The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2025

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Dec 192025
 

Follow all our Best of 2025 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

Last year’s unexpected theme was Tom Petty covers. For no obvious reason, he popped up again and again on our 2024 year-end list. And whaddya know, Tom’s back this year, with two more Petty covers on our list. This year, however, he is not the most-covered artist on our list.

That’s a tie between two artists, one extremely of-the-moment, one timeless. With three covers apiece, Chappell Roan and Neil Young share the most-best-covered crown. (Artists with two covers apiece this year, in addition to Petty, are Gillian Welch, John Prine, and—this one’s surprising—Nelly Furtado!)

Spoiler alert: None of those appears in the number-one position. Number one covers an artist who I don’t think has ever appeared on one of our year-end lists. But don’t skip ahead. There are 49 equally (well, almost) as good covers to get through first, spanning genres and sounds and eras and ages. Here we go.

Cover art by Hope Silverman

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The Best Cover Songs of April 2025

 Posted by at 12:00 pm  1 Response »
Apr 302025
 
Cover Songs of April
Ben Harper — Ghost Dance (Patti Smith cover)

Hopefully a full recording will be released of the Carnegie Hall tribute to Patti Smith. Until then, there are a number of videos on YouTube. Best I’ve seen is Ben Harper doing “Ghost Dance,” Smith’s mesmerizing mediation from 1978’s Easter. Note Flea on bass and Dylan/Costello sideman Charlie Sexton on guitar. Continue reading »

Ball Park Music Makes Imogen Heap’s “Hide and Seek” Go Heartland-Indie

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Apr 142025
 
ball park music

Ball Park Music, an independent rock band, recently took to the Like a Version stage with one of Imogen Heap’s most famous tunes: “Hide and Seek.” The group has performed for the radio station Triple J many times and it’s no wonder. To quote Triple J, “The way this cover unfolded is truly gorgeous, and proves why we just keep asking Ball Park Music to come back to the Like A Version studio again and again.”

“I’ve cherished this song most of my life now,” the band’s Sam Cromack said. “Even though it presents as this really mysterious song, it actually pretty much just has four simple chords underneath it.”

The beginning of this rendition bears little similarity to the original acapella indie-folktronica hit. However, the solo guitar seamlessly fills the space the vocoder had once filled, giving it more of a melancholic indie-rock feeling. As we reach the second verse, the band adds vocal harmonies, a heartbeat-like beat, gentle keys, and bass. At this point, it blossoms into full-on, enriched heartland indie. In the hands of Ball Park Music, we have a lush ballad which ebbs and flows.

The Best Vampire Weekend Covers Ever

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Jul 262024
 

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

This spring, Vampire Weekend released their fifth album, Only God Was Above Us. Like all their albums, it was extremely well-received (“Universal acclaim,” says Metacritic), and they’re currently in the middle of a year-long tour supporting it. They take so long between albums that we wanted to strike while the iron was hot and celebrate some of the great covers of their work.

To state the obvious, five albums is not a huge discography. Last month we did The Kinks, and they’ve got 26 studio albums to cover songs from, and that’s not even counting all the non-album singles that include many of their biggest hits. But Vampire Weekend are beloved in a way few modern indie-rock bands are. So even though they don’t have that many songs, and even though they’re hardly in the game of making inescapable pop hits, they get covered a fair amount. And often in unexpected, inventive ways. Fitting for one of the most unexpected, inventive bands in the game.

Read on for our favorites.

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