Dec 172021
 

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

best cover songs of 2021

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

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Mar 282019
 

‘The Best Ever’ series counts down our favorite covers of great artists.

best radiohead cover songs

All week we’ve been running features on every artist inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s unusually strong 2019 class. But the biggest tribute goes to the band least excited about the honor. And that’s maybe as it should be.

Their unenthusiastic reaction – as I write this, it’s not even clear if any of them will show up – reminds me of when Bob Dylan first played Obama’s White House. Bob didn’t come to his own rehearsal, or to the customary photo op with the president. He turned up at the last minute, played his songs, shook the President’s hand, and immediately left the building. And as Obama told Rolling Stone: “That’s how you want Bob Dylan, right? You don’t want him to be all cheesin’ and grinnin’ with you. You want him to be a little skeptical about the whole enterprise.” Continue reading »

Dec 152017
 

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

best covers 2017

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

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Jun 122017
 
phantogram hole cover

Phantogram has yet again crafted a super chill cover of an inherently frantic song. Their recent cover of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi” features a down tempodrum beat and Sarah Barthel’s silky smooth vocals which combined, result in a hypnotic haze. They adopt a similar approach to Hole’s “Violet”.

Gone is the angst ridden scream singing of the original. Courtney Love’s passionate, off-key, and messy delivery is replaced by Barthel’s similarly passionate, but beautifully precise and ethereal take on the song. The band sits at polar opposites as well. Love’s band is all in with as much rock angst as can be mustered, whereas Barthel’s band adopts a decidedly relaxed accompaniment with easy guitars and mallets on the drums. Continue reading »

Feb 182017
 

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

angela

Angela Hughey is the newest addition to the Cover Me staff, joining us earlier this year. She lives, writes, and performs in Portland, Oregon.

What an awesome time we live in for music. We have hundreds of years of inspiration to draw from and so many choices to make as artists. Create something new or put our own stamp on a piece of music history? If we choose the latter, do we interpret the song verbatim, or do something entirely unexpected? My list of covers that matter to me range from near identical to near unrecognizable remakes of excellent songs. The list kicks off with songs from a few of my favorite movies…
Continue reading »

Feb 012017
 
phantogram cover

Don’t hate me. I’m not a Radiohead purist. I wouldn’t even say I’m a fan. I appreciate a lot of their songs, but mostly they make me feel antsy. I think it’s because they are constantly pushing the boundaries of comfort in a song. There’s always an edgy, frantic feeling to their instrumentation and vocals, even in the slower songs. Case in point, “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi.”

Phantogram recently recorded their take of “Weird Fishes” on Australian radio station Triple J’s Like a Version. Sarah Barthel’s smooth vocals, the drums hanging just a bit behind the beat, and the distinctive arpeggi in the guitar result in a hypnotic, dreamy version of the song that transports me to a dark coffee house, open late. Continue reading »