The Alices — Whole Wide World (Wreckless Eric cover)
A lo-fi garage rip through “Whole Wide World” by Chicago rockers The Alices (who—fact-check—only have one Alice, frontwoman Alice Strider). Doesn’t reinvent the wheel, and doesn’t need to.
Bad Wolves — Jolene (Dolly Parton cover)
There’s a lot of drama around this one. A few years ago, alt-rock band Bad Wolves had a surprise hit with a cover of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.” So they decided to strike again with “Jolene.” Best of all, Dolly Parton herself was planning to guest on it. Her manager wrote, “Dolly was a champion of artists pushing musical boundaries. She listened to the Bad Wolves arrangement of ‘Jolene’ weeks ago, gave it her full blessing and was incredibly excited to collaborate on it.” Alas, she died before she could record her vocals, and they released the cover—sans Dolly—in tribute, donating the proceeds to her Imagination Library.
End of drama, right? Nope! Bad Wolves guitarist AJ Rebollo quit over the decision, writing, “I have been at odds with one too many decisions being made for the band for quite some time, but the final nail in the coffin was the label’s decision to move forward with the upcoming Dolly Parton cover, after we blatantly expressed our opposition. We, as an entity, told the label we had no interest in releasing the cover after learning of Dolly’s unfortunate passing as her collaboration on the song was no longer a possibility, and we felt it would (understandably) be interpreted as somewhat of a capitalization on her passing from an outside perspective.”
But then later he walked those comments back, saying he had made some wrong assumptions (most notably that the rest of the band didn’t want to release it, seemingly). But I guess he’s still quit? What a mess!
Beach House — April Suzanne (Robert Lee Folsom cover)
Originally self-released in 1976, Robert Lester Folsom’s album Music and Dreams—only 1,000 copies pressed—became a cult classic over the subsequent five decades, to the point that, next month, Anthology Recordings is releasing Music and Dreams: 50th Anniversary Edition. That includes a few new covers that should introduce the songs to more people, like this one from Beach House.
Brandon Flowers — People Who Died (The Jim Carroll Band cover)
Promoting his new country album, The Killers frontman busted out a surprising cover in Brooklyn, the best-known song by, as he put it, “New York city genius poet” Jim Carroll. Usually bands blast through it as a punk song—Drive-By Truckers do a good version—but Flowers told the audience they “gave it a country ride, and we’re gonna take you on that ride right now.” It works well in that genre too.
Brother Flower — Blue Driver (Michael Hurley cover)
On their new covers EP Perpetual Tunes, Philly Americana band Brother Flower cover Townes Van Zandt (no surprise—they named their band after one of his songs) alongside Bob Dylan, Lee Baggett, and, best of all, Michael Hurley. They write:
Alain [Schremmer] turned us on to Michael Hurley after he found a copy of “Armchair Boogie” in his dad’s record collection. His dad is a huge fan of boogie woogie music, and would buy any record related to the genre. When he purchased “Armchair Boogie”, he was quite disappointed to hear the strange folk music that the album held. Luckily for us, his accidental record purchase changed our lives. We got pretty obsessed and would listen to anything Hurley we could find. When we first heard “Blue Driver”, we didn’t listen to another song for like two weeks. He’s so funny, yet so soulful… just the fuckin best man. RIP Michael Hurley. Truly one of the greatest to ever do it.
Ella Boh — Careless Whisper (Wham! cover)
Dreamy shoegaze comes for Wham! It’s slow but loud, and totally mesmerizing.
Ken Pomeroy — This Old Guitar (John Denver cover)
Tulsa singer-songwriter Ken Pomeroy just won Emerging Artist of the Year at the 2026 Americana Awards. Shortly before that, she released a new mostly-covers EP, Tonight’s News. It’s simple and spare, mostly her gorgeous vocals and acoustic guitar. One highlight is this version of a John Denver song I’d never heard before.
Modest Mouse ft. Califone — Barstool Blues (Neil Young cover)
Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock explained his choice of cover for a new Neil Young tribute album:
Getting to do a cover of one of Neil’s songs on a project like this matters both because it gets to be helpful for an important cause like The Bridge School, and because it’s actually attached to the person whose song we are covering. It’s really… well, it’s a stressful honor. The stakes seem a little higher. I like that.
I had initially chosen and started working on a cover of ‘Cortez the Killer’ before I realized that, in order to pull this off the way I’d like to, it was going to take me a thousand hours. Then it struck me: there is a song that I like just as much and find personally more relatable, ‘Barstool Blues.’ This was a song I could really sing my teeth into.
On top of being such a catchy song, it was something that I felt more of a mental and emotional connection to than ‘Cortez’ anyway, which I have more of a “ historical” emotional connection to.
The next challenge any time you cover a song you’ve heard so many times is that it can be difficult to find a way not to make your version too close to the original. After all, why would anyone need that?
I figured it out. I made it go Kraut.
MUNA — King of Wishful Thinking (Go West cover)
The synth would be the star of this fun SiriusXM cover, were it not for Katie Gavin’s pitch-perfect vocals.
Pissed Jeans — The Body Rules (Jesse “The Body” Ventura cover)
On the new compilation Maximum MN, a handful of Sub Pop artists cover Minnesota artists in support of the International Institute of Minnesota, an organization that aids immigrants and refugees. So you’ve got Prince, you’ve got The Replacements, you’ve got Hüsker Dü—all the MN greats. But there’s one wild twist. Allentown, PA hardcore band Pissed Jeans cover a song by Jesse Ventura, the wrestler turned governor. Apparently he made music at one point too? Wildest cover selection of the year honestly.
Ratboys — Fix My Brain (The Marked Men cover)
Ratboys latest album Singin’ to an Empty Chair only came out in February, but they’ve already announced the deluxe version. In addition to covers of their songs by friends and peers like PUP and Wild Pink, they’ve tacked on a cover of Texas punks The Marked Men. Singer Julia Steiner said: “The guys, especially Marcus, were already long-time fans of The Marked Men (and of Jeff Burke’s other band Radioactivity), but when I first heard it more recently, ‘Fix My Brain’ was a total revelation to me. I hyper-fixated on the song in ways that are pretty rare for me these days: I would find excuses to steal away and listen to it on repeat, and, when we got home from tour, I immediately sat down with my acoustic guitar to learn the chord changes.”
The Best of the Rest
ASHEN — Sympathy Is a Knife (Charli XCX cover)
Chris Stapleton — I Shall Believe (Sheryl Crow cover)
Dolly Parton — Bound to Ride (The Stanley Brothers cover)
Ezra Collective — NUEVAYoL (Bad Bunny cover)
Galantis — 1234 (Feist cover)
Marcus King — Either Way (Wilco cover)
Meshell Ndegeocello ft. Bill Callahan, Chris Thile — With God on Our Side (Bob Dylan cover)
My Morning Jacket ft. Preservation Hall Jazz Band — Like a Hurricane (Neil Young cover)
Olivia Rodrigo — Strong Enough (Sheryl Crow cover)
The Olympians feat. Lee Fields — Don’t Let Me Down (The Beatles cover)
Pinky Beecroft — Wild Horses (The Rolling Stones cover)
Shudder to Think — Something To Do (Depeche Mode cover)
The Sugarettes — Rasputin (Boney M cover)
U2 — Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (The Pogues cover)
Check out previous months’ best covers lists.
