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 Olympians and Lee Fields Perform Quirky “Don’t Let Me Down” Cover

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Sep 222026
 
the olympians lee fields don't let me down cover

Though originally a C-side, “Don’t Let Me Down” has rightfully become one of The Beatles‘ most popular songs. Well, it’s in the Top 20, in terms of Spotify streams. Somewhat surprisingly, it actually has more streams than its A-side, “Get Back.” (Also surprisingly, it has way more daily streams in 2026 than many of the songs ranked higher than it in the Top 20, meaning it might be on its way to the Top 10 by 2027.) It’s a little less popular as a cover, though there are still plenty of versions out there, because it’s a Beatles song. Continue reading »

The 50 Best Tribute Albums Ever

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Oct 052020
 
best tribute albums

Over our time tracking cover songs (13 years this month!), we’ve written about hundreds of new tribute albums, across reviews, news stories, and, when they’re good enough, our best-of-the-year lists. We also have looked back on plenty of great tribute albums from the past in our Cover Classics series. But we’ve never pulled it all together – until now. Continue reading »

Amanda Shires Ditches the Violin for Quiet Ukulele Leonard Cohen Cover

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Feb 022017
 
amanda shires cover

Amanda Shires is best known as a violinist (also for being Jason Isbell’s wife and sometimes bandmate), but on her tender new cover of Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” she ditches her signature instrument for the ukulele. At least it has the same number of strings!

She proves equally adept at the new instrument, plucking it quietly to accompany her delicate singing. She gets bonus points too for not forcing a switch to “I’m Your Woman,” the sort of dumb lyric change too many singers do when covering a song by someone of the opposite gender. Continue reading »