Apr 282023
 
most popular covers

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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Jul 072021
 
Lucy Dacus Chasing Cars

Indie rock guitarist and singer-songwriter Lucy Dacus recorded a nostalgic cover of Snow Patrol’s “Chasing Cars” for Sirius XMU Sessions ahead of the release of her new record Home Video, which features a myriad of songs that mine her childhood experiences (and literal teenage journal entries) for inspiration. In a conversation with Esquire around her song “VBS” (a.k.a. Vacation Bible School), Dacus recalls how Snow Patrol’s often-shunned hit song — an ur-text of ‘00s indie-pop — become an inadvertent light for her as a young listener. Speaking about a particularly strict pastor-counselor, Dacus said, “He had us all get our iPods out and delete all the songs on them that weren’t Christian music. But I fought for ‘Chasing Cars’ by Snow Patrol.” Continue reading »

Nov 222013
 

In Memoriam pays tribute to those who have left this world, and the songs they left us to remember them by.

Michael Hutchence was born to be a frontman. With hair and shirtlessness that would make Jim Morrison proud, and a singing style that could be both passionate and cool in equal measures, Hutchence helped the songs of INXS stand out; they’re clearly from the ‘80s, but timeless in a way that most hits of the decade can’t claim.
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Nov 142011
 

Back in August, the Vaccines covered Katy Perry’s #1 hit “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)” at the BBC Live Lounge. Today Snow Patrol hit the Lounge and gave their take on the tune. Their version leans heavier on the electronics than the Vaccines’ somewhat garagey version, making the two a pretty good pairing. Continue reading »

Oct 252011
 

We just posted new U2 covers by the Killers, Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode a few hours ago, so we won’t rehash the details again. Q Magazine’s Achtung Baby tribute album is out now and so are the rest of the covers. Listen to the new recordings by Snow Patrol, Patti Smith, the Fray, Glasvegas, and Gavin Friday below, then pick up the magazine and CD here. Continue reading »

Aug 162011
 

Artists who contributed to the new John Martyn tribute album had a lot of options when choosing a track to cover; Martyn released twenty albums during his forty-plus year career. Thirty artists covered a song from Martyn’s expansive catalog to create Johnny Boy Would Love This: A Tribute to John Martyn. The British singer-songwriter, best known for his unique style on guitar, had a career that spanned genres from folk to jazz to rock and his music touched artists old and new. We previewed contributions from Beck, David Gray, and others earlier this month; now the complete album is available.

The remarkable scope of Johnny Boy Would Love This is an asset in that the album offers a rich, diverse group of tracks from well-respected artists. However, similarities between many tracks give the feeling that the collection could have been more carefully curated. Both discs are disproportionately populated with gentle, introspective covers; all the tracks respectfully pay tribute to Martyn, but not all offer something unique to the collection. There are, however, a selection of standouts among the thirty songs that make Johnny Boy Would Love This a worthwhile purchase for Martyn fans. Continue reading »