20 Worst Cover Songs

I rather enjoyed No Doubt's take on Talk Talk. And I don't even like No Doubt.

The criticism appears to be less that No Doubt did a terrible job than that they did it by rote when they CLEARLY could have done something far more interesting.

Limp Bizkit should be 2 with Puff Daddy doing Kashmir being number 1. How it missed the list is astonding.

19. If there's anything worse than seeing your song covered by Rod Stewart, it's seeing said cover become a hit.

18. All Guns 'n' Roses covers aren't nearly as bad as they could be. Is this the mark of a good band? Dunno.

16. Yeah, even for Madonna, this blew. Her nadir, maybe?

15. Eek!

14. You can play both the original and the cover at the same time, and I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Now maybe if they covered "Talk Talk" by Talk Talk we'd be talkin' talkin'.

10. Yes, please kill everything in regards to Smash Mouth. You know when people say remakes are not worth getting upset because we'll always have the originals? This cover makes the Monkees suck more.

8. This whole list should be Sheryl Crow covers. Seriously, she's murdered some classics in her time, and somehow turned a few of them into big hits.

7. Fuck this. But not Vanessa Carlton. She's cute.

4. Yes. Terrible. Everytime I heard this, I wondered what made the original song good again, making me go back to listen to it again. Which is probably a good thing, actually. Thanks, Fred.

1. Bob Dylan at one? Mean.

Where's Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm? That's top 10 worthy at least.

"Come With Me" from the soundtrack to, of all things, "Godzilla".

"I wanna fight you! I wanna bite you! Can't stand nobody like you! You can't run/You can't hide/close your eyes/multiply!/come with me!"

I still can't believe it happened.

Does anyone remember that SNL sketch where Tim Meadows played Puffy doing "Come With Me Again"?

Well, at least the riff caught up with the wicked original backbeat. That's something to credit there. I wouldn't put that in a bottom list of covers.

I guess I'm passionate about this. Hm.

Did anyone see Carson Daly last night? (I know). There was some guy doing an acoustic cover of Radiohead's "The Tourist". It was so-so, but I thought it was kinda cool to hear "The Tourist" on Carson Daly at 2:30 AM.

I'm with Kabong - given that I don't have massive love for MJ's original, the frantically sped-up near parody of it appeals to me.

I honestly don't mind any of those G'n'R covers.

Celine Dion covering "Shook Me All Night Long" is like watching a train-wreck. Just a complete and utter misunderstanding of what the song is all about.

Well, if anything, I defy you to name another Alien Ant Farm song.

I dug that cover.

There was one about movies - the word "movies" was in the song title, and they were dressed like Oompa Loompas at some point in the video.


<wait a few minutes while Chavez visits Youtube...>

...oh, the song was simply called "Movies" - aside from the fact the vid either started or proudly continued the irritating trend of "pop culture bonanza/grab bag!" videos, the tune leaves me utterly baffled that AFF got lumped in as nu-metal - they sound like they're totally ripping off Cheap Trick.

All he does is covers. I have Sirius and when I scroll to pick a station Rod Stewart always comes up with someone else's song. He does too many covers.

Wait a minute, Stewart's "Passion" wasn't a cover, was it? Please tell me that was directly from his soul.

Why does Sympathy for Devil by Guns N' Roses always come up as a bad cover? It's not like it's a genius interpretation but it's a solid one.

Duran Duran covering Public Enemy is scientific proof God doesn't exist.

Covers have been his bread and butter for the last decade or so with those standards albums, but that wasn't entirely the case when he did "Downtown Train." Oh, sure, his original work sucked by that time, too, but it was original. Also, while I vastly prefer Waits' version, it would take an even bigger fuckup than 80s-era Rod Stewart to fuck up such a great song.

And, as mentioned in the article (and as I've mentioned here plenty of times), Stewart was fucking awesome for the first few years of his career (with the Faces and solo), even when he was covering stuff. Check out the Faces' version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed."

I think everyone has their own list of 20 covers they think are really bad.

Kind of hard to believe that the cover of Def Leppard's Photograph by Malibu Storm (a country band) didn't make the list. Too obscure, I guess.

On the subject of Sheryl Crow and cover songs...

I can't believe they missed Snoop Dogg's "cover" of Metallica's 'Sad But True'...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YG4aRpmlaB0

Limp Bizkit doing George Michael's "Faith" was god-awful.

Wait a tick...Limp Bizkit was god-awful altogether...

Perhaps they haven't heard Axl Rose and Bruce Springsteen collaborate on Come Together.

That Hilary Duff thing made me laugh though. A lot.

Mae West covering The Beatles' "Day Tripper" & "Twist and Shout"

Andy Griffith- "House of the Rising Sun"

Eddie Albert- "Like A Rolling Stone"

THE absolute worst is Leonerd Nimoy doing "Proud Mary", Yeesh!

Chuck Heston's version of "Cop Killer," it's like he was reading the lyrics off a steno pad.

Wait, this lists fail to mention the abomination that was The Used and My Chemical Romance ( I think anyway) cover of Under Pressure? I swear that Freddie Mercury's ghost and Bowie were going to rise up and kick some ass in response.

