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odd cover tunes... (1 Viewer)

Mark Cappelletty

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I know I'm going to hell for this, but no cover compilation can be without Chris "Corky" Burke's, er, unique rendition of "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da." Whoever suggested that Life Goes On's Corky put out a record -- it exists -- should be shot.
Ten Great Covers (off the top of my head):
The Pixies - Heaven (The Lady in the Radiator Song)/D.Lynch
The Afghan Whigs - Come See About Me/The Supremes
Devo - It Takes A Worried Man/traditional
Pavement - The Killing Moon/Echo & The Bunnymen
Husker Du - Love Is All Around/Mary Tyler Moore Show Theme
White Stripes - Jolene/Dolly Parton
The Supersuckers - Dead Homeiz/NWA
Girls Against Boys - She's Lost Control/Joy Division
Roxy Music - Jealous Guy/John Lennon
The Junkyard Dogs - Breakin' The Law/Judas Priest
 

Mark Pfeiffer

Screenwriter
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Jun 27, 1999
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Oh yeah, The Afghan Whigs did some interesting covers including:
TLC's "Creep", "If I Only Had a Brain" from The Wizard of Oz (I think this was the one), and "The Temple" from Jesus Christ Superstar
I'm pretty sure they also covered an Al Green song.
Speaking of (more obvious ones)...Talking Heads' "Take Me To the River" and Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground"
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i always liked Dinosaur Jr.'s screamy cover of Just Like Heaven. somewhere i have a tape with some metal band covering that "I would walk 500 miles" song by the Proclaimers which is hilarious. i also reluctantly admit to owning a Lemonheads 7" containing a cover of Luka by Suzanne Vega.
 

Mark Cappelletty

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Muskie,
The Supersuckers incarnation to which you refer is The Junkyard Dogs, who put out a terrific (if hard to find) record called "Good Livin' Platter." Country covers of Devo's "Gates of Steel" and the Dwarves' "Drugstore" are unique and hilarious. I saw the country Supersuckers play a couple of years ago and was greatly impressed-- those guys can really play (and not just play loud).
And Mark,
God bless the Afghan Whigs (born and raised in Toledo, I'm a huge Ohio rock fan-- the Whigs, GBV, Ass Ponys, Scrawl, Gaunt, etc.). Great Whigs covers include the Ass Ponys' "Mr. Superlove" (on a split with the Ponys covering the Whigs' "You My Flower"), Freda Payne's "Band of Gold," "True Love Travels on a Gravel Road," Al Green's "Beware," Nina Simone's "Little Girl Blue," James Carr's "Dark End of the Street," Patti Smith's "Revenge," and tons more. When I saw them in concert, they turned "Turn On The Water" into a giant medley with Pink Floyd's "Mother" and PJ Harvey's "Sheela-Na-Gig." Great fucking band-- they'll be missed.
The best live cover I've heard in years was when I saw Built To Spill play in L.A. in June, playing the Talking Heads' "Dream Operator," one of my all-time favorite Heads songs. I about swallowed my tongue when they started playing that. They do a major kick-ass cover of Neil Young's "Cortez The Killer" on their LIVE album. Doug Martch's side project The Halo Benders does some great covers too-- including a great off-key version of the Smiths' "Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want."
 

John Thomas

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GG Allin's "I wanna fuck myself" as done by Faith No More
I'll second this one. FNM has always been one of my closet faves; their cover of "Easy (Like Sunday Morning)" by the Commodores is another great 'odd' one. However, when I saw this topic, the first thing that came to mind was Johnny Cash covering 'Rusty Cage' by Soundgarden.
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JasonK

Supporting Actor
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May 10, 2000
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Wow, I've never started a thread that went 2 pages. Another one, even though it only lasts about 5 seconds, is when Biz Markie sings the refrain to "Night Fever." It's a skit where Prince Paul asks him to do a bros. Gibb impersonation. I also like Primus' cover of "Have A Cigar."
 

Ken_McAlinden

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The two Pravda compilations of 90s artists doing covers/tributes to the songs of the K-Tel era have plenty examples of whacked-out covers. They are called 20 Explosive Dynamic Super Smash Hit Explosions! and 20 More Explosive Fantastic Rockin' Mega Smash Hit Explosions. Personally, I prefer the second one. It features an incredibly earnest folkie rendering of Abba's "Dancing Queen" by Milo Binder as well as an Enormous Richard performance of "Music Box Dancer" with lyrics, no less. Anyone who can appreciate the sensibilities behind having the Dayglo Abortions cover Barry Manilow's "I Write the Songs" should enjoy these compilations.
Regards,
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Livonia, MI USA
 

Iain Lambert

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Well, while its not that much of a change from the original I thought that Placebo's cover of 20th Century Boy was the best thing about Velvet Goldmine. Oh, and that terrible version of the Eurthymics' 'Sweet Dreams' by Marylin Manson was for the end titles of the House On Haunted Hill remake.
I have to say my favorite cover of all time though is the Pet Shop Boys doing Where The Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off You (officially the longest UK top 20 chart title, fact fans). I know it offended a few U2 fans at the time, but its simultaneously a great song to listen to and did a lot to counter the accusation that somehow they weren't 'real' songwriters just becuase they didn't use guitars. I suppose you had to be there, though.
edit - thought I'd give an honorary mention for The Sugarcubes cover of Sitting On Top Of The World. I may have loved it, but Richard Carpenter attempted to have it banned he hated it so much! No, in case you were wondering, it wasn't making any sick references to Karen's death, he just didn't like Bjork's voice.
[Edited last by Iain Lambert on September 05, 2001 at 09:46 AM]
 
