Here we go, the final list: Best Cover Songs of 2010. We narrowed down the contenders from literally thousands of candidates to the top 50. We’ll be unveiling ten a day this week, with #50-41 up now. Each comes with a download, so get started. Check back every day this week for more.
Yesterday we gave you our favorite cover albums #20-11. Now we round off our list with what you’ve really been waiting for: the top ten. Did your favorite album make it?
Yesterday we kicked off list season 2010 with the Best Cover Videos of 2010. Now, we follow it up with the first half of our annual album blowout. Narrowed down from dozens of candidates, click below to see and sample the twenty best cover albums of 2010.
Click here for The Best Cover Albums of 2010, Part 1.
So it begins: Listomania 2010. Like every music blog worth its proverbial salt, Cover Me will be going list-crazy this month. The difference is, our lists will specialize in – you guessed it – cover songs. Take the typical year-end list and insert the word “Cover” between “Best” and “Albums/Songs/etc” and you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. First up: The Best Cover Videos of 2010.
Cover songs hit the web faster than ever these days, but well-crafted cover videos remain relatively rare. Sure, YouTube is bursting with webcam performances and DIY concert footage, but bedroom confessions soon grow tiresome. Well-crafted cover music videos (remember those?) come along far less often. A great video can be art on its own, playing with – or against – the audio recording to create a viewer/listener experience greater than the sum of its parts.
Below, we present our top ten cover videos of 2010. In some cases the song’s origins play an essential role in the music video; in others it makes no difference. Each brings new imagery, insight, or, in some cases, lolz to the song it accompanies. A Rastafarian astronaut shoots lasers. Apples float around a Twilight Zone apartment. Pig people fight mummy surgeons in the basement.
Check out our ten favs below, then tell us which you liked best. Continue reading »
Seeing the name Britney Spears appear anywhere in relation to cover songs should strike fear into your heart. The infamous pop music icon has a storied history of disastrous covers, made all the more notorious by the popularity and elitist appeal of the classics she has mangled. Any listing of all-time worst cover songs is all but certain to include either her 2000 mauling of “I Can’t Get No (Satisfaction)” (which even this Spears apologist admits is truly dreadful) or the 2002 reincarnation of “I Love Rock N Roll” that got one bewildered journalist noting that “Joan Jett would be rolling in her grave if she were dead.”
Fortunately, it appears that the pop superstar may have grown wise to the ire her cover songs inspire and withdrew from a game she clearly hadn’t the skills to play. Meanwhile, Britney effect has continued to pervade the world of cover songs on the flip side of the coin: not as one who covers but rather as one who is covered – arguably a weightier assessment of artistic importance than a knack for musical reinterpretation of another’s work. Some of the covers out there of Britney Spears tunes are excellent – and even most of the rest turn out more interesting than your average remake. Continue reading »
Omigod, you just have to hear this new Bob Dylan cover. You know that folksy ballad, “All Along the Watchtower”? Well some afro-headscarf weirdnik named Jimi rocked it so hard that… What’s that? You’ve already heard it? You say it tops every single list of the best Dylan covers that has ever been made with absolutely no exceptions so don’t bother looking to try to prove me wrong? Ah. Well, Mr. Music Snob, try these ten lesser-known covers on for size, spanning from Bob’s folk origins until his post-Blonde on Blonde motorcycle crash.
This grinding synth slow-burn comes via comp curator extraordinaire Béatrice Ardisson, whose Dylan Mania contains sixteen of the most fantastically weird covers you’re likely to hear. [Buy]
Though Dylan wrote this song in 1964, his own version didn’t see the light of day until 1985’s Biograph compilation. It indicates he was experimenting with what he called “that thin, wild mercury music” several years before Blonde on Blonde. [Buy]
Outside of free jazz and the Dead, there aren’t many songs where a blogger must decide whether to post the ten-minute version or the twenty. I went with the conservative length, but I’ll probably post the longer one on Twitter this week. Now with extra ?uestlove drum solo! [Buy]
When Dion opened Dylan’s New York concerts last fall, he missed an opportunity to deliver this swinging gem to an appreciative audience. It’s not like he had to worry about stepping on Bob’s toes; the man has only performed it one time himself. [Buy]
“Subterranean” has been described as the first rap song. 40 Thieves make the argument by ripping through the lyrics over a funky Public Enemy-esq beat. [Buy]
Dylan’s finger-picking from the early days should get more credit than it does (see “Don’t Think Twice”), but even at his best he had nothing on this guy. Listen those funky bass note slaps. [Buy]
This song seems even angrier in a polite acoustic guise. By the time singer Arthur “Ace” Enders makes it to that cutting last line, you wonder what he’s capable of. [Buy]
Putting Dylan’s acoustic songs to a heavy rock beat is not a novel concept, but the Social Distortion frontman handles it particularly well. What song doesn’t improve with a little growl? [Buy]
Even for critics underwhelmed by the incoherent storyline of Dylan’s 2003 film Masked and Anonymous (people, plot is so twentieth century), few could object to the cover-heavy soundtrack. The Magokoro Bros’ translation of “My Back Pages” into Japanese works because it doesn’t. Each line has three times as many syllables as will fit, so the singer always seems to be playing catch-up. [Buy]
The word haunting gets overused, but it has never been more appropriate. September’s hoarse whisper is devastating and that gusting wind raises the hairs on your neck. [Buy]
Read Part 2: After the Crash.