No respect under the covers

I mentioned several months ago in my "let's declare a moratorium on covers of 'Hallelujah'" rant that it was inspired by seeing Brandi Carlile in concert, an artist who I'd previously had absolutely nothing against, until she chose to perform covers of "Hallelujah" and "Folsum Prison Blues," which I thought were two of the most uninspired cover choices out there - completely safe but guaranteed to stroke the egos of her audience, who could feel superior for being so cool that they recognize songs by Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen.

Now today I see that she has recorded a cover of "Creep." She would've scored more points in my book if it had been TLC's "Creep," but no, it is indeed Radiohead's, another contender for "yeah, that might have been cool 10 years ago" status. Next up I'm sure she'll tackle "Love Will Tear Us Apart" and "Yesterday."

Anyone else out there whose choices in cover tunes has lowered your respect for them?



Post Edited (09-16-08 22:08)

i saw a commercial for some sort of car with cat power doing bowie's "space oddity"... of course, it was only a thirty second clip, but i don't know what to think of it, and it seems like an odd choice. she's covered too many songs since "the covers record", if you ask me, though her version of "wonderwall" is nice. btw, why hasn't anyone updated her discography?

seems like a lot of folks ( U2, Prince, the Used, Chrissie Hynde, Eddie Vedder,Tears for fears, Damien Rice and Moby) have covered "Creep"..........hmmmmmmm, maybe it will become the new "Hallelujah".

I think J-Church did a swipe at said song as well. Granted it's the only cover of it I've heard, but it HAS to beat the versions done by Used, Eddie ,Chrissie, et al.

Rest in peace Lance.

for a time during the early 90s it seemed every band that passed through the twin cities was playing "rockin' in the free world". hell, grant hart (w/ nova mob) was opening and closing with it for awhile! don't know if it lowered my respect for anyone, but it sure was pissing me off!

I will most likely call for the next person to release a cover of "Just Like Heaven" to receive a boot to the head. The Watson Twins just put one out, and I think it's time for the line to be cut off for that particular tune. Folks looking for a moderately hip but non-threatening cover can move to another queue now.

They should go check out someone like that nice Marshall Crenshaw boy. He has lots of stuff that would fit the bill and his catalog hasn't been picked to death by a long shot..

"Play Free Bird!"

Sorry. Someone had to.

Any supposedly ironic cover. I'll leave that where it lays.

Chrissie Hynde covering Morrissey's "Everyday is Like Sunday"...
I like Chrissie Hynde. I like Morrissey. This seemed way too calculated;

Moby covering Joy Division's "New Dawn Fades";

Echo & The Bunnymen covering The Doors' "People are Strange";

I second Brad's take on "Just Like Heaven," but would add that any cover of The Cure has been suspect for several years;

On the flip, Buffalo Tom's cover of The Psychedelic Furs' "Heaven" actually resulted in me paying attention to Buffalo Tom, which was all for the good.

The Ataris and DJ Sammy have both covered "Boys of Summer". If that doesn't scare people off from doing their own versions of it... (I fear that we'll be hearing more versions of Bryan Adams's "Heaven" in the foreseeable future though)

Plus painfully "Funny" covers should be given a rest for a while (If your efforts can't match up to Husker Du's "Love is All Around" or the Dickies' "Knights in White Satin, don't even bother).