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They Say It’s Your Birthday: John Lydon (Johnny Rotten)

Posted by Brianna Goldberg at 11:00 am No Responses »

Jan 312012

They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with other people singing his or her songs. Let others do the work for a while. Happy birthday!

Oh, the dark deeds that must occur on the birthday of the spiky-hair-crowned prince of punk. How does one fete a man whose very name conjures smoking images of filth, fetidness and psychopathy — Decorate a cake with rancid raspberries spilled over the Union Jack? Present a champagne flute of fermenting trash juice to pour on DVD copies of the Queen’s Christmas address? Continue reading »

The 40 Best John Lennon Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 12:00 pm 3 Responses »

Feb 282025

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

Fifty years ago this month, John Lennon released his covers album Rock ‘n’ Roll, in which he tackled a bunch of pre-Beatles rock and roll classics by folks like Gene Vincent and Fats Domino. Admittedly, the album isn’t all that good. It was done under legal pressure, and sounds like it. But the anniversary is a good enough is excuse to celebrate Lennon covers our own way: Not covers by John, but covers of John.

We should our one rule state up front: No Beatles songs! We did a giant 75-song Beatles covers list last year, which, naturally, included a bunch of John songs. So, for this list, as we did with Paul McCartney a few years back, we’re focusing entirely on his solo output. “Solo” loosely defined as anything post-Beatles: co-billed with Yoko, officially backed by Plastic Ono Band, etc.

If you think the no-Beatles rule adds a pretty strict limitation, think again. There was no shortage of solo-Lennon song covers to choose from. And it’s not 50% “Imagine” covers either; in fact, on our list of 40 covers, only two “Imagine”s make the cut. Most “Imagine” covers are pretty damn saccharine, not a word often associated with the most caustic Beatle. But just about every other mood and sound appears below.

Click to the next page to get started. All we are saying is give these a chance.

– Ray Padgett, Cover Me Founder/Editor

Rarely Covered: The Police

Posted by Adam Mason at 11:00 am 1 Response »

Jan 032025

Rarely Covered looks at who’s mining the darkest, dustiest corners of iconic catalogs.

What a great year 2024 was for The Police!

No, they didn’t reform. And no, we’re not talking about yet another cover of “Every Breath You Take,” to add to the 358 already made by the likes of Andy Williams, Sacha Distel, Shirley Bassey, and Dolly Parton. We’re not even talking about the 137th cover of “Roxanne,” to complement those by George Michael, Aswad, and terrible a cappella group The Flying Pickets. Instead, we’re talking about all three ex-members of the mighty new-wave band having been out on the road and performing live sets sprinkled with revitalized versions of Police tracks, to remind us of the remarkable range of their iconic catalog.

That man Sting? The ex singer, bassist, and chief songwriter of the group, who went on to occasional–shall we say?–po-faced solo stardom in his liking for lutes, madrigals, and live albums from his Italian villa? He performed Police songs, at places like the Wiltern in LA, with just one killer guitarist (Dominic Miller) and one killer drummer (Chris Maas), and sounded more urgent and more rock than he had in ages. He tore into era-defining favorites like “Can’t Stand Losing You” and “Message in a Bottle,” but also “Driven to Tears” and “Reggatta de Blanc”!

Guitarist Andy Summers? He performed intimate solo gigs at venues like Le Poisson Rouge in New York, armed with “Roxanne” and “Spirits in the Material World,” but also “Tea in the Sahara” and “Bring on the Night.” And drummer Stewart Copeland? He put on “Police Deranged for Orchestra” shows at such opera houses as Teatro degli Arcimboli in Milan, with renditions of “Walking on the Moon” and “King of Pain,” but also “Murder by Numbers” and “Walking in Your Footsteps.”

So, no, we’re not here today to discuss a country legend putting her spin on a song about sexual possessiveness and stalking, which is seemingly up there with “Happy Birthday to You” in terms of social ubiquity and popularity (as fun as that may be). We’re here, instead, to reflect Sting and co.’s own dusting down of some lesser known–yet still essential–Police tunes by concentrating on the acts that have dug deep into their catalog to bring us compelling covers of tracks from “O My God” to “Once Upon a Daydream” and “Behind My Camel.” We’re all about the artists who’ve reinterpreted the instrumentals, the early songs, the deep cuts, and the B-sides, in celebration of the punk- and reggae-inspired power-trio brilliance of the band in their blond-haired 1977-83 pomp.

