We @ SYFFAL love great cover songs way too much. There's something comforting about hearing a familiar song reworked by a new artist. It's like going to a McDonalds in a new state. Taking the bun off reveals deviations from the norm. There are quaint little differences to the experience but it still holds on to the key aspects that made you fall in love with the original in the first place. Del and Joel take the buns off their 2010 burgers in a totally hetero way to reveal the best cover songs of the year... and Fuck yeah it was a good year.
Del LeFevre's Top 25 Best Cover Songs of 2010
Note: This started off as the Top Ten Best Cover Songs list. I have commitment issues.
25. Whip My Hair (Willow Smith cover) - Jimmy Fallon and Bruce Springsteen
A joke of a song gets a joke of a performance and somehow it becomes unforgettably great.
24.Billie Jean (Michael Jackson Cover) (Live) - Aloe Blacc
Billy Jean's rough edges gets smoothed out with a little bit of Aloe. That was too easy. (note to self: avoid Blacc puns. Those will never end well.)
23.The Book Of Love (Magnetic Fields cover) - Peter Gabriel
I shat all over Peter Gabriel's "scratch My Back" cover LP earlier this year...and then I slowly came around to this track. Good source materiel is hard to screw up i guess. Credit here goes to Stephin Merrit.
22.VCR (The XX Cover) - OMD
Yep. OMD. Yep. THAT OMD from 1986's "Pretty in Pink". A second good song, guys? A Long time coming OMD. To put that in perspective OMD covered a bunch of kids who in 1986 would not be born for another 3 years.
21. Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins Cover) - Solid Gold
Try hard but you'll never be able to top the Loggins Magic. Solid Gold tried hard and they came damn close. They cranked the synths and sucked some of the bravado out of Top Gun's underrated battle cry. Oddly that's a good thing.
20. Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears cover) - Foals
Some artists deviate from the original. Others just give you a chance to revisit the song exactly the way you remember it..but with slight tinges of newness. Foals come from the "If it Ain't Broke, Don't Fix it...but speed the temp just in the slightest" school of thought.
19.Time after Time (Cyndi Lauper Cover) - Tony Freijat
Chill wave is all the rage still and now. Cyndi Lauper's gem gets the lo-fi gleam thanks to Freijat's hushed tones and shimmering instruments, rendering it almost unrecognizable.
18. Bad Romance (Lady GaGa Cover) - Lissie
Truth be told Bad Romance is a catchy as hell song...but you never want to admit to digging Lady GaGa. Somehow I feel less fugazi rocking Lissie's rendition.
17. Mamma Mia (ABBA) - Miniature Tigers
Speaking of fugazi here we have a cover of Abba! The Miniature Tigers peel back the layers of ABBA's jazz hands to uncover a truly fantastic song.
16. Tonight, Tonight (Smashing Pumpkins cover) - Passion Pit
Passion Pit only have an album and an EP to work with when they go on tour so they've added some cover tunes to their set lists. It still doesn't make them worthy of charging $50 a ticket. Awesome cover though.
15. Private Eyes (Hall and Oates cover) - The Bird And The Bee
No one has jumped harder onto the "we swear we're not being ironic" Hall and Oates love machine than the married duo of The Bird and the Bee. They went so far as to release an album full of Hall and Oates covers with the smug title "Interpreting the Masters: Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates". I'd call them dicks..but they clearly have much love for the material. No where is it more clear than on the fun filled "Private Eyes"
14. Idioteque (Radiohead cover) / Amanda Palmer
Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls reinvents Radiohead with a tiny little ukulele and a haunting piano accompaniment. Somehow it works like gangbusters. (Somehow I don't punch myself for typing "Gangbusters")
13. God Only Knows (Beach Boys cover) / Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.
Terrible Terrible band name. Great Great Song. Do you picture Reed Rotchild wowing people with his titillating magic show at the End of Boogie nights every time you hear this? Me too.
12. Crystalised (The XX Cover) / Gorillaz
The XX either write simple easy to learn songs or they struck a nerve with their peers. I'm guessing it is a little bit of both. Hear Damon Albarn channel his sleepy Stuart 2D Tusspot while rocking a hypnotizing xylophone and drum machine combo.
11. Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer cover) / Florence And The Machine
Flo is the only ginger that can do no wrong in my eyes. Her vocals carry this mostly bare bones cover.
10. Drain You (Nirvana cover) / Horse Feathers
Cover songs are meant to lure you in to check out a band that you've never heard of. It is a musician's bait and switch move. It worked on Horse Feather's version of Nirvana's Nevermind classic. They hooked me with their total deconstruction and reinvention of a song that I knew note for note. Now I want more!
9. Come Talk To Me (Peter Gabriel cover) / Bon Iver
This is a total cheat move because I'm not too familiar with this particular Peter Gabriel song...so it's more like a new Bon Iver song. New Bon Iver! There ain't nothing wrong with that!
8. Holiday Road (Lindsey Buckinham cover) / The Walkmen
A few years ago I went to a NYE party in a bar and the house band was comprised of two one hit wonder 90's bands. I want to say it was Stroke 9 and or SR-71...but who can be sure. There was far too much booze going around to keep track of my TRL checklist. It was kind of sad really. Probably not how they expected to spend their 2007 NYE. The band was clearly used to bigger shows and seemed to be quite bored. That is until they kicked into "Holiday Road". The crowd exploded with energy, energy fueled by countless RBVS, awkward midnight make outs, and fond memories of Clark Griswald and company. Sadly that was the highlight of my NYE. Needless to say i'm a sucker for The Walkmen's rendition of Lindsey Buckingham's gem of an earworm...even if they left off the barking dog at the end.
