ReminiscentOfAWhale
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08.20.16 Favorite Song Covers07.22.16 Sputnik: 7.8/10 -too much metal

Favorite Song Covers

I don’t hear that many song covers since I never really actively seek them out. I thought this might be a good opportunity to share some of my favorites, and maybe you awesome people could share your favorites with me. Thanks! Also these aren’t really in any particular order.
1David Bowie
Blackstar

“Nature Boy” – David Bowie
OG: Nat King Cole
Bowie’s music gets so many covers by big names that it’s not often we talk about a cover by him. His impact on music has been in a lot of our minds this year after his passing, and his extensive catalogue is full of many opportunities to showcase his genius artistic vision. I have a connection to this song in particular because I am a huge DCI (Drum Corps International) fan, and I actually marched for 4 years during high school. My second year, a group from Rosemont, IL called the Cavaliers opened their show a recording of a strange, spacey recording of a song, which the horns went on to reprise later on in the show. This song intrigued me immediately due to its unique, distorted, “out-there” sort of flavor. I only found out after looking it up later that the recording was by David Bowie.
2David Bowie
Blackstar

Strangely enough, because this is just how the world works sometimes, the next year I received a bit of sheet music for jazz band with the title “Nature Boy” at the top. To my surprise, the song was a classic jazz staple that Bowie had later converted into something that can really only be described as Bowie-like. And it turned out the original version was just as powerful to me. This is an example of a truly creative artist being able to take a piece of art that exists and transform it into something else entirely but just as meaningful. Also, I just found out the production in Bowie’s version is done by Massive Attack of all people… I mean come on. Check it out!
3Jeff Buckley
Grace

“Hallelujah” – Jeff Buckley
OG: Leonard Cohen
The way things are going, I think this list may double as a list of legends that left this world too soon. If you haven’t listened to all of Grace, do yourself a favor and change that. If you’re skeptical, listen to this song. While originally written by Leonard Cohen, this song has been covered by everyone and their mother. And the song is innately beautiful no matter who is singing, due to its heart-wrenching melody and poetic lyrics describing the realities of love and life.
4Jeff Buckley
Grace

But there is certainly a standout version in my mind. Jeff Buckley’s guitar and vocals create one unique voice as the two dissolve together like salt and water. You can’t help but follow each of his extraneous arpeggios and cadenzas with a sort of wonderment of how such sonic grace is possible, feeling all the strain, hesitation, and pain of each finger on the strings and in each breath. He took a simple melody and transformed it into something so passionate that it is impossible to ignore and impossible to imitate.
5Michael Andrews
Donnie Darko

“Mad World” – Michael Andrews and Gary Jules
OG: Tears for Fears
This is ironically another song sampled and performed in a show by the Cavaliers, and it was in the year prior to “Nature Boy”. But while that powerful show about the horrors of war and PTSD was impactful on me, my love for this song came years before witnessing that. Because I was still in elementary school, I didn’t see Donnie Darko until years after it came out, but I remember hearing the song on the radio and of course on TV when that Gears of War trailer released. When I got my first iPod in middle school, I illegally downloaded that song among many others and played it countless times while riding the bus, in the car, etc. That was before I started listening to full albums, and most of my music consisted of shallow ‘70s and ‘80s popular rock tracks, but “Mad World” was one of the few newer ones.
6Michael Andrews
Donnie Darko

Again I was surprised to find out who the original artist was when I was older (“really, that upbeat ‘80s band?”). There is still to this day a certain ‘80s-ness that unfortunately rubs me the wrong way when listening to a lot of those classic post-punk/new wave groups, but they’ve grown on me because I love a lot of the newer groups such as Interpol and The Killers and can appreciate their history. However, I actually still prefer the softer, piano-led cover more. I also think it is used beautifully in the end of Donnie Darko. Definitely worth a listen if you live under a rock and have never heard it.
7Nirvana
MTV Unplugged in New York

“The Man Who Sold the World” – Nirvana
OG: David Bowie
Yes, we’ve all heard MTV Unplugged in NY. Despite Nirvana’s big FU to MTV in refusing to play their “hits”, this recording actually turned out to be one of Nirvana’s greatest works. Not to make this list too Bowie-centric, but I’ve landed on “The Man Who Sold the World” as my favorite of several fantastic covers on this album. There’s not much to say here other than Cobain was very good at making songs that are already dark sound even more gritty and hopeless. I’m going to stick to one song for this list and I chose this one because I love Bowie’s abstract lyrical foundation that Nirvana built on. But the entire performance is worth a listen, especially if you’re into that Seattle sound. I’m not sure which version I like better though, it’s a close call.
8Johnny Cash
American IV: The Man Comes Around

“Hurt” – Johnny Cash
OG: Nine Inch Nails
I haven’t listened to much Johnny Cash but you don’t have to in order to appreciate this work. While I may be in the minority that likes the NIN version more, I feel that it’s mostly the context of that entire album that makes the original stand out to me. The cover version is undeniably legendary, so much so that Reznor has praised Cash for the sincerity in his rendition. Cash approached this horrendously sad song with a completely different timbre, while somehow preserving the minimal instrumentation (In The Downward Spiral, “Hurt” sounds like silence relative to the other tracks). His raspy, pained voice takes liberty with the meter, as you’d expect from an aging, veteran country/folk star, while playing along to his more consonant and undistorted guitar. There is just something so authentically real and believable when Cash sings these lyrics, as if he knew he was approaching the end. Listen to it.
9Various Artists (Indie)
Day Of The Dead

Day of the Dead
OG: The Grateful Dead
The National is quite possibly my favorite contemporary music group. However, I frankly haven’t listened to a single one of their Grateful Dead covers because it is not their lyrics and their music. I have not even heard a single Grateful Dead song that I can recall. So I want to take this opportunity to ask the Dead heads or The National fans or whoever out there may be familiar with these covers and ask what stands out to you or what I should listen to first in order to at least have a decent entry point into this compilation. I know many artists are featured on Day of the Dead so I also want to point out that I don’t necessarily need it to be Berninger or a Dessner or whoever. I’ll take any rec. Prove me wrong about it “not being their music” as I have shown in previous examples.
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