A new challenge for you all that involves no prizes and a fair amount of pain. Interested? Who wouldn’t be?
A friend of mine is looking to compile the ultimate collection of incredibly awful covers. We want none of this Boyz II Men doing “Yesterday� banal crap. We want the most appalling things ever to be sent down the intertubes.
So to start off the challenge, here’s Crispin Glover doing “These Boots Are Made for Walking�. Make it through to the end and you’ll be rewarded with a little Beatlesque orchestral arrangement. (You almost expect a deep voice to announce “I buried this song�).
GO!!!!!!
PS: Obviously, good covers go here.
Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah
William Shatner’s anything – but especially Rocket Man.
I’m a big Sheryl Crow fan, but… Her covers of Sweet Child o’ Mine and Sweet Home Alabama are two of the most mundane, done-by-numbers covers I can imagine being produced. They’re not shockingly bad, they’re just “dead” – neither has the passion or intensity of the originals. She does her own stuff much better.
Ditto that Shannon Noll/Natalie Basingthwaite version of Don’t Give Up – no sense whatsoever or the haunting loneliness or the hope the original conveyed.
These sorts of covers are what gives me the shits – I can tolerate woeful versions that will never receive airplay except for a “how bad is this” segment, but as one of my workmates insists on having mainstream FM playing for the six hours a day she’s here, I can’t escape pissweakness.
Anything at all by UB40.
Modus operandi:
1) Take a song.
2) Violently remove whatever emotional power exists.
3) Replace same with “Reggae at its Whitest” (thanks Late Show)
4) Shit in everyone’s face and tell them it’s raining gumdrops.
Celine Dion and Anastasia covering AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long”.
Words cannot express just how vile, how excremental this is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FONt47Z0KZg
I will accept no responsibility for any self-harm should you manage to get through this. I managed it, but it definitely gave me that little taste of vomit in the back of the mouth.
Britney Spears covering Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll”. Bad, very bad, but not as bad as the first one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAOu3ZbKKCU
Obviously this was in her pre-baldy days.
I nominate the execrable techno cover of Cyndi Lauper’s Time After Time from a couple of years ago. And all the covers by Atomic Kitten, and both the Atomic Kitten and Human Nature covers of The Bangles’ Eternal Flame.
There doesn’t appear to be a youtube link of it, but surely Joan Kirner’s D-Gen inspired cover has to be worse than Britney’s version?
Amongst (supposedly) professional singers, (early British Pop Idol contestant) Gareth Gates’ version of Unchained Melody rates pretty highly on my awful covers list.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bjdGKYjTIs
Nikki French’s version of Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is also appalling:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhG941mff3M
did I get spaminated?
Perhaps UB40 is rightly considered NSFW
Youie – is that who it was butchering that song? I heard it in a pub a few weeks ago, and was all ready to go and find who did it and inflict a very very great deal of pain on them.
It’s just nasty.
As far as Joan Kirner vs Britney – I think the latter is worse. The D-Gen music covers were meant to be bad. The Joan Kirner one (with David White on bass!) was a moment of sheer comedy gold.
Not so much a cover, more of an interpretation. But either way, a mesmerising tribute to Man’s indomitable sleaziness.
Tears for Fears cover of ‘911 is a Joke’. Or maybe I just heard it in a nightmare.
Someone help me!
I’m in the spaminator. I promise I won’t name *that* band again.
That was Duran Duran, Leinad.
Kasey Chambers dragged the shitty True Colours down to a hitherto undiscovered level of shit.
Just … awful.
Shatner’s cover of Pulp’s Common People wasn’t half bad.
(No it was all bad) (Shut up, Statler)
I should add that Tom Jones and the Cardigans left me cold [no pun intended] with their cover of Burning Down the House.
I love The Cruel Sea, but their cover of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” is a crime against humanity.
John Farnham’s version of Only Women Bleed was cringetastic.
I also can’t believe no-one else has mentioned Madonna’s vocal assault on American Pie.
Seen recently elsewhere:
- Shakira covering AC/DC’s “Back In Black”
- Telly Savalas spoken-word cover of Bread’s “If”
- Bread’s “If” (not a cover, but bad enough)
Oh jesus. that Shakira cover is just fucking terrible.
Hold me back! I mean it! Stop me before I do some real damage! Don’t let me post this songlink here!
“Oh jesus. that Shakira cover is just fucking terrible.”
As opposed to her originals?
Duran Duran – 911 is a joke.
Actually the whole album “Thank You” is a giggle the whole way through, but that track is particularly bad.
What’s up with this thread? My comments disappear, then reappear. Me confused.
Sorry FDB, looks like you were spaminated.
Pretty much anything Eric Clapton has covered.
FXH – I’m right with you there. Maybe more in the asinine category Anna tried to rule out, but boy can he apply the UB40 modus operandi deftly! Not always reggae at its whitest, but the principle’s the same.
This one could go either way – but it’s a choir of old folks doing an a capella version of Sonic Youth’s “Schizophrenia”. Youch.
I have been reminded of a C&W artist’s slow C&W cover of Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again?, with the guitar riff being played over and over on a very dreary violin. It came out in 1994/95, if memory serves approximately.
Anna,
The Embedded link to Crispin speeds up the song, the original downloadable link sounds normal.
Frank, don’t complain mate. It’s over quicker.
Anything by Human Nature. Motown should sue. Same with James Taylor, ugh. Farnham’s assault on the Beatles’ Help should damn him for all time.
Any cover of Friday on my mind, or of Shout! other than Johnny O’Keeffe.
