Dec 212012
 

Adele dominated the cover song landscape in 2011, but Two-Aught-Twelve saw no similar galvanizing figure. Yes Lana Del Rey got covered a lot, but Leonard Cohen and Arcade Fire also seemed to garner an unexpected landslide of great covers (and speaking of landslides, so did Fleetwood Mac). “Call Me Maybe” was a huge hit that didn’t lead to much in the way of classic covers, and few seem to have even bothered attempting the Korean raps on “Gangnam Style.”

Which means that cover songs in 2012 were more diverse, ambitious, and left-field than ever before. A given YouTube search or Hype Machine browse would be as likely to turn up forgotten hits or underappreciated songwriters as it would the latest Top 40 smash. Find a sampling of all the diversity in Cover Me’s official Best Cover Songs of 2012 countdown. Start with #40-31 on the next page, and check back daily as we’ll be adding more til we hit #1.

Mar 212012
 

Often times while reviewing new covers that come in, the first impression of a new and unknown artist is both their name and the genre of cover they release. When I saw the name Bunny West doing a piano cover of the classic heavy metal track “Run to the Hills” I knew I was in for a treat. Off of Iron Maiden’s 1982 album The Number of the Beast, the song was the debut with the band’s vocalist Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson would establish himself as the pioneer of operatic power metal vocalists that followed through the ’80s. Continue reading »