The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2023

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Dec 152023
 

Follow all our Best of 2023 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

I like to think that badass lady in the artwork up there (done by our own Hope Silverman!) embodies the spirit of this year’s list. Not that they’re all CBGB-style punk songs—though there are a couple—but in her devil-may-care attitude. “Who says I shouldn’t do a hardcore cover of the Cranberries? A post-punk cover of Nick Drake? A hip-hop cover of The Highwaymen? Screw that!”

As with most good covers, the 50 covers we pulled out among the thousands we listened to bring a healthy blend of reverence and irreverence. Reverence because the artists love the source material. Irreverence because they’re not afraid to warp it, bend it, mold it in their own image. A few of the songs below are fairly obscure, but most you probably already know. Just not like this.

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The Best Cover Songs of July 2023

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Jul 312023
 
best cover songs
Bob Dylan — Bad Actor (Merle Haggard cover)

Bob Dylan has been on a covers roll this year. On tour, he has primarily covered a number of Dead (“Truckin’,” “Stella Blue,” “Brokedown Palace”) or Dead-associated (“Not Fade Away,” “Only a River”) songs. But he’s dipped into other classic catalogs occasionally too. He did Van Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” for the first time and then, not long after, maybe the deepest cut yet: Merle Haggard’s 2016 track “Bad Actor.” The tape took a while to surface. It was worth the wait. Continue reading »

Elisapie Records Traditional Inuk Cover of Metallica’s “The Unforgiven”

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Jul 062023
 
elisapie unforgiven cover

“The Unforgiven” was Metallica‘s second biggest song when it was released as the second single to their self-titled fifth album. It wasn’t Metallica’s first ballad, but it reversed their previous formula which arguably made it more appealing to the average listener. It remains one of their best known songs among non-metal fans and is far and away their most covered song.

We last encountered Inuk singer Elisapie on her transformative cover of Bondie’s “Heart of Glass.” From about as far north in the province of Quebec as you could possibly be from, Elisapie has been recording and releasing Juno- and Polaris-nominated music for more than a decade. (Those are Canadian music awards. The Junos are Canada’s Grammys and the Polaris is a little more indie.) She sings in English, French and her native Inuktitut. On both the Blondie cover and this new Metallica cover, she sings in her native language. Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of March 2023

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Apr 032023
 
best cover songs of march 2023
Bria – When You Know Why You’re Happy (Mary Margaret O’Hara’ cover)

Bria’s “Where Have All The Cowboys Gone?” made our list of the Best Covers of 2022. The track was a sneak peak at her covers EP Cuntry Covers Vol. 2, and the full thing dropped a few weeks ago. It includes a wonderful version of this much more obscure song. Bria explains: “Mary Margaret O’Hara is a creative force and one of my favorite Canadian artists. I have been a huge fan of hers for quite some time and really wanted to try my hand at one of her songs for Vol. 2. She is a real queen of vocal improvisation. It’s a trait of hers that I’ve always admired, so I really wanted to explore that when recording this cover. The video for this track is special to us, a sort of collage of memory; fragmented footage of summer taken over the last two years is dispersed throughout shots of a vast winter scene, filmed while we finished the record up North with our live band.” Continue reading »