Mar 102023
 
lizzo's du hast cover

Giant pop stars performing unexpected covers live in concert are a dime a dozen. They’re no doubt a blast for fans in the room, but often fail to translate on video. That’s particularly true of those regionally-pandering covers like “Hey we’re in Seattle, let’s do ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit.'” Lizzo’s recent cover of Rammstein’s “Du Hast” is an exception.

She performed it a couple times on her recent German tour. The first time in Hamburg, she just sang a couple lines in between songs. That’s exactly the sort of pop-star cover that delivers clickbait-y headlines, but isn’t really worth watching (if you want to anyway, it’s here).

But then a week later in Berlin, she upped the ante. This time, her whole band had actually learned the song – as had her backing dancers, who delivered a little choreographed headbanging. As always, though, the star of The Lizzo Show is Lizzo, joyously belting a few passes at the chorus (she presumably doesn’t actually speak German to handle the whole thing) while jumping around and having a blast. It’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t work if you weren’t in the room, but absolutely does. Give your day a jolt of Rammstein-flavored joy below.

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 »

May 312019
 

Check out the best covers of past months here.

best cover songs may
AURORA – Across the Universe (The Beatles cover)

The first of a couple Beatles covers this month, AURORA’s “Across the Universe” doesn’t reinvent the wheel, it just removes a few spokes. The Norwegian singer-songwriter strips everything away but keys and a bunch of voices (there’s a guitarist too, though barely audible). It’s all the song needs. Continue reading »

Mar 112013
 

Over the weekend an email came in that totally changed the way we think about Ukrainian polka covers of pop hits. As in, we’d never thought about them at all before, and now we can’t stop. The eye-opening comes courtesy of Los Colorados, whose oom-pah accordion and single marching-band bass drum makes pop songs sound like something you might hear at your Polish Nana’s 80th birthday party. Continue reading »

Jul 122011
 

A capella and headbanging go together like toothpaste and orange juice. Or at least that was true before the Serbia-based Viva Vox Choir decided to take on a cover of “Du Hast.” The German industrialist band Rammstein broke into the mainstream with the song in 1997, propelled by its assaulting guitar riff, swirling noises and a beat that sounds like it is being hammered out on a trashcan. This isn’t where vocal groups typically tread. Continue reading »