You can cover me

March 28, 2011 1:53 PM

Cover Song Archive A collection of songs you know, by people you don't. (a Booooooom project)
posted by Felicity Rilke (15 comments total)

Great find, thanks for posting. Anne Legras doing "Protection" by Massive Attack is amazing.
posted by Outlawyr at 1:59 PM on March 28, 2011

This rocked. Anna's sign language cover made my day. Thanks for posting.
posted by alteredcarbon at 2:25 PM on March 28, 2011

I was about to write something snide. Then I saw the drummer at work in PS22's rendition of Kids, and all was right.
posted by bicyclefish at 2:26 PM on March 28, 2011

Hope this continues to grow to outlandish proportions. I really love covers.
posted by Maaik at 2:46 PM on March 28, 2011

The sign language Cee-lo cover is, according to a consensus of musicologists around the world, absolutely the best thing ever.
posted by steambadger at 2:50 PM on March 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

The Final Countdown on Kazookeylele was pretty entertaining.
posted by marxchivist at 3:05 PM on March 28, 2011

I love covers too. Probably because I'm a hack who once played in bars for beer.

Every now and again as a pass time, I play a game on YouTube. I start with the best original version video of a song I can find and then build a playlist of as many decent covers as I can, strictly using the related videos links. Mostly these are people recording themselves in front of their computers performing for the camera, though I sometimes include notable performances by 'famous' artists. Sometimes you come upon some gems, like this version of Thunder Road. Other times you stay up all night and compile 159 versions of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and you're just bowled over by the sheer balls on some people to sing and play their hearts out and post it on YouTube for all the world to see.
posted by ob1quixote at 3:36 PM on March 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really love the song Black History Month, and I like the cover of it that's currently the top of the blog. Dude's rocking it. Love the bass line. But for some reason, without exception, whenever I hear people do an instrumental version of a song with lyrics, as soon as they start playing the lyrical melody with an instrument, it instantly sounds like smooth jazz. Like Kenny G. Doesn't matter what they're playing, doesn't matter what the song is, doesn't matter what the rest of their cover sounds like. It instantly gets turned into elevator music.

So I guess what I'm saying is keep rocking it and find a singer.
posted by penduluum at 3:45 PM on March 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I love covers. Sometimes covers can rescue a great song from a dismal original performance. The canonical example is I Hung My Head, mediocre at best in Sting's original but brilliant as covered by Johnny Cash. Another example is Pretty Girl Rock, a fine popsong in Keri Hilson's original but whose empowerment message gets a bit lost. When covered by two anonymous teenagers the boastfulness of the lyrics becomes more playful and inclusive.
posted by Kattullus at 4:07 PM on March 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I really do love that cover of Home.
posted by you're a kitty! at 4:53 PM on March 28, 2011

ob1quixote, that cover of Thunder Road is just... wow.
posted by steambadger at 4:58 PM on March 28, 2011

Cover me is also pretty good, especially when they do their full album covers.
posted by Lemurrhea at 6:01 PM on March 28, 2011

Mercedes Landazuri covers "God Only Knows" and "I Will Survive" with a banjo.
posted by John Cohen at 9:55 PM on March 28, 2011

I always felt this cover of Lithium by Polyphonic Spree captured the spirit of the song better than the original.
posted by Kickdrum at 12:51 AM on March 29, 2011

I was remiss in not including the greatest cover of all time.
posted by ob1quixote at 6:17 PM on March 29, 2011