical lowlight from last year was having the misfortune of switching on the Late Late (a misfortune in itself) and seeing Andrea Corr murder Blue Nile’s ‘Tinseltown in the Rain’.
And probably the most surreal musical moment of this year so far is having just watched a snippet of Paul Anka singing Smells Like Teen Spirit.
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