The 40 Best David Bowie Covers Ever

Head back to the beginning.

20. Miriam Aida — Loving the Alien

The only place to go after the overwhelming success of the Let’s Dance album was down. But no one expected the hard landing that was Tonight, the eternally lambasted follow-up LP. To this day, it remains one of the most maligned, dare I say hated albums in the whole Bowie discography. Even the contrarians and hardcores among us would be hard-pressed to call Tonight an underappreciated gem. It is not… but it is home to a couple of absolutely fabulous pop tunes which also happened to be the only two new tracks on the album written by Bowie: The raucous diva “Blue Jean” (which he himself didn’t think much of) and the lustrous critique of organized religion with an absurdly swoonsome hook, “Loving the Alien.”

Swedish jazz singer Miriam Aida’s 2018 exquisitely curated Bowie cover album is named after the latter. Aida’s “LTA” (let’s just call it) is the undisputable star of the affair, a moody, acoustic beauty in the vein of Milton Nascimento’s 1972 classic “Cais.” Elegant and evocative. – Hope Silverman

19. Walter Martin — Breaking Glass

When he’s not playing with The Walkmen, Walter Martin makes wry, intimate music very much in the vein of Jonathan Richman. They both have songs about art history (“Pablo Picasso” vs “Michelangelo”) and epic tales from the Old Testament (“David and Goliath” vs “Daniel in the Lion’s Den”). Both of their output is not explicitly “children’s music” per se, but is very childlike. So it’s no surprise that Martin’s “Breaking Glass” cover came on a compilation called Let All The Children Boogie: A Tribute to David Bowie.

“Breaking Glass” is certainly not a children’s song—it came out of Bowie’s drug-fueled Berlin period—but, divorced from the historical context, works well as something you could play in the car with the kids. There’s xylophone, tack piano, and Martin’s joyous “oh oh oh” singalongs. Also, if you have young kids, you’ve probably heard some version of the sentence “Don’t look at the carpet ’cause I drew something awful on it.” – Ray Padgett

18. Hirsute Pursuit — Boys Keep Swinging

“I’m gay, and always have been,” Bowie famously said in 1972. That quote was doubtless on the minds of the suits at America’s RCA label when they chose not to release “John, I’m Only Dancing” as a single. Seven years later, they rejected a single release for “Boys Keep Swinging” as well. Perhaps they feared that lines like “Other boys check you out” were potentially offensive.

Well, let it not be said that Hirsute Pursuit’s cover of “Boys Keep Swinging” dials down any gay references. The song gets a monotone vocal, an occasional lyric change (now you’ll get a boy and a girl), a few skritches, and a positively relentless drum loop. It’s hot, it’s sexy, it’s catchy, and if Bowie had turned in this video instead of his famed drag triptych one, doubtless he would have been responsible for a few heart attacks at RCA headquarters. – Patrick Robbins

17. Anna Phoebe — Blackstar

Sometimes, just sometimes, there is too much gravity in a song to allow any cover room to maneuver. “Blackstar” — indeed, most of Blackstar, Bowie’s swansong opus — is a case in point, being so irrevocably associated with the singer’s death (the video especially a potent pointer towards). But, remarkably, if you strip away the baggage and even the sentiment, beneath the song is a memory, an indelible mark, a ghost. It is this that Anna Phoebe has found. A composer and violinist from London, her stark instrumental setting of the song says all you need to know. – Seuras Og

16. Natalie Merchant – Space Oddity

Natalie Merchant has said that David Bowie’s album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars helped her survive her adolescence, so it is clear that Bowie means a great deal to her. She covered “Space Oddity,” (which is not from Ziggy Stardust, but from his second album, although she has covered “Starman,” which is), on her 1999 tour, and it was released on a live album that year, recorded at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York City. Where the original’s vocals can be a little cold and detached, with psychedelic influences, and the music has more than a little pre-disco Bee Gees folk-pop feel (with psychedelic influences), Merchant’s version is more straightforward—her vocals are powerful and emotional, and the music rocks a little harder—and features a tasty guitar solo. – Jordan Becker

