Aloe Blacc (Aka Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III) is a versatile musician/rapper. After being featured in Avicii’s “Wake Me Up” he became very well known. And recently? The artist has been covering loads of classic songs. Think: “Seven Nation Army” and “Black Hole Sun.” Continue reading »
Manchester is on a roll. Manchester City is the best football team in Europe, and probably the planet. In addition to sport, music plays a central role in Manchester’s vibrant recovery. On a recent weekend, fans sang along at separate stadium gigs from Coldplay and Arctic Monkeys. Sir Elton John had an arena farewell on. Cover Me fans might have been at Scary Pockets‘ triumphant first visit to the city. Next year, a concert venue with input from Bruce Springsteen and Harry Styles aims to be the best venue in the UK for acoustics and attendee experience. Manchester icon, and City Fan, Noel Gallagher’s visit to The Radio 2 Piano Room to pay homage to one of the city’s most treasured songs had potential, at least. Continue reading »
At Cover Me, our goal is to share great covers, whether they comes from artists with ten fans or ten million. But I am always vaguely curious what cover songs break out, which among the thousands we hear each year become genuine hits.
I was reminded of this when a recent Country Now headline crossed my Google Alerts: “Luke Combs’ ‘Fast Car’ Cover Is A Streaming Giant.” After only a month, the country star’s fairly faithful take on Tracy Chapman’s 1988 classic has racked up 33 million streams in the U.S. alone. Covers by famous singers come and go, but this one clearly has staying power.
So I decided to try to figure out which other covers from the 21st century have reached this level of breakout success. I’m not privy to Billboard‘s deep-dive chart data, so I used an easy metric available to an amateur like myself: Seeing how many plays something has on Spotify. As good a measure for “a popular song” as you can probably get these days, albeit still imperfect.
I found twenty-four 21st-century covers with over 100 million U.S. streams as of this writing (April 2023). Some very popular covers didn’t quite make the 100m+ threshold: Weezer’s “Africa” (75 million), Iron & Wine’s “Such Great Heights” (76 million), Fall Out Boy and John Mayer’s “Beat It” (89 million). Ryan Adams’ “Wonderwall” only just crossed the 100 million streams mark in the past couple months. And while older covers obviously have an advantage in more time to rack up plays, number one — by a lot! — came out only a few years ago.
Here’s the list of 24. No commentary since, for once, we’re not unearthing buried treasures here. Let’s count down the 24 most-streamed covers on Spotify, with the year of release and number of streams as of this writing. (And it’s possible, even likely, I missed a few, so feel free to suggest additions in the comments — if they qualify, I’ll add ’em.)
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After the year we had, it’s understandable that everyone is looking for all of the anger and resentment we’ve had towards each other to be put behind us. Indeed, the Four Songs EP from Los Angeles based songwriter Sara Noelle was designed exactly for this, featuring covers of John Lennon, Youngbloods and Judee Sill, as well as the Oasis hit single “Let There Be Love.” Continue reading »
They Say It’s Your Birthday celebrates an artist’s special day with covers of his or her songs. Let someone else do the work for a while. Happy birthday!iv>
Unlike many singer-songwriters, Noel Gallagher has no problem admitting that his earlier material will probably be his legacy. “From an artistic point of view, your best years are in the first few years,” he recently told Matt Morgan on the Funny How podcast. “You do your best work when it’s f***ing vital and you are in the same circumstances as your audience.” Not many performers would be willing to admit that, but consider the caliber of the songs Noel was writing at the start of his career: “Live Forever,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Star,” “Supersonic.” These early Oasis tracks are more than just songs; they’re anthems, often expressing a relatable desire to trade a life of hardship for something better.
The fact that Noel’s songs are so beloved makes them endlessly coverable, and we’ve picked a few of the best to celebrate The Chief’s birthday. Happy Birthday, Noel!
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Every week the names doing these covers from home just get bigger. This past week got a boost from Global Citizen’s all-star charity event, from which several of today’s set come, as well as one major appearance in last night’s Jersey for Jersey fundraiser (Fountains of Wayne’s heartbreaking “Hackensack” from that is worth watching too, though, except for guest bassist Sharon Van Etten, it’s not a cover).
But, amidst the all-stars, musicians at every level continue to take to the internet to perform covers. We’ve got some of the best we’ve seen below. As always, we make no claims to being comprehensive, so share any other favorites in the comments. Continue reading »