Unfortunately, the best performance I've honestly seen on Idol is Chris Connelly's "Billie Jean", changed to acoustic and electric guitar and time changes to 3/4 time, like a waltz. David Cook chose an obscure cover instead of playing it straight and safe and yes, a rip-off of Connelly's, but Connelly had to sign off on the use of the song in that performance so call him a sell-out to the Idol machine as well.
I'm glad someone already pointed out Johnny Cash's Hurt... Other great covers include A Perfect Circle's cover of Depeche Mode's People are People (A Perfect Circle's album Emotive is all great covers!) and more obscurely His Name is Alive's cover of Man on a Silver Mountain sung with just a treated guitar and 2 high pitched almost falsetto female vocals.
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But what makes a good cover song?
First and foremost: it has to stack up to the original, and unless you are covering Britney Spears this can be a formidable task. Posers are lame, so the second rule of a good cover song: put your own spin on it. If we wanted to hear an exact mimic of The Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses," we'd listen to the original. Good covers switch up genres, strip away instruments or utilize a singer of a different gender.
The following are just a few examples of excellent contemporary covers. Idols, pay attention! This is how it's done!
When Jello Biafra belts out the lyrics of "Too Drunk to F**k," it is a gritty, slapdash melee about rowdy punk drunkendom. But when the sexy French girls of Nouvelle Vague coo "Went to a party, I danced all night / I drank sixteen beers and started up a fight!" this song takes on a whole new meaning.
With theatrical live shows and sensuous singing Parisian filles, this is not your standard cover band. Nouvelle Vague performs 80s New Wave songs with a Brazilian Bossa Nova twist. You probably heard their cover of "Heart of Glass" tinkering in the background at your local Urban Outfitters... however, Nouvelle Vague is too cool to be relegated to ambience. Buy the album.
"The Last Beat of My Heart" by DeVotchKa
Most covers strip away instruments in an effort to pump more emotion into a song. The problem with "The Last Beat of My Heart" is you don't get much more stripped down than Siouxsie & the Banshees' original.
So DevotchKa, perhaps one of the best live bands in the U.S.A. today, took this cover suggestion from The Arcade Fire and vamped up their instrumentation. DeVotchKa brilliantly blends violins, accordians, drums and Nick Urata's soaring Mariachi vocals to turn what was an achingly sorrowful ode to heartbreak into a powerful anthem about undying love.
"Troubled So Hard" by Paolo Nutini
Paolo Nutini is one of those rare modern musicians who sounds a hundred times better live. Nutini's over-produced studio album just doesn't capture his appeal, an appeal rooted in his hunchbacked stage presence and churned-asphalt, gravelly voice.
In his live show, Nutini performs this cover of Moby's "Natural Blues," which in turn was a sample of Vera Hall and Dock Reed's little-known, super duper rare "Trouble So Hard." I'm sure Vera and Dock would be all a-twitter-pated if they saw their modest blues number being performed all over the world in front of thousands upon thousands of fans.
"Common People" by William Shatner
I've mentioned this song before, but it is so fan-friggin-tastic it gets an encore. Indie rock band Pulp performs the more-than-awesome original, yet somehow (inexplicably) Shatner's spoken-word version rocks even MORE. ?!?!?!?!?!
To be fair, Captain Kirk had some help. Ben Folds arranged the music, and Joe Jackson sings the rocked out chorus. The lyrics themselves are delectable, about a rich girl who slums it with the "common people," only to be torn down for being "a tourist" who thinks "poor is cool." *Writer's note: of my four suggestions, this is the only one I haven't seen performed live, ruining my music geek streak... damn you Shatner!
The Good Music Corner began after VFTW's infallible Dave noticed an inundation of pretentious music geeks visiting his site. This blog, in addition to countering the poor quality music marketed on American Idol, serves as a soapbox for self-proclaimed musicologists.
If you have a submission for the Suggestion Box, would like to talk music, or feel a need to complain about the likeness of the caricatured Idols adorning the banner of this site, you may email Laura at CaricaturesByLaura at Yahoo.com.
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