RAVE - Top 50 Cover Songs

This is what you get when you spend long enough in the sun listening to tunes you never knew you had on your iPod.

The list proves, at least to me, that when covering a song, you must first of all pick a good song to cover – a lesson sorely missed by many American Idol and Britain’s Got Talent hopefuls.

While compiling this, I worked out that the most candidates were written by Bob Dylan, The Cure, and The Clash.

1. Creedence Clearwater Revival – I Put A Spell On You. John Fogerty has such a unique voice, and improves massively on the weird 1957 original from Screamin’ Jay Hawkins.
2. The Clash – Police And Thieves. According to Junior Murvin, its writer, The Clash “destroyed Jah work”. Aah, those crazy Rastafarians.
3. The Clash – Police On My Back. I love(d) this song from my favorite neo-Punks. Only after many years did I learn it was a cover of an Equals tune.
4. Pato Banton – Rock The Casbah. Barely recognizable cover of The Clash.
5. Aztec Camera – Jump. It takes nerve to redo a song with a trademark guitar hook, and NOT use it in your cover. Clearly, this 80s new wave crew thought Van Halen’s original didn’t need the guitar bit.
6. Ororo – Zombie. Techno-fying songs is something anyone with the right software can do, so making one of them stand out is a feat itself. Maybe there are better examples of this style of re-hash, but this one will have to do for now. Did they ruin arguably The Cranberries’ best song? You judge.
7. Ben Folds – Bitches Ain’t Shit. I must admit this appeals to the same part of me that loves it when serious voice talents read rap lyrics in their deep, serious voices. Ben Folds doesn’t improve on the original from Dr. Dre and Snoop, but certainly makes it different.
8. William Shatner and Joe Jackson – Common People. See above for equivalence. This one was originally from Jarvis Cocker and Pulp. Look up “Camp” in the dictionary and it’ll reference this recording.
9. All Saints – Under The Bridge. Unbelievable reworking of the Chili Peppers song. What a surprise that such an otherwise wet band would make the list.
10. Iggy Pop – Louie Louie. A difficult song to mess up, and Iggy doesn’t. This might be the oldest original, from Richard Perry and The Pharoahs in 1955. PS - Have you ever seen Iggy with his shirt ON?
11. Johnny Cash – Personal Jesus. Near his death, Cash managed to inject even more atmosphere into his, and other peoples’ songs – in this case from Depeche Mode.
12. Johnny Cash - I Won't Back Down. A somewhat dull song, like most of Tom Petty's work, but magic in the hands of Cash.
13. Johnny Cash – Hurt. This one tears at your heart, not just because of the painful lyrics, but because of the obvious pain in Cash’s voice. Originally from Trent Reznor / Nine Inch Nails.
14. Marilyn Manson – Sweet Dreams Are Made Of This. Several Eurythmics songs are crying out for a good Goth-ing, and Marilyn is just the androgyne to do it.
15. The Mission – Never Let Me Down. Another Depeche Mode song given a good old Goth-lashing, this time from the not-normally-that-Goth Mission.
16. Sade – Why Can’t We Live Together? Who recorded this first? One of those Pop Quiz questions you will never, in a million years get right. The answer is one hit wonder Timmy Thomas. Another question you’ll never be able to answer is: how come Sade all but disappeared from the music world?
17. Pet Shop Boys – You Were Always On My Mind. I bet everyone thinks this was written and originally performed by Elvis. No. It was Willie Nelson. Probably the only time you’ll hear Willie Nelson and The Pet Shop Boys mentioned in the same sentence.
18. Pet Shop Boys – Go West. Hardly a stretch for Neil and Chris to redo The Village People song, but well done nonetheless.
19. Bryan Ferry – A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall. Making this Dylan song sound like it was written by Ferry on the same day Roxy Music recorded the fabulous Virginia Plain.
20. Bryan Ferry – Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. Absolutely perfect. Almost perfect was the original, from The Platters.
21. White Stripes – I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself. Dusty Springfield can’t play guitar. And Jack White can’t sing like Dusty, but he has a good go here.
22. Shinehead – Billie Jean. Heaven knows this Michael Jackson song has been covered a million times, but few give it the luscious Dubbing that Shinehead delivers.
23. Reel Big Fish – Take On Me. Hard to improve A-Ha’s sublime original, but Reel Big Fish’s Ska version comes close.
24. Red Hot Chili Peppers – Search And Destroy. Somehow manages to take one of the most wonderfully heavy originals from Iggy And The Stooges, and make it even heavier, man.
