The Best Cover Songs of September 2026

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Sep 302026
 
best cover songs
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. Continue reading »

The Best Cover and Tribute Albums of 2025

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Dec 152025
 

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

The Best Cover Albums of 2025

Hip-hop oldies become jazz instrumentals. Cult folk songs become grand spaghetti-western soundscapes. Blink-182 hits become DIY bedroom jams. We’ve got ’90s hardcore bangers shredded on acoustic guitar, Spanglish Latin-pop takes on Air Supply and Elvis, and, maybe most outrageously of all, a wild experiment in turning everyone from Chappell Roan to Smash Mouth into emo/screamo.

It’s an especially unruly set this year, but a rewarding one. Enough preamble. Dive in.

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Review: Chrissie Hynde’s ‘Duets Special’

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Oct 172025
 

Chrissie Hynde has been a rock star for more than fifty years. The Pretenders have not been together quite that long, but Hynde was already making her name as a girl about town and rock-star-in-waiting in London. She has lived the life full-time for all of that period. It is a surprise, then, that she does not fully appreciate the credit that has accrued with that history, and how people still want to hear what she has to say.

Supporting their tenth Album in 2023, The Pretenders initially booked themselves into smaller venues, before it became clear that they had underestimated the love that the world had for her and the band. Eventually the tour went so well that a live album was made and released. Did Hynde not think she was in the class of National Treasures that could call on her friends to make a duets album? The story is that a friend had to remind her that it was an opportunity, if not a duty, to do so. Consider Duets Special an opportunity/duty fulfilled.
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The Killers Show Their Rock & Roll Hearts on Acoustic Cover of Petty’s “The Waiting”

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Apr 302020
 
the killers petty cover

Brandon Flowers has always worn his love and fandom for the artists that have influenced him on his sleeve. He and The Killers have performed countless covers of his particular idols over the years, and his speech inducting The Cars into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2018 was genuinely moving. Flowers and bandmate Ronnie Vannucci Jr. played a short set on CBS This Morning’s Saturday Sessions last week and, in addition to performing two new tracks. threw in a cover of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ snarling, gloriously pent-up anthem “The Waiting.” Continue reading »

The Killers Pay Tribute to Ric Ocasek with “My Best Friend’s Girl” Cover

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Sep 302019
 
the killers ric ocasek

In the wake of the passing of Cars frontman Ric Ocasek, many musicians have reflected on the influence he and the Cars had on so many. Not only did the band itself leave a major mark on rock and pop music, but Ocasek worked as a producer for bands such as Weezer, No Doubt, and Bad Religion. Brandon Flowers, frontman of The Killers, called him “my first king” on Twitter. Continue reading »

The Killers Cover for James Taylor with a James Taylor Cover

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Apr 052019
 
the killers cover james taylor

When James Taylor was unable to perform on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week due to illness, The Killers gracefully filled the shoes. Not only did The Killers perform their most recent song “Land of the Free” as well as the Hot Fuss classic “All These Things That I’ve Done,” they also put their spin on a JT standard “Carolina in My Mind”. Continue reading »

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