The Best Covers of 1990s One Hit Wonders

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Sep 082023
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

1990s One Hit Wonders

This month, our ongoing series of One Hit Wonders covers comes to its end. We’ve done the 1950s (think “Earth Angel,” “Tequila”), the 1960s (“96 Tears,” “In A Gadda Da Vida”), the 1970s (“My Sharona,” “Black Betty”), and the 1980s (“You Spin Me Right Round,” “Turning Japanese”). Now we hit the 1990s today and the 2000s next week.

For millennial readers, these will be the songs you remember hearing on the radio and watching on MTV growing up. So many ubiquitous classics of the era like New Radicals’ “You Get What You Give” and 4 Non Blondes’ “What’s Up,” by artists who only had a brief moment in the sun (you might say someone stole their sunshine…). Also some fun flukes, where the artist’s cultural impact goes way beyond “one hit wonder” — but, according to the fickle US pop charts at the time, they qualify on a technicality: Robyn, Fiona Apple, etc. Plus Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back,” which has to be in the conversation for the most One Hit Wonder to have ever One Hit Wonder-ed. Continue reading »

The 25 Best Steve Earle Covers Ever

 Posted by at 10:00 am  2 Responses »
May 272022
 

‘The Best Covers Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

steve earle covers

Today, Steve Earle releases the fourth in his occasional series of covers albums. They pay tribute to his musical heroes and teachers who’ve passed on – Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Jerry Jeff Walker – plus, in one tragic case, his son Justin Townes Earle, who died in 2020.

We’ll be reviewing the new one, Jerry Jeff, in the near future, but as we celebrate covers by Steve Earle, we thought we’d also celebrate covers of Steve Earle. Though he’s never been a big generator of hit singles, this songwriter’s songwriter has had a number of songs become stealth standards, particularly in the Americana, folk, and alt-country worlds. When everyone from Johnny Cash to The Pretenders is singing your songs, you know you’re doing something right. Continue reading »

Cover Me Q&A: What’s your favorite cover as performed by a choir?

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  3 Responses »
Mar 232022
 

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

a cappella cover

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, suggested by staffer Hope Silverman: What’s your favorite cover as performed by a choir?
Continue reading »

Vandoliers Walk 500 Miles to Cover the Proclaimers

 Posted by at 9:00 am  1 Response »
Mar 242020
 
vandoliers proclaimers cover

On the American side of the pond, The Proclaimers would widely be considered to be a one-hit-wonder after their catchy tune “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” peaked at number three on the charts in 1993 after being featured in the movie Benny and Joon. But the band that mostly consists of bespectacled twins Craig and Charlie Reid have been around since 1983 and sold over five million records worldwide. One-hit wonders they are not. Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of February

 Posted by at 6:00 am  No Responses »
Feb 282020
 

Check out the best covers of past months here.

best cover songs of february
Amanda Palmer – Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil cover)
Julia Stone – Beds Are Burning (Midnight Oil cover)

Due to the wildfires devastating Australia, Midnight Oil’s ecological anthem “Beds Are Burning” has gotten covered a lot this year (Patti Smith was, as always, ahead of the curve). The sudden abundance of covers of a great song is not a silver lining – there is no silver lining – but hopefully the funds from these go some small way towards rebuilding. The two most prominent come from honorary Australian Amanda Palmer and actual Australian Missy Higgs, on a charity EP that sees the first low-key Dresden Dolls reunion in ages, and from Julia Stone, who put together a covers set that comes out next month and features The National and more covering Aussie acts. Continue reading »

Good, Better, Best: “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” (The Proclaimers)

 Posted by at 10:00 am  5 Responses »
Oct 072019
 

Some covers are more equal than others. Good, Better, Best looks at three covers and decides who takes home the gold, the silver, and the bronze.

500 miles proclaimers covers

If all you know about Craig and Charlie Reid, collectively known as the Proclaimers, is that they’re Scottish twin brothers who sang that “dada-da-da” song from Benny and Joon, you’re missing out on a substantial, fairly diverse, discography. They regularly play to large crowds in Europe, their music has been featured on at least five other movie soundtracks, and their songs have inspired a jukebox musical that was itself made into a film. While full-on commercial success has been a tad elusive here in the US, their best-known tune here, “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” has garnered quite a bit of of love, manifested in over forty cover versions known to man (or at least to SecondHandSongs).

I’m all for artists taking a cover and making it their own, but in selecting covers for this article, I chose versions that were true to the energy and exuberance of the original. Versions that recast this song as a ballad or a torch song just didn’t do it for me. Of the versions I selected…
Continue reading »

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