7. Dreams (The Cranberries cover) / Passion Pit
Hey Michael Angelakos, if you think that this sweet ass cover of the Crannberries makes up for the times you flat out refused to play "I've Got Your Number" live while I was at your shows..then yeah you'd totally be right. It's fucking fantastic. Your Brandon Tina she-man falsetto found the perfect home when it stepped into Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan's shoes.
6. Be My Baby (Ronette's Cover) / DM Stith
One single solitary man trumps all of Phil Spector's Wall of Sound bluster with just an acoustic guitar and some haunting high pitched vocals. His name? DM Mutha fucking Smith.
5. Dance, Dance, Dance Llykke Li cover) / Robotanists
This LA band released a collection of covers on an EP called "Shapes and Variations". Stress on the variations. "Dance Dance Dance" was reworked to the point that if you didn't know any better you'd assume Lykke Li was covering them. They take ownership of this track and never look back. They rock hard on their cover of INXS too....
4. Never Tear Us Apart (INXS Cover) / Record Club
...However Beck rained on the Robotanists parade by releasing, as part of his music community web project "Beck's Record Club", a song for song cover of INXS' Kick. He more or less pulled a Kanye and said "Yo Robotanists, I'm really happy for you. Your version of "Never Tear Us Apart" was good... but Me, Liars, and St Vincent put out the best INXS cover of all time. Of all time!
(..and with that i officially retire the Kanye VMA tirade. I've gone to the well with that far too many times.)
3. You're The One That I Want (Grease cover) / Angus & Julia Stone
Sometimes I lay in bed and play this. I dream that the beautifully voiced and faced Julia Stone is singing it to me and me only. Perhaps I'm the Summer Lover she's longing to get back with. Maybe I'm the T-Bird that she wants. When I realize she's not I log on to Videoboxand check out some sick ass Asian squid porn. It's electrifying!
2. Pursuit Of Happiness (Kid Cudi Cover) / Lissie
Kid Cudi's Pursuit of Happiness was still fresh and clean when a tired and dirty Lissie took to to the Bonaroo mic to close out her early set. She saved the best for last and absolutely slayed the hipster/hippie hybrid crowd with her stunning take on Cudi's hit emo-rap single.(Del note: After researching I learned that it was recorded at "Brighton's "Great Escape" in May of 2010. Not Bonaroo. Fuck it. For awhile now I've had that Bonaroo imagery in my mind's eye whenever I hear the song so I think you should too.
1. No One's Gonna Love You (Band of Horses cover) / Cee-Lo Green (The Paul Epworth Mix)
Cee Lo > Band of Horses. It is as easy as that. I fucking love this song so hard. The song, reworked so expertly, takes on a new meaning and sense of foreboding under the guiding vocals of Cee Lo Green and the production of Paul Epworth. The video is what sold me on this track at first. It was hypnotic.
It goes all out Romeo and Juliet (or Mickey and Mallory) with it's doomed lovers traveling cross country set to Cee-Lo's gigantic voice and the pulsing electro tones of the backing track. For added effect the actor's dialogue remained in the mix to heighten the tension that stays with you long after viewing or listening. Band of Horses never could have brought this track to this dark of a place. Avoid the album version. It doesn't have the same sense of terror and sexiness that this one does.
Joel Frieder's Best Cover Songs of 2010
I will admit to being somewhat out of the loop when it comes to the best cover songs I wasn't initially a fan of to start with. What the Fuck do you expect from me? I have three kids under three and I'm constantly trying to get some stank on my hanglow?!?
Here is my convoluted and completely off, top 10 best cover songs of the year:
10. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I love chick singers. I love Pantera. I love when chick singers sing Pantera songs. I want to show this chick the fourteen zits on my ass that when connected together with a felt tip permanent marker make another ass with 5 zits on it.
9. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I love women. I love women who sing. I love women singing Pantera songs. I want to shove my pinky two knuckles deep inside of this woman's cervix.
8. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I'm pretty sure everything my jeans cover up is something this chick singing would pay for. I recently made a cast of my schwanz and UPS shipped it to her. I have yet to receive a thank you.
7. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I would paint my vas deferens with a can of purple Krylon for just one chance at being allowed to deliver a half gallon glass bottle of my semen on her doorstep dressed as a zombie milkman.
6. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
Say what you will about my song selections, but I have recently begun fantasizing that this chick would sing me this song while I pretended to take photographs of her feces as she shat them onto a vintage 1974 Ronald McDonald & Hamburgler Christmas plastic dinner plate. The way you could tell I was pretending is because it's an imaginary camera and I'm making the shutter noises with my mouth.
5. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I would direct deposit my life savings into this woman's vagina for a shot at teaching her Reggie's favorite dance move, the Shoprinkler, which is a hybrid of the sprinkeler and the shopping cart dance moves.
4. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
Contrary to popular belief, I would let this woman blow flu-infested mucus onto my tailbone and then proceed to slip and slide down a marble staircase naked for a chance at interviewing her in Klingon.
3. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I prayed for it to rain one year on the day of a Cubs game so that the chick I was dating would catch a cold and her voice wouldn't be as high pitched. That really has nothing to do with this chick from Hellsongs, but I wanted to get that off my chest.
2. Youth Gone Wild - Hellsongs (Skid Row cover)
I used to masturbate to the chick who sings the original of this cover song. Damn she was hot. Pretty sure her name was Sabastion. This song kicks some ass. But not nearly as much ass as the song I picked for number 1 on my pretty fucking extensive list.
1. Walk - Hellsongs (Pantera Cover)
I would use forcepts to pry open my piss hole and stuff it with biggie size marshmallows, and then proceed to use it to hit a pinata filled with rancid orange juice, just to be able to tell this woman to her face that her cover song Walk, a Pantera song if you weren't in the know, made me very happy when I heard it the first time.