Come, then, on an alternative journey though Policedom that takes in Seattle rock legends, a German dub act, ex-thrash-metal heads, ex-Lemonheads, and, actually, an a cappella group. A good one!
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One Great Cover: Bow Wow Wow’s “I Want Candy”

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 10:00 am 1 Response »

Nov 262024

One Great Cover looks at the greatest cover songs ever, and how they got to be that way.

Some songs are transcendent and seem inevitable. They were always going to be a hit, and destined for greatness. As soon as the opening notes are played, or a motif is reached in a cover, you feel comfortable that you are in the presence of something important. No ornamentation or elaboration is necessary.

“I Want Candy” is not one of those songs. From its very first iteration, writers Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gottehrer felt that the song needed something extra to help it along. They cast themselves as The Strangeloves, and implied that they were an Australian Beat Combo, consisting of the Strange Brothers (Niles, Giles and Miles), so that their song about the undoubted appeal of Candy Johnson could have an unusual hook.

Other covers sought other boosting methods. When Aaron Carter made his version he felt that he had to draft in his brother, Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys, to make it more interesting. In a much different iteration Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm, having successfully curated a girl-next-door persona as Sporty Spice, decided to go “raunchy” in an (unsuccessful) Olivia Newton-John style transformation for her take.

Who might you call if you had to create something that is successful as a triumph of form over substance? If you were thinking of Malcolm McLaren, ex-Sex Pistols manager, you get a prize. McLaren was a man who realized that presentation could trump musical ability or artistry if handled correctly. He proved it multiple times, but “I Want Candy” may be the catchiest proof in his particular rucksack.
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One Great Cover: UK Subs’ “Sabre Dance”

Posted by Mike Tobyn at 10:00 am No Responses »

Nov 082024

One Great Cover looks at the greatest cover songs ever, and how they got to be that way.

Punk paradigms provoke panic. Whether it is parents worried that their young people who do unnatural things with their hair may do more natural things if left alone together, politicians who fear anything they can’t readily control, or prog musicians who feel that someone is about to eat their lunch, there have always been reasons for fearing the new art form from the ’70s. Of course, none of these paradigms really hold true. Punk youngsters had no greater rate of teenage pregnancy than any other group of horny young people, and often proved to be good parents, and prog musicians have continued to thrive for the last few years, despite the efforts of the Sex Pistols and New York Dolls. Punks are inherently “anti-establishment,” but the remarkable thing about “The Establishment” is that no one can agree on who it is, so rebelling against it has no universal means and meaning.

Mexican-British (a much smaller demographic than Mexican-American) David Perez may be a nephew of original Joker Cesar Romero, or maybe he is not! Born in 1944 he didn’t find his true calling, as a hardcore punk now going by Charlie Harper, until 1976. He has embraced it as a member of the UK Subs ever since, combining skills with admirable industry. However, by the time he formed the band, in response to seeing The Damned, he was no longer a teenage tearaway, but a married man with experience of the world, and a history of playing in a range of R&B bands. He assembled a band that knew more than three chords, could turn his hand to harmonica and had assimilated a range of influences from the ’50s and ’60s, as well as the ’70s. He still includes songs by Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie in his sets, putting his politics alongside his music. We might guess who his “establishment” is. His band’s only previous appearance on these pages was to be included in a Nirvana cover feature, indicating a wish to stay current.
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The 50 Best Kinks Covers Ever

Posted by Staff at 10:35 am 1 Response »

Jun 212024

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

If The Kinks had stopped after their first year, they’d still be legends. “You Really Got Me” and “All Day and All of the Night,” two of the all-time-great sixties rock singles, were both released in 1964. That’s more classics in one year than most bands have in decades (and their year gets even better if you slide in January 1965’s “Tired of Waiting for You,” recorded before “All Day Etc”).

But if The Kinks had stopped after their first year, this list certainly wouldn’t run 50 covers deep. Because, of course, they didn’t stop. They kept releasing hits, including Top 10s in both the ’70s (“Lola,” “Apeman”) and ’80s (“Come Dancing”). Maybe even more importantly, they kept creating, kept innovating, kept pushing forward, not settling into retreading their early garage-rock sound. That wide breadth gets reflected in the Kinks songs that artists covered. The big hits, of course, are well represented. But so are plenty of album cuts and singles that “flopped” at the time but were rediscovered years later.

Ray Davies turns 80 today. So today, we celebrate his birthday—and his ability to withstand decades of interviews about whether he and brother Dave will ever reunite—with our countdown of the 50 Best Kinks Covers Ever.