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The 50 Best Cover Songs of 2021

Posted by Staff at 9:00 am 2 Responses »

Dec 172021

Follow all our Best of 2021 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

To come up with our year-end list, we listened to thousands of covers.

That’s not an exaggeration, or loosely throwing around “thousands” for effect. My iTunes tells me I personally listened to and rated 1,120 new covers in 2021. And I’m just one of a dozen people here. Many of those thousands of covers were very good! But “very good” isn’t good enough for our annual year-end Best Cover Songs list. So when we say these 50 are the cream of the crop, we mean it.

They, as usual, have little in common with each other. A few tie into current events: Artists we lost, social justice concerns, live music’s fitful return. Most don’t. But does a doom metal cover of Donna Summer really need a reason to exist? How about African blues Bob Dylan, New Orleans bounce Lady Gaga, or organ ballad Fleetwood Mac? Nah. We’re just glad they’re here.

So dive into our countdown below – and, if you want us to send you a couple hundred Honorable Mentions culled from those thousands, join the Cover Me Patreon.

– Ray Padgett, Editor in Chief

K-Pop Star HONGJOONG Covers Linkin Park’s “Numb”

Posted by Brendan Shanahan at 8:56 am No Responses »

Jan 192021

Well it’s kind of… sort of like.. there’s elements of.. but then there’s this… Sorry if I’m all over the place, trying to describe HONGJOONG’s cover of Linkin Park’s ‘Numb’ is really testing my ability to describe music. The leader of popular K-pop boyband ATEEZ’s solo single has certainly attracted some attention for his unique approach to this classic mid-’00s track. Continue reading »

The Best Cover Songs of 2017

Posted by Staff at 10:00 am 22 Responses »

Dec 152017

Follow all our Best of 2017 coverage (along with previous year-end lists) here.

Year-end lists are a time to look back. That’s something we’ve been doing a lot of this year.

See, we turned ten years old in 2017 – practically ancient in internet-blog terms – so we’ve indulged in what we feel is well-earned nostalgia. At the beginning of the year, each of our writers picked the ten most important covers in their life (see them here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). We even listed the ten most important covers in Cover Me‘s life, from the song that inspired the site to our very first Best of the Year winner.

Then, to cap things off, in October we commissioned a 25-track tribute to the cover song itself – which you can still download for free. We love the covers everyone contributed so much, incidentally, that we didn’t consider them for this list. It’d be like picking favorite children – if you had 25 of ’em.

Oh, and have I mentioned I wrote a book? … What’s that you say? I mentioned that constantly? Well, I’m quite proud of it. It’s called Cover Me: The Stories Behind the Greatest Cover Songs of All Time and it makes a great Christmas gift and – ok, ok, I’ll stop. You can find plenty more about it elsewhere.

Suffice to say, there’s been a lot of looking back this year. And we hope you’ll indulge us this one last glance rearward before we leap into 2018. Because if it’s been a hell of a year for us, it’s certainly also been a hell of a year for the cover song in general. Some of this year’s list ranks among the best covers we’ve ever heard, period. So dig in, and thanks for your support this past decade.

– Ray Padgett
Editor-in-Chief

In Memoriam: Linkin Park’s Chester Bennington

Posted by Nico Hughey at 10:00 am No Responses »

Jul 252017

It’s sad that the incredible talent given to many musicians is burdened by demons such as addiction, anxiety, and depression. It’s sad that so much of the music that they give us is inspired by struggles that fuel those demons and can feel so unsurmountable. It’s sad to think of all of the people those musicians have helped with their music, only to succumb to the darkness themselves in the end.

We have lost another great musician with the passing of Chester Bennington. Bennington’s band Linkin Park realized the climax of the so-called nu-metal movement with their album Hybrid Theory, which successfully brought to the mainstream a combination of metal and pop (hence the “Hybrid”). The style that Linkin Park created resulted in accolades for the band and their albums as they continued to explore combining musical styles. Ultimately, though, it was the intensity, emotional depth, and point blank honesty in Bennington’s lyrics and delivery which resonated with so many.

A particularly gorgeous rendition of one of Linkin Park’s songs is Scott D. Davis‘s piano take on “In the End”. The melody is highly effective even without the support of a band. Continue reading »

Cover Video Roundup: LP, Metric, Missy Higgins, Wilderthorn, Blind Nurses, Mescalin Baby

Posted by Ray Padgett at 5:00 pm No Responses »

Oct 162012

LP, who delivered that amazing “Halo,” covers the Mars Volta on ukulele. As if that wasn’t weird enough…it was performed in a bat cave (quietly, I would imagine).
Continue reading »

Linkin Park’s “In the End” Gets Pop Ballad Treatment From Us

Posted by Peter Ferioli at 10:00 am No Responses »

Jun 122012

Soon to be married, singer-songwriters, Carissa Rae and Michael Alvarado, have also joined forces musically forming the new duo Us. After a few successful YouTube and single collaborations, the pair has decided to release an album under their new name. Their first release was a cover of Rihanna and Calvin Harris’ “We Found Love.” Continue reading »