Rick Astley Joins Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club”

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Mar 122025
 
Rick Astley Chappell Roan

1980s pop icon and ageless meme Rick Astley is back in the news—not with yet another a performance of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” but his take on one of the big hits of the past few years. Astley took to YouTube to cover Chappell Roan’s “Pink Pony Club.” Captioning the performance with, “feeling in the pink today. I love this tune,” Astley performs an understated version, accompanying himself on guitar. (And then throwing on a pink cowboy hat for the finale.) Astley’s acoustic version doesn’t cover the same ground that the original does, but it does highlight the quality songwriting and storytelling contained therein.

Roan’s original version of the song was released two years ago and currently is at #8 on the Billboard Hot 100, its highest rank yet.

The Best Cover Songs of October 2024

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Oct 312024
 
best covers of october 2024
Farmer’s Wife — Season of the Witch (Donovan cover)

Austin rockers Farmer’s Wife go full shoegaze-psych on this Donovan cover just in time for Halloween. They write: “Our cover of ‘Season of the Witch’ materialized out of a drum beat and pedal feedback two Halloweens ago. This creepy classic opened us to more experimentation and allowed us to dive into an eerier side of our sound.”

Fiona Apple — Lately (Don Heffington cover)

The late Don Heffington was an acclaimed drummer, so, naturally, his new tribute album includes drum greats like Jim Keltner. But he was also a singer-songwriter, so friends and collaborators like Jackson Browne, Victoria Williams, and Fiona Apple cover his songs. Apple selected “Lately,” the closing song on the final solo studio album of his lifetime, 2016’s Contemporary Abstractions in Folk Song and Dance. Continue reading »

Deco Mashes Up “Teenage Dirtbag” and Rick Astley in Viral Cover

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Mar 062024
 
deco teenage dirtbag

Deco is a group from London with a passion for creating ’80s synth-pop fusion. And recently their music has caught fire for a mashup, which was released on February 26th. The cover is a version of Wheatus’ pop-punk song “Teenage Dirtbag”—except done in the style of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”. 

Have we all been Rick-Rolled? Yes. Is it a great cover? Absolutely.

The beginning of this “Teenage Dirtbag” cover has the exact same texture and melody as “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Now it sounds like Noelle is a prom queen from the ’80s. The band has only shared a clip of their mashup/cover on social media. While this isn’t an official/full release yet, the band’s fans are begging for one with comments like “Um is this getting released?” and “I’m not even gonna lie, this song would probably be on my Spotify Wrapped.”

This isn’t the band’s first rodeo when it comes to going viral. They’ve previously released other unconventional covers, like a Bowie-style “Murder on the Dancefloor” and an 80’s version of Coldplay’s “Yellow.”

You can watch the Rick-Astley style video clip (avec 1980’s style dance moves!) and cover down below.

The Best Cover Songs of 2018

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Dec 172018
 
best cover songs of 2018

Two things strike me as I scan through our list this year. This first is that many of the highest-ranking covers are tributes to recently-deceased icons. No surprise there, I suppose. But none actually pay tribute to artists that died in 2018. They honor those we’ve been honoring for two or three years now – your Pettys, your Princes, your Bowies. Hundreds of covers of each of these legends appeared in the first days after their deaths, but many of the best posthumous covers took longer to emerge.

Good covers take time. That principle – the cover-song equivalent of the slow food movement, perhaps – holds true throughout the list. Sure, a few here appear to have arisen from sudden moments of brilliance, flash-arranged for some concert or radio promo session. But many more reveal months or even years of painstaking work to nail every element. Making someone else’s song one’s own isn’t easy. These 50 covers took the time to get it right.

– Ray Padgett, Editor-in-Chief

Start the countdown on the next page…

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The Best Cover Songs of June

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Jul 022018
 
cover songs june
Andrew Combs – Reptila (The Strokes cover)


The Strokes’ Is This It songs have been covered to death, so musicians are digging deeper. We heard a killer Angles cover in April from Billie Eilish (more on her in a minute), and now singer-songwriter Andrew Combs takes on this Room on Fire track. His own music leans Nashville Americana, but from the crazy horns here, sounds like he’s been spending time in New Orleans. Continue reading »

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