Boys of Summer, a song by/for middle aged men, done by a young girl: stupid, stupid, stupid.
Including his lonesome-cowpoke cover of Layla.
Paul Norton wrote:
Rob Craw, on the “Used and recovered by…” CD from RRR. Circa 1990 unless it’s another cover you are thinking of.
I kind of liked it, except you can’t put the traditional “no way, get ****, **** off” refrain into the chorus because it sounds stupid when you say it slowly.
Ahem, you mean The Easybeats in regards to the former. Shout was originally recorded by the Isly Brothers, but O’Keefe made it his own.
Shame about his nephew though
The Hoff does Our Ted. (And…no. Irony is no longer a valid excuse).
Turn off the stero, KITT.
And believe it or not, that Hoff version was recorded her in Australia and produced by Mark “Touchdown” Holden, who can be blamed for giving the Hoss success in Germany.
I was incorrect about Holden producing this version, but according to the info at YouTubde, the Legendary Harry Vanda was responsible for this pile of stinking horse dung !!!!!
Oh the shame of it all………
In a more refined vein, I have to say that in spite of its high craft level, one of the most wretched, anger-inducing covers I’ve ever heard is Frank Sinatra’s jaunty, smokeless, wrong-as-wrong-could-be reading of “I Get A Kick Out of You.” Watch in jaw-dropping astonishment as the great phraseologist himself utterly murders the driest, wittiest, most urbane and soulful love song of the 20th-cent.
Contrast with Frank’s multi-layered masterpiece version of “Mood Indigo.” Was this even the same guy?
FXH: “Pretty much anything Eric Clapton has covered.”
And speaking of misreadings, Clapton’s/Cream’s catastrophic misreading of Robert Johnson’s hellish “Crossroads Blues” is one of the silliest, most embarrassing pieces of rock n roll misprision I can think of.
Hands down for me is Michael Bolton’s murdering of Otis Redding’s ‘Dock of the Bay’.
As for Cream’s version of ‘Crossroads’, I have to totally disagree with j_p_z. Of course you can’t compare it to the Robert Johnson original, but then it’s a completely different treatment. Clapton’s solo on that is probably the best thing he ever did.
Covers work best when they completely reinvent the original – like the ironic versions of ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’ by The Pet Shop Boys or The Flying Lizard’s deadpan take on the r’n'b standard ‘Money’ or Nina Simone’s world-weary interpretation of Dylan’s ‘Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues”.
Doubt any of you have ever heard this, but on my old home-town radio station (2RG), the morning presenter (Alan Wallett) used to every now and then play a cover of Roger Whittaker’s “The LAst Farewell” (for you are beautiful, and I have loved you dearly , more dearly than the spoken word can tell etc) that was done by the crew of a British air crew.
Imagine 1500 young blokes standing on a carrier deck bawling out a love song at the top of their voices (a capella). There were other songs on the album (which the DJ played). but I hated that one particularly.
He also had a sepulchrally paced cover of “Hey Jude” where the apparently heavily tranquilized artiste performed the final anthemic chorus as “pom..pom..pom..pompopom.pom” Quite literally he sang “pom”.
God I hated my home town..
I believe that was the one and only Bing Crosby performing that item, which even briefly charted here in Perth in 1969, and is featured on Rhino’s “Golden Throats” series of CD’s.
And yes Mr Shatner does The Byrds, Joel Gray does White Room etc….
My first thought was as Tony T has mentioned….the rasping, grating, humblingly embarrassing True Colours irked out by MS Chambers who I thought had a better set of ears than to let that pass….and even performed it on numerous award and “representing Australia” shows….oh boy.
Canadian kids doSpace Oddity . I think.
seeing there were so many nice mentions of Nick Cave in the ‘good covers’ thread, it only seems fair to mention his awful version of What a Wonderful World (with Shane McGowan).
To be fair, it’s an awful song!
What, nobody’s yet mentioned the excruciating Madonna cover of one of the legendary rock ballads, American Pie? The original an emotive, well-orchestrated piece that swings between mournful and celebratory without ever losing its reverence for the art that inspired it. The cover is a bland, insipid piece of generic dance crap that should never have been spawned. Just like the aforementioned cover of I Love Rock ‘n Roll, Madonna manages to completely strip away the aspects that made the original a classic.
Neneh Cherry’s version of ‘Sweet Child o’ Mine’ has to be a front-runner. And that awful dance version of Black’s ‘Wonderful Life’ that Channel 10 were using in their ads for a while.
Thanks, Quietstorm. I had that memory nicely repressed, and you go and bring back the trauma.
Paul Young’s version of Love Will Tear Us Apart… although I dont mind it truth be told… and his website looks like a Ricky Gervais parody.
Actually, I nominate the theme from Charmed instead.. Morrissey would be turning in his grave (if he was dead and wasnt pocketing huge royalties).
Andrew,
Ah, Griffith? I used to enjoy Alan Wallet’s sports round-up, at least. But yes, an awful station and a very weird town.
Try living fifty kilometres east of there.
Davey
I did live 50kms east (for 18 months.).
Sports roundup! I’d forgotten about that…
“Mangoplah-Cookardinia 15-12-102 beat..”
and
“Tullibigeal-Lakes United took on the Black-and-Whites in a torrid..” in a flat, flat nasal voice..
..sorry no residual nostalgia there. Turn the bloody water off at Blowering and let it dry up and blow away.
What’s the awful cover of the Pink Floyd teacher song around at the moment? Heavy on the bass, some sort of girl band? Heard it in a clothes shop at maximum volume last night while latenight shopping.