15. Bauhaus — Ziggy Stardust

This is not the first time Bauhaus’ cover of David Bowie’s rock classic “Ziggy Stardust” has earned a spot on a Cover Me “Best of…” list. The song was number six on our 2024 list of The 25 Best Goth Covers Ever. As we noted then, the song was a more bombastic version than the original. Vocalist Peter Murphy and the band perfectly transported Bowie’s anthem of the decadent ‘70s to the even more over-the-top ‘80s. Bauhaus’ “Ziggy Stardust” not only deserves repeat listens, but should be included on as many “Best of …” lists as we can conjure. – Curtis Zimmermann

14. Django Bates — Life on Mars

Django Bates is an Englishman with a magpie’s ability to spot a shiny musical item in the distance and incorporate and augment it seamlessly into his musical nest. An ability to work with a range of collaborators, learn from them, elevate them. A decades-long career, and an enviable list of achievements, leaving many in awe of them.

Of course Bates has not sold millions of albums, and is not a household name. But he is a genius of a different sort. He is also willing to do something that Bowie was not. He can harness, and embrace, chaos. His “Life on Mars” starts small, as it should, with Josefine Lindstrand’s voice in a suburban front room, but as the vista changes, so does the mood, as Bowie and Bates challenge us to imagine more, imagine greater. By the climax, with soaring saxophone from David Sanborn, Bates challenges his band and audience to embrace the joys of letting go. – Mike Tobyn

13. Claudia Brucken — Everyone Says Hi

“Everyone Says Hi” comes from Bowie’s 2002 album Heathen, and is further proof that Bowie was still producing great—and coverable—material well past his imperial era. German synth-pop singer Claudia Brucken, of the band Propaganda and a regular collaborator with OMD’s Paul Humphreys, tackled this on her 2012 covers album The Lost Are Found, in which she tackled lesser-known songs by iconic artists (Pet Shop Boys’ “King’s Cross,” The Band’s “Whispering Pines,” etc). So a song from Heathen was a perfect choice. She makes it sound like a lost ’80s classic. – Ray Padgett

12. Choir! Choir! Choir! — “Heroes”

I still get close to tears every time I watch this video of Choir! Choir! Choir! and David Byrne joining forces to sing “Heroes.” For any number of reasons. One, the way the artist and the audience feed off each other, each pushing the other past what they expected. You can almost see the moment Byrne realizes this is no longer a “sure, I’ll do you a favor” appearance and that it’s time to kick in a higher gear. Two, it’s one of Bowie’s most popular songs (only “Space Oddity” has been covered more), and even in an arrangement as simple as acoustic guitar and vocals (and vocals and vocals), it still has the power to lift up to the heavens.

Third, and possibly most important, the video here is the personification of the lyrics. These people singing along are not anonymous, not powerless, not anymore, not with a song in their heart like this one. In a time when kissing through the gunfire happens more than it should, this performance reminds me, and perhaps others, that we can be heroes. In fact, we already are. – Patrick Robbins

11. Karen O & Willie Nelson — Under Pressure

Seemingly the product of an attempt to pair two musicians with nothing in common, this cover of “Under Pressure” actually came together because Karen O and Willie Nelson had something in common: friend Johnny Knoxville (of course!). The idea was Karen O’s, who thought that the lyrics of the classic Bowie/Queen collaboration spoke to her in the face of the toxicity of the 2020 presidential election, and Nelson was game.

The decision to slow the song down and deemphasize the famous bassline (it’s there, don’t worry) in favor of a country folk ballad sound featuring acoustic guitar allows the listener to focus on the poignant lyrics, and not the intensity of the performance. Karen O’s vocals are beautiful, and very much not Freddie Mercury, and Willie Nelson, is, well, Willie Nelson, speak-singing the Bowie part like only he could. It may not have the longevity of the original, and it is very unlikely to be sampled by Vanilla Ice (or anyone), but it might have been exactly what was needed before the election, whether or not anyone other than Karen O knew it. – Jordan Becker

NEXT PAGE →

Cover Me is now on Patreon! If you love cover songs, we hope you will consider supporting us there with a small monthly subscription. There are a bunch of exclusive perks only for patrons: playlists, newsletters, downloads, discussions, polls - hell, tell us what song you would like to hear covered and we will make it happen. Learn more at Patreon.