25. Stevie Ray Vaughan – Superstition. One of the world’s best guitarists easily improves Stevie Wonder’s now-boring original.
26. Bow Wow Wow – I Want Candy. Back when Malcolm Maclaren was trying to show he could play Svengali to more than just The Sex Pistols, he “found” this band. I never knew this was a cover until recently. Had to look it up, and it was by The Strangeloves, in 1965.
27. Goldfinger – Just Like Heaven. Not sure if any lazy punk cover of a classic deserves a place here, but this is such a blissful original from The Cure, and this cover shows how speeding up bliss doesn’t necessarily ruin it.
28. The Fugees – No Woman No Cry. I’ve already used “perfect”, “sublime” and “blissful”, so out comes the thesaurus to describe this Bob Marley gem, given a natty beat by The Fugees.
29. Bob Rivers – What if God Smoked Cannabis? While not a straightforward cover – this is more like one of those Weird Al Jancowicz “funny” do overs – this is contender for the best lyric of all time: “If God had long hair and a goatee and if his eyes were pretty glazed, if he looked spaced, would you buy his story, would you believe he had an eye infection?” From “What if God was one of us?” by Joan Osborne.
30. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Disco 2000. Jarvis Cocker writes great songs, and this languorous cover by Nick Cave proves it.
31. Britney Spears – I Love Rock and Roll. OK, so this is a bit tongue in cheek, but who knew it was by The Arrows?
32. The Get Up Kids – Close To Me. Yet another Cure song injected with a bit of post-punkiness.
33. Manic Street Preachers – Suicide Is Painless. A beautiful cover of a beautiful original. The lyrics to the theme from M*A*S*H were written by 14-year old Mike Altman, son of that film’s director, Robert Altman. Robert told Johnny Carson that, while he himself was paid only $70,000 for directing the film, son Mike made over $1 million from the song.
34. Dinosaur Jr. – Just Like Heaven. Deliriously over-the-top rendition of The Cure’s already delirious original.
35. The Del Rubio Triplets – Whip It. Out Devo’s Devo.
36. Metallica – Whiskey In The Jar. Well, what else are Metallica going do to this apparently un-improvable traditional Irish song (The "original" Dubliners' version must've been a cover too) but turn the Heavy dial up to 11?
37. The Wonder Stuff – Dizzy. The wonderful but no longer working Wonder Stuff welcome guest vocalist Vic Reeves for this Tommy Roe re-do.
38. Korn – Another Brick In The Wall. Just what this dull and over-played Pink Floyd song needed – a good old dirtying up.
39. George Thorogood – Who Do You Love? Saw this guy live years ago, with The Destroyers. Can’t remember them playing this Bo Diddley tune.
40. Stereophonics – Handbags & Gladrags. Genuinely one of the most gorgeous songs ever written, by Mike D’Abo of Manfred Mann and released by Chris Farlowe.
41. David Bowie – Cactus. The oft-covered Bowie this time covers The Pixies. This version, live on The Jay Leno Show, inexplicably features Moby too. Must've been Bowie's Vegan tour.
42. The Braids – Bohemian Rhapsody. I can only imagine the drugs they must’ve been on when someone suggested covering this un-coverable Queen song. Once they sobered up, they didn’t do a bad job.
43. Dwight Yoakam – Suspicious Minds. Originally released by Mr. Presley, I included this one mostly to see if my friend and closet country fan Bill reads this far down in the list before exploding.
44. Hellsongs – Breaking The Law. As if Judas Priest weren’t whacky enough, this version out-whacks them. From the wonderfully-titled album, Hymns in The Key of 666. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore, son.
45. The Doors – Gloria. Who knew this was originally done by the imaginatively-named Them?
46. Toots And The Maytals – Take Me Home, Country Roads. Proves that almost anything can be re-done as a reggae song. As far as I know, John Denver did the original without the benefit of a single sniff of Ganja.
47. Lords Of The New Church – Johnny Too Bad. Add this to list of those songs I unwittingly heard first as a cover, and remained unwitting for years. Terrible grammar, but great original from The Slickers. Not wanting to go over 50 songs, I’m slipping another LOTNC cover in here. This one’s a seedy rendition of Madonna’s Like A Virgin.
48. The Magic Numbers – Crazy In Love. Trust a band of hirsute chubbies to improve on the dreadful Beyonce.
49. Santa Esmerelda – Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood. I thought the original was by The Animals, but t'internet proved it was Nina Simone.
50. Faith No More – Easy. Worth listening to just to see whether they improve on the gorgeous original guitar work by Thomas McClary of The Commodores.