Chewy Rodriguez — Wildest Dreams (Taylor Swift cover)
This beautiful performance aired on South Dakota Public Broadcasting and, as of this writing, has 81 views, half of which are mine. (To be fair, presumably more people saw it when it aired on actual TV). But this Sioux Falls singer-songwriters beautiful Taylor Swift cover deserves a far bigger audience. It’s simply done, no frills or gimmicks, but he sells the hell out of it.
The Corner Laughers — Speak to the Sky (Rick Springfield cover)
The new Rick Springfield tribute album Second by Second by Minute by Minute opens with “Jessie’s Girl”—of course—but my favorite track on a first listen digs further back in his discography. All the way back, in fact, to Springfield’s very first single: 1972’s “Speak to the Sky.” California quartet The Corner Laughers give it a jangly folk-pop bounce very much in the vein of all those great Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoff covers.
Cowboy Mouth — Fat Bottomed Girls (Queen cover)
Though it was a big hit at the time, “Fat Bottomed Girls” is not a Queen song that gets covered much—for obvious reasons. New Orleans veteran roots-rock band Cowboy Mouth gives it a fun, twangy turn though, with prominent acoustic pickin’, shaker, and loose back-porch harmonies.
The Dreggs — Take on Me (A-Ha cover)
A lively banjo-flecked cover of this ’80s classic. “We wanted to take it away from the classic drum intro and we thought ‘what’s a really folky way we can make this song ours?” guitarist Zane Harris said. “And the guitar and the harmonies was a good way to get there.” And—yes—they can hit that high note.
Eddie Vedder — My City of Ruins (Bruce Springsteen cover)
Bruce Springsteen opened his 2025 tour with some powerful anti-Trump statements, so, inevitably, got attacked by the man himself. At the next Pearl Jam show in Pittsburgh, Bruce’s former Vote for Change tourmate Eddie Vedder shows his solidarity with this beautiful acoustic cover of a Rising standout.
José James — Rock with You (Michael Jackson cover)
José James’ new album 1978: Revenge of the Dragon includes four covers, all songs first recorded in the titular year. They are Herbie Hancock’s “I Thought It Was You,” the Bee Gees’ “Love You Inside Out,” The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” and Michael Jackson’s “Rock with You.” Best by a hair is the latter, a slow neo-soul groove of electric piano and tasteful horn stabs.
Kacey Musgraves — Lost Highway (Hank Williams cover)
Kacey Musgraves announced her signing to the recently-resurrected Lost Highway Records with a cover of—what else—“Lost Highway,” the Hank Williams song that gave the country/Americana label its name. She plays it fairly straight, clearly in the old Country Kacey mode, complete with prominent pedal steel, rather than Disco-Revival Kacey.
Maggie Rogers & Sylvan Esso — Anthems For A Seventeen Year-Old Girl (Broken Social Scene cover)
The lead single off a full Broken Social Scene tribute album due next month. Rogers said: “‘Anthems’ is one of those songs that fundamentally changed my life There’s something about the lyrical repetition that functions as a sort of mantra within the song and it made me understand at a very early point in my creative life that music could be a form of meditation. Broken Social Scene has long been one of my all-time favorite bands and covering it with my dear friends Nick and Amelia from Sylvan Esso was an absolute joy beam dream.”
Nicky Francis — Amber (311 cover)
If you’re not a 311 fan (guilty), don’t just scroll past this one. This guitar-and-drum-machine-and-layered-vocals cover is, in my opinion, quite a bit better than the original. Francis writes: “Interesting that this tune is often viewed as part of the late 90s but it came out in 2002. I always felt that this song inhabits that brackish water between late 90’s and early aughts (kinda like RHCP’s By the Way album, secretly one of my faves by them, Frusciante clearly paying attention to some of the guitar stuff that was going on in culture).” Maybe he’ll cover “The Zephyr Song” next.
Reid Parsons — I’m on Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover)
“I’m on Fire” is the most-covered Springsteen song, per SecondHandSongs, with the only other one that comes even close being “Dancing in the Dark.” And given how many covers of both we continue to get, I think that gap will only grow (a distant number three and four are “Streets of Philadelphia” and “Born to Run,” and neither seem to get covered anywhere near as much these days). The latest “I’m on Fire” comes from Vermont singer-songwriter Reid Parsons, on her new album Back to Back. It’s simple and folky, with an insistent drum beat undergirding the pedal steel and gentle twang.
Sharon Van Etten — Here We Are in the Years (Neil Young cover)
Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, Vol. 1, the year’s splashiest tribute album so far, has a lot of highlights…and a lot of lowlights. Such is the way of these things. One of the highlights is Sharon Van Etten’s beautiful folk-rock take on a relative deep cut, on an album with too few of them, “Here We Are in the Years” off Neil’s 1968 debut album. It sounds like it could have come off Harvest, though the violin here ties it back to the orchestral side of that debut. Or maybe Sharon’s just a big Storytone fan.
Wren Kitz — Your Face/Balls (Super Bonheur cover)
[Download here]
Every city should have a Burlington Does Burlington, a compilation of local artists paying tribute to their own scene. Now, if you don’t live in Burlington, Vermont (as I do), you might not know any of the artists covered or covering—no one is so basic as to sing a Phish song. But our small city has long punched well above its weight musically, and there’s a ton to discover. Among many highlights I’ll go with local acoustic-experimental-tape weirdo (complimentary) Wren Kitz do a dirty distorted run at two songs from long-defunct duo Super Bonheur, whose combined title looks extra-inappropriate. Though not that much more so than the original, which, though ostensible about playing baseball, basketball, etc, does feature the joyously repeated refrain “cover me in balls.”
The Best of the Rest
Billie Eilish — Creep (Radiohead cover)
Desert Sparrow — Messy (Lola Young cover)
Karen Dio — Casual (Chappell Roan cover)
The Lemonheads — Sad Cinderella (Townes Van Zandt cover)
Louane — Where Is My Mind (Pixies cover)
Mark Van Hoen — Shine (Slowdive cover)
Matt Pond PA — Heaven or Las Vegas (Cocteau Twins cover)
Muireann Bradley — I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams cover)
Mt. Joy — Look at Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch cover)
SASAMI — Maps (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover)
Self Esteem — Starburster (Fontaines D.C. cover)
Sugababes — What Was That (Lorde cover)
Verona On Venus ft. Calico Cooper — No 1 (Die Antwoord cover)
Check out previous months’ best covers lists.