Catchy little tune, isn't it?

Corn covering Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall".

Go listen to Jennifer Love Hewiit's "Me and Bobby McGee". I dare you.

I'll just think of her tits.

William Shatner. "Rocket Man."

I win.

How can you definitively say Rocket Man is a worse cover than Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, or my pick - Mr. Tambourine Man? Tougher than Sophie's Choice.

I had forgotten that one. Truly horrible.

Does William Shatner's massacre of Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds count ?

Or his interpretation of Common People, originally by Pulp.

You almost have to disregard the Golden Throats type stuff (Shatner, West, Griffith), since they're at least partially intentionally bad and not really meant to be anything but silly novelties.

And that list of Sheryl Crow covers proves that for every rule, there's an exception. Her cover of "Solitaire," which was on the Carpenters tribute album, is quite good. As much as I really don't like her as a rock artist, her voice is surprisingly well-suited to certain ballads. There's another pretty good one (I don't think it's a cover) on the Songs in the Key of X collection.

Speaking of the letter X, one of the worst covers by a great band - X doing "Wild Thing." Awful, awful, awful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LrDnWc4UNI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1pq2...elated&search=

I. Fucking. Win.

When you're starting with a Goo Goo Dolls song, there really isn't anywhere to go but down.

Fuck. You.

Did this thread just unearth THE Goo Goo Dolls fans?

That Avril Lavigne Metallica cover is atrocious. And the Goo Goo Dolls ? Crow is a sadistic bastard as far as I'm concerned.

Also, let's not forget how Kevin Rowland sang our dear coked diva Whitney Houston's The Greatest Love Of All.

I was actually excited when I heard he was covering Robbie Robertson's "Broken Arrow" because I thought he had the R&B chops to bring out the best in that song. Perhaps bring a bit of his "People Get Ready" soul/gospel to the table...imagine my disappointment when I heard the dreck that it actually was.

I may be wrong on this, but I don't remember that song being a cover. Rather, Puff Daddy used the guitar melody as background to his rap. Basically doing what all rappers have done for the last 25 years. I don't think we'd say Ice, Ice Baby is a cover of Under Pressure.

That said, I don't know what the lyrics to Puffy's song were, so maybe it is a straight cover.

Come With Me, essentially, samples the main riff of Kashmir, but essentially, it is its own song from there.

Actually, the musical side of Come With Me sounds really good. It's got a full, lush sounding orchestra, Tom Morello on guitar and bass, some solid drum work later. I own the single just for the instrumental version where Puffy keeps his fucking mouth shut.



.......



....up till Gutterflower, I *liked* the Goo Goo Dolls.....

Jesus, Crow, what did we ever do to you? That's the second quickest I've ever hit mute on my computer.

The general idea is to read the list before you post about it, Zod.

Another passable Sheryl Crow cover: She did a version of "Time Has Come Today" with Steve Earle for the Steal This Movie soundtrack that I actually enjoy.

Anyone who makes blanket dismissals of the Goo Goo Dolls hasn't heard Hold Me Up.

And, as much as I didn't like seeing them go the pop route after that album, I've gotta admit that their top 40 ballads have actually aged pretty well. And they've done some outstanding covers, too. I actually like their version of "A Million Miles Away" better than the Plimsouls'.

But since we're talking about bad covers, they actually managed to make me dislike "Give A Little Bit" even more than I already did. A bad, bad cover of a bad, bad song.

Didn't someone (Blink 182, perhaps? One of those number bands....) do a pleasantly insipid cover of "Friday I'm in Love" by the Cure? I remember glimpsing the video once while my daughters watched it and thinking "Hey....that sounds almost like that band just took the tab and lyrics off of OLGA and recorded it after lunch one day. Wankers."


And there's a song out now that just kills me...using Supertramp's "Breakfast in America". My daughters were aghast when I told them that part of the thing came from the 70s.

Was it Hold Me Up that had the cover of Prince's I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man?" Hard to believe it's the same band now, but Goo Goo Dolls also had a wonderfully sloppy punk cover of Sunshine of Love on their first album.

Yeah, Hold Me Up's the album with the Prince cover (and the Plimsouls cover I mentioned above). I've never heard the first one, though.

Seriously - if you've only heard "Name" and "Iris," you'd be surprised at how scrappy the band used to sound. They were simultaneously aping the Replacements and Husker Du, but they did it really well.

Yeah, that Lavigne cover is aural rape. I usually enjoy bad covers in an ironic way, but that was just unlistenable.

As far as covers go, this is pretty bad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAolAV90Ffg (but I put this one in the "so bad it's good" category).

And I really hate this one from Sugar Ray, and I apologize for the AMV, but there was no way I was taking the time to download that song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSOV1b2Z5p0

http://youtube.com/watch?v=y6yYw3tdgyM

I never thought that someone could cover Slayer and manage to make it incredibly boring (especially Raining Blood of all songs!), but Tori Amos proved me wrong.

I always loathed that white-reggae medley of "Baby I Love Your Way / Free Bird" by . . . that shitty band.

"LA DEE DA!" Ack.