Nov 022016
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question, from Cover Me staffer Mike Misch: What cover song makes you laugh?
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Sep 262011
 

“Weird Al” Yankovic first debuted his new “Polka Face” covers medley live last year, and now, 15 months later, we move from shaky concert footage to off-the-wall music video. Now, normally Al’s polkas get music videos for his concerts consisting of the original video clips synced to his medley (like this one), so this marks his polka-video debut. Continue reading »

Sep 132011
 

No secret that we love Telephoned. The covers duo of Maggie Horn and Sammy Bananas consistently bring one of the freshest approaches to covers out there. We named last year’s Off the Hook mixtape the third-best covers album of 2010 and now they’ve released another: Good Call. It finds the duo branching out even further to redefine the “cover” concept. Their general M.O. – cover one song while remixing it with another – proves more fluid than ever and the song selection follow suit. Continue reading »

Jun 152011
 

No question, music-comedy pioneer “Weird Al” Yankovic is known for his parodies and, to a lesser extent, his original musical numbers. But he performs a third, perhaps underappreciated, category of song: the cover. Every album includes a “polka” medley which, though not labeled as such, fits the dictionary definition of a cover: same lyrics, different music. His latest, Alpocalypse, includes another instant classic: Polka Face. Continue reading »

Nov 292010
 

We’ve heard plenty of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” this year. First a pair of schoolteachers sassed it up. Then Alex Goot shoved a little extra electropop in. McFly stripped the production back for an acoustic radio rendition. Most recently (and most absurdly), Matt Lauer and Al Roker took a stab at the song a cappella!

After all that, what’s the point of posting another “Dynamite”? While all those were fun, this one may be the first that’s legitimately “good.” Minneapolis songwriter Sarah Winters layers the harmonies over some stately piano chords. A dumb ode to partying becomes a celebration of life itself. Download it below. Continue reading »

Nov 182010
 

How many times have you seen Al Roker on TV and thought to yourself, “I wish I could hear that guy sing”? Our guess: none. Now how many times have you seen Matt Lauer and thought the same thing? That depends – can you think something a negative number of times?

Well, want to or not, now you will hear them sing. The whole Today Show crew – Roker, Lauer, Ann Curry, and Merideth Vieira – teamed up with a cappella YouTube star Mike Tompkins, who we last heard cover “Teenage Dream.” His cover of Taio Cruz’s “Dynamite” inspired the morning show hosts to try to recreate the video themselves as part of their “Today Show Goes Viral” week. Their version comes pretty close, with one minor difference: Mike Tompkins can actually sing. Continue reading »