Joined
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Some favorites, off the top of my head:
Big Black - "In My House" (Mary Jane Girls)
Black Box Recorder - "Rock'n'Roll Suicide" (David Bowie)*
Th' Faith Healers - "Mother Sky" (Can)*
Galaxie 500 - "Ceremony" (New Order)*
Husker Du - "Eight Miles High" (Byrds)*
Jawbox - "Thin White Line" (Avengers)*
Loop - "Thief of Fire" (Pop Group)*
Lush - "Mannequin" (Wire)*
Scrawl - "Cold Hearted Snake" (Paula Abdul)
...and the mightiest ever, Wild Man Fischer's version of Bob Seger's "Night Moves".
* These ones aren't exactly "odd".
[Edited last by Andy Kellman on September 05, 2001 at 10:27 AM]
 

Mark Cappelletty

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Jawbox does a killer cover of "I've Got You Under My Skin" from a 2-disc Frank Sinatra tribute called "Chairman of the Board."
 

muskie

Agent
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May 23, 2001
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From the K-Tel compilations one of my favorite tracks is the cover of "Indiana wants me." I don't recall who did the cover nor do I know who wrote the song. I do remember it has I had it on an old 45. These discs were put out on Cargo Records in Canada.
I saw a second vote for the Supersuckers doing "Dead Homiez" which is an Ice Cube song not NWA I seem to recall. The Supersuckers with Steve Earl do a cover of the Stones' "Before they make be run" which I'd mentioned in another thread.
Not so odd, but good are a couple of Canadian bands, Big Sugar doing Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" and the Headstones doing The Traveling Wilbury's "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" which is a bit odd too.
I've got the Meters doing Neil Young's "Down by the River" which seems to often get covered, I think Tori Amos might be doing it on an upcoming album of all covers. The Beastie Boys do Elton John's "Bennie and the Jets" on their 2 CD set thing. That is pretty odd.
My favorite Chili's cover is their version of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire". The Jeff Healey Band put out an excellant all covers album (including two Jimi covers), my favorite track on it is, "Yer Blues" off the Beetles's White album.
Well there is some more fodder,
Muskie
Jimi, on the BBC sessions does "You aint nothing but a hound dog" complete with imitation dog barks and "Day Tripper". The first is definitely on the odd side.
 

Colin Jacobson

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its simultaneously a great song to listen to and did a lot to counter the accusation that somehow they weren't 'real' songwriters just becuase they didn't use guitars.
Huh? PSB's covers showed that they were "real" songwriters? I'm confused - does that mean that if I review a movie, I'm a real director? :)
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John Berggren

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I think Tori Amos is quite possibly
the worst thing that happened to music in the 1990s, overbloated and
self-absorbed, a bad excuse for highschoolers with composition notebooks to wax
poetic about the menutia of their tortured existance. The jawbox spin on it was
refreshing, nice to hear the song from so folks who didn't take themselves so
seriously.
But please don't hold back about how you really feel. My opinion is such a 180 degree seperation from yours it isn't funny. I would hardly call someone who founded RAINN, or gave a voice to many women who sufferred from sexual abuse as overbloated and self-absorbed. To drown on about this would be to wander too far of the stated topic, but I'm very botherred by your opinion.
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Tim Raffey

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Apr 20, 1999
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126
Dynamite Hack's Boyz 'n The Hood is great, but I have to find a version of the Kronos Quartet doing Marquee Moon. Who knows what it's like, but conceptually, you don't get much cooler than this.
 

Mark Cappelletty

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The Elektra compilation is called "Rubyiaat," and while I'm pretty sure it's out of print, some of the covers are great (some, on the other hand, are awful).
The Kronos version of Marquee Moon is really cool-- their music is much more suited to the angular sound of that piece than "Purple Haze," which they cover on one of their records.
 

Iain Lambert

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If I remember the Pet Shops' point was that by taking this song that was all tortured rock god and sticking in a pop environment both the lyrics and melody showed up as nothing particularly unusual. Certainly, while its a cool dance tune the lyrics weren't anything special next to the rest of their releases.
And thanks for the Manson information Colin; I wasn't aware that it had been made previously, as the song only got a UK single release as part of the movie promotion. As a country we didn't really take to the band, and to this day I still tend to automatically think of him as a bit of a Reznor hanger-on when he is mentioned, before reminding myself that he is probably bigger than Nine Inch Nails are these days. Speaking of which, the cover of Adam Ant's 'Physical' on the Broken ep is rather good.
 

PaulG

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Messages
83
Mr. Blotto doing Walk This Way.
A much mellower version, I like it, now its stuck in my head, Good thing i got the CD in my car, I'll listen to it on the way home. I heard a local band do Friend of the Devil to a reggae beat. They just went in to it one night, and it sounded great, but they never really got down after that. Musta been the moment.
I forgot, Cotton Fields was on that album.
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[Edited last by PaulG on September 07, 2001 at 04:07 AM]
 

Andrew 'Ange Hamm' Hamm

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Soundgarden's version of Devo's "Girl U Want" is pretty damn cool. And Joe Jackson did an awesome Latin version of Steely Dan's "Reelin' in the Years" on his last tour, as well as Bowie's "Heroes."
But the greatest cover of all time is a tie between the Wesley Willis Fiasco's performance of "Aimee" and the Wesley Willis Fiasco's version of "Girls On Film."
(Actually, my favorite cover ever is Mark Heard doing the Beatles' "I'm Looking Through You," but the Wesley Willis songs are much funnier.
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