Worst cover of a song that was already pretty dreadful

[Con Murphy]

Have we done this yet?

Starter for ten - Joy Division's plodding (barely-)live cover of VU's avant-merde dirge-piece 'Sister Ray' on the posthumous outtakes LP 'Still'. Don't think I'll bother digitising that one...

[Con Murphy]

The cover has to take the original to a whole new level of dreadfulness, of course.

[AndyM]

Tricky one, because if you didn't like the song in the first place, why would you seek out cover versions ??

[Adam Blake]

VU's avant-merde dirge-piece 'Sister Ray'

Oh dear. No chocolate biscuits for you today.

[AndyM]

I was waiting for that !

[judith]

Tricky one, because if you didn't like the song in the first place, why would you seek out cover versions ??

We used to be subjected to them in elevators. Nowadays, they're piped into the chain stores. Who puts together those tapes, I wonder. Probably something to do with ASCAP and keeping it cheap (uhm, inexpensive). I know there are some real 'classics' in this genre of covers, Con, but the problem is I dislike the original so much, I don't tend to remember or even know the names of the ones who did the cover.

[AndyM]

I would imagine a lot of those are by anonymous session musos. Two of the first singles I ever bought were on a 'covers label' called Cannon, where recent hits were re-done by soundalikes; this kind of output became LPs in the late 6os with names like 'Hot Hits', a scantily clad dolly bird on the front (of NO interest to me!) and the likes of Elton John cutting their recording teeth on uncredited covers. Thin Lizzy apparently did a whole cover of Deep Purple songs - imagine....

[Martin Owen]

Any pop song played on the the pan-pipes. Once in Chile I was on a bus journey which was "held-up" by Mapuches protesting against foreign owned logging companies. The music that was being played was through the bus's PA was a pan-pipe moods version of "Love is all around".

[kas]

Some of them were/are either "moods" or "relax" versions of M.O.R. hits - like, say, Joe Dassin. Or maybe German mid-70's disco versions of the same. You don't even have to seek out that dreadful song, but if it is a hit, you are bound to hear it more than you want.

But, speaking of Joe Dassin, there is a version of his song "Le Moustique" done by The Doors (post-Morrison). I knew and hated the song already as a teenager, and I had a Doors fan mate with a completist instinct. He had bought the album with that song "Full Circle").

The impact of it on us is difficult to convey, but our veneration of the Doors musicians flew out of the window there and then.

[Adam Blake]

likes of Elton John cutting their recording teeth on uncredited covers. Thin Lizzy apparently did a whole cover of Deep Purple songs - imagine....

The only Elton John album I own is a compilation of all the covers he did for "Hot Hits" and suchlike in 1969-70. I'm tempted to say it's almost certainly his best album.

The Thin Lizzy Deep Purple covers album is something of a disappointment, I'm afraid. If you have a copy, it's probably worth selling it.

[AndyM]

.
The Thin Lizzy Deep Purple covers album is something of a disappointment, I'm afraid. If you have a copy, it's probably worth selling it.

Only read about it, but I can't say I'm surprised. Only 'Black Night' would be worth covering anyway.

[Ted]

I've never been able to sit through Gregory Isaacs version of "I'm Going to Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter".

[Jamie Renton]

I've never been able to sit through Gregory Isaacs version of "I'm Going to Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter".

If we're going to get into reggae covers the list is endless.

Ken Boothe does Sandie Shaw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R60QDXjdOz0

Owen Grey does George Benson (or Whitney Houston)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yR0tQeuorB4

Yellowman does a nursery rhyme
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzuXR1gZdxs

Whereas I quite like Pablo Gad on a similar theme to Yellowman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ves1eGe6T18