Five Good Covers presents five cross-genre reinterpretations of an oft-covered song.

When “Halo” was released as single, in January of 2009, it became a massive worldwide hit for Beyoncé, but was far from the most successful of the her songs, attaining only, for her, a lowly #5 in the US chart. It was elsewhere that it received grater acclaim, with such disparate statistics as a 13x platinum certification from Australia, making it one of the country’s highest, and the most-played song, 2000 – 2010, on Brazilian radio. Not bad, given only one year within which to beat all the others and olders.

Ryan Tedder and Evan Bogart (with some apparent input from the singer) wrote “Halo” to give a personal flavor to the image of Beyoncé away from the spotlight, minus all the media razzmatazz. Not that there wasn’t some controversy; other performers suggested that the arrangement was recycled from songs written earlier, for Kelly Clarkson and Leona Lewis. All the more intriguing is the suggestion that the song’s premise was based on “Shelter,” a 2004 song by Ray LaMontagne, an artist in about as opposite a field as you could find. (See what you think.)

It has attracted a fair amount of attention in Coverland over the years, and there are north of a hundred versions out there. Many do little than retread the boards, but that is only to be expected. No real outliers, sadly, from the nether fringes of musical tastes: no Tuvan throat singing, no Celtic punk, and nothing remotely Bardcore. Of course there are some stinkers, with some Norwegian black metal from Leo Moracchioli gaining the coveted overall prize for the absolute nadir. So, bypassing those, let’s go for the zeniths.
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