Oct 152012
 

Earlier this year we featured five of the best covers, so far, of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know”. Of course the first video that went uber-viral and helped ignite interest in this year-old song was the five-on-one guitar cover by Walk Off the Earth. Since then hundreds of covers, parodies and remixes of this hit have flooded the YouTubes. You are in luck, as I have spent far too much time listening to the already overexposed song to pull out a few covers that either rival or surpass the original. In no particular order, here are ten more versions for your enjoyment.

1) Karmin–  a Cover Me regular from YouTube that has gone on to appear on Saturday Night Live. Watch Amy and Nick do their pop thing on SiriusXM Hits.

 

2) Kelly Clarkson – The original American Idol performs live at Jones Beach, NY on August 21, 2012.

 

3) Netherlands Radio Choir – The 74 person ensemble does the song to raise funds to help save the choir.

 

4) fun. featuring Hayley Williams – fun, performs live on BBC 1 Radio’s Live Lounge alongside a recording of the Paramore singer.

 

5) Rita Ora – The UK singer, songwriter and actress drops an R&B take on Radio 1’s Live Lounge

 

6) Cast of Glee – “They did such a faithful arrangement of the instruments but the vocals were that pop ‘Glee’ style, ultra dry, sounded pretty tuned and the rock has no real sense, like it’s playing to you from a cardboard box,” Gotye told the Sunday Mail of Darren Criss and Matt Bomer’s rendition of his song.

 

7) Noah featuring Christina Grimmie – The incredibly talented, deep voiced Noah Guthrie keeps the YouTube cover hits coming.

 

8) Old School Computer Remix – With an HP Scanjet 3C as the vocals.  An Amiga 600 as Bass on left audio output and Guitar on right audio output. Harddrives as the drums and cymbal and a PIC16F84A microcontroller, this digital ditty is pretty amazing.

 

9) “The Star Wars That I Used To Know”  – A Parody with new music and original lyrics. It’s a story of heartbreak to which Star Wars fans everywhere can relate. A shot at the movie remakes, new CGi effects and George Lucas. Easily the best video.

 

10) Two Kids in a Car – I know this isn’t a cover, but these two six year old friends who love this song are serious stars in the making. How can you not love this?


Check out more from Gotye on his website
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Sep 022011
 

This Week on Bandcamp rounds up our favorite covers to hit the site in the past seven days.

Bad news first: We didn’t find any good covers for this post. We did, however, discover five great covers (and a bunch of mediocre-to-terrible ones). No middle ground this week. So while the average quality of everything we heard was lower than usual, our cherry-picked set may be one of our all-time favorites. Funny how it works like that sometimes. Continue reading »

Aug 222011
 

Since Adele’s 21 came out in America six months ago today, it has enjoyed the level of chart longevity few thought possible in this day and age. The year’s bestseller by a mile, 21 currently ranks at #4 on the Billboard 200, 26 weeks after it first entered the charts. As albums by Lady Gaga and Beyoncé make big first impressions then quickly sink, Adele’s little-album-that-could remains floating above it all.

In honor of what looks to be 2011’s defining album, today we honor its six months of dominance with a special tribute. 21 has inspired countless amateur singers to cover its instantly-related songs on YouTube and below we pull together covers of each. A few faces are familiar to these pages (The Shures, Karmin), but most are little-known fans showing serious potential. We don’t claim these are the absolute best covers of each song on YouTube – if you want to wade through 12,000+ “Rolling in the Deep” covers, be our guest – but they’re ten performances we enjoy. We hope you do too. Continue reading »

Jun 022011
 

Boston duo Karmin has become one of 2011’s breakout cover stars, thanks to a cover of Chris Brown’s “Look at Me Now” and a follow-up Lil Wayne cover. You want proof that they’re getting huge? Check out their latest video. It’s a version of new Nicki Minaj single “Super Bass.”

At first, it features all the hallmarks of a classic Karmin cover. Amy Heidemann strums a guitar while quasi-rapping Minaj’s lyrics while Nick Noonan plays plaintive piano chords. After a minute or so, though, the camera slowly zooms out to reveal Questlove and Owen Biddle of the Roots jamming along, on drums and bass respectively. It’s just another feather in the cap of a duo who is having quite a year. Check it out below. Continue reading »

May 022011
 

We don’t stumble across all that many hip-hop covers here at Cover Me. The ones we do get are often in some other genre – either an instrumental or electropop or country-fried cover devoid of any actual rapping. Delightfully, this isn’t the case with Boston duo Karmin’s latest. Continue reading »