December 22, 201411 yr Jane's Addiction does "Sympathy for the Devil", but the Stones and Jane's version are both awesome!
December 23, 201411 yr I'm loving Sturgill Simpson's cover of "The Promise". It didn't even hit me that it was the cover until the chorus kicked in.
December 23, 201411 yr I may have mentioned this earlier in the thread, but I'm not going back to make sure. Anyway, if you liked Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'" then you will love Trish Murphy's excellent cover of the tune. Saw her in concert in Austin (she's from Texas) back in 2000 when I first discovered her. Completely fell in love with her music and her, in general, as she was extremely hot back then. Not sure how she's held up since then as I'm not aware she ever did anything musically after that album.
December 23, 201411 yr Among the best ever is The Gourds' country-fried cover of Snoop Dogg's "Gin And Juice." Townes Van Zandt's cover of The Stones' "Dead Flowers" -- it's played for the ending credits of "The Big Lebowski" -- is fantastic, and Steve Earle's version of the same tune is great. Earle also does a dandy job with Springsteen's "State Trooper." Ryan Adams' "Wonderwall" is excellent. Ahem. I'm feeling like you only somewhat value my opinion anymore. All three are legit for inclusion on the list, based on your criteria. Here's a list of cover songs I compiled for a music blog I've contributed to a few times. If you dig cover songs, then you might consider looking into some of them. I've supplied links for you to listen to the various versions where I could. Cover songs have been around as long as music has been. Artists have outright ripped one another off since the get-go, and lawsuits resulting from stolen riffs and lyrics have been abound in mass since the beginning of recorded song. Cover songs have existed in an effort to pay homage, tribute, honor, and to outright out-do the original recording artist ever since. I began my list of best cover song at the beginning of the latest millennium, tracking the best covers of the latest 15 years. Beginning in the year 2000, we saw the well procured and precisely produced cover and tribute albums give way to the mobile device “app recorded” music of the 20-teens, and the new-found takeaway shows, producing more cover songs than we may have ever known otherwise. A few guidelines I tried to follow when picking my songs: 1) Keep to songs that were officially recorded and “released” in some proper fashion. I stuck to this one fairly staunchly. That means avoiding live covers, excepting when those live versions were released on albums. This threw out an entire slew of live videos recorded directly to the internet, as well as all of the teenage girls making covers of their favorite pop songs in their bedrooms with their Macbook and a ukulele, and all of the angsty college boys with kinda-long hair and t-shirts from their fraternity’s latest party playing an out-of-tune cover of their favorite college rock ballad on their Samick acoustic guitar in their dorm room. I made a couple select exceptions for solid “takeaway shows”, but otherwise, I stayed away. 2) No songs that would generally be considered a “traditional”. This threw out quite a few solid possibilities, including the well-known version of “ ” from O Brother, Where Art Thou? and a pretty great cover of the Irish standard “ ” from the soundtrack to Inside Llewyn Davis. 3) No Ben Harper. I’m aware of the fact that I have somewhat of a soft spot for Ben Harper’s music, and furthermore, I tend to think his cover songs are absolutely top notch. He puts together very well crafted covers…taking the time to vary things enough from the original recording to make it interesting, but still not straying too far from the original as to make it unrecognizable or too far off track. That is one of the tricks of properly covering a song. You either have to nail the song just as the original was performed, take it in a completely different direction all together, or keep between those two poles in the muddy gray area where Ben Harper seems to thrive with his covers. Since I didn’t include them on my list, I would say his best post-millenium covers are, in order: ‘00 – “My Father's House” (original by Bruce Springsteen), ‘01 – “ ” (original by Marvin Gaye), ‘02 – “Strawberry Fields” (original by The Beatles), ‘05 – “Michelle” (original by The Beatles), ‘07 – “ ” (original by John Lennon), and ‘14 – “Fade Into You” (original by Mazzy Star). So here is my humble attempt at documenting the best 40 cover songs to have come out in the last 15 years. With no further ado, and chronologically speaking: 2000 – Chris Thomas King covered “ ” for the soundtrack to the Cohen Brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? by delta blues pioneer Skip James. 2000 – Crooked Fingers covered “Mansion On The Hill” as their contribution to the album Badlands: A Tribute To Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska. in 1982. 2001 – Del McCoury Band covered “ ” on their album Del And The Boys. by British singer/songwriter Richard Thompson. 2001 – Adam Duritz covered “Crossing Muddy Water” under pseudonym Devil & Bunny Show for the Back Porch Records compilation album I-10 Chronicles, Volume 2. Originally recorded in 2000 by singer/songwriter John Hiatt. 2001 – Ben Folds contributed his cover of “ ” to the I Am Sam soundtrack. in 1969 on Abbey Road…which you should know without my explaining it. 2001 – Dolly Parton covered “Shine” on her country album, Little Sparrow. by the 90s alternative rock band Collective Soul. 2001 – John Prine recorded “Loretta” as his contribution to the Townes Van Zandt tribute album, Poet. Townes originally recorded the song in 1978. 2001 – Willie Nelson covered “The Rainbow Connection”, using the song as a title track for his Grammy award winning album. The song was by Jim Henson as the voice of Kermit The Frog for the 1979 Muppet Movie. 2001 – Relative unknown singer/songwriter Gary Jules recorded a haunting cover of “ ” for the Donnie Darko soundtrack. by the British new wave band Tears For Fears. 2002 – Johnny Cash recorded “ ” on the fourth of his five albums of cover songs, American IV: The Man Comes Around. Originally recorded in 1994 by industrial rock group, Nine Inch Nails. 2002 – Patty Griffin recorded “ ” on her album 1000 Kisses. Crappy album name or not, the cover is great, as is the whole album. The in 1980 by Bruce Springsteen. 2003 – Swedish indie-folk musician Jose Gonzalez recorded a classical guitar version of “Heartbeats” on his album Veneer. earlier that same year by Swedish electronic duo The Knife. Gonzalez has put out several other extremely solid cover songs on his albums, but in my opinion, this one is the best. 2003 – Redbird, a short-lived folk trio, recorded “ ” on their eponymous (and only) album. in 1975 on Blood On The Tracks. 2003 – Ryan Adams covered “ ” on the first of his two Love Is Hell EPs. by Oasis. Ask any fan of music which version is better you can have yourself an argument. 2003 – Blues/folk guitar player Chris Smither covered “ ” on his album Train Home. It’s one of numerous Bob Dylan covers that Smither has recorded over the years. Dylan in 1965. 2003 – Piano composer and musical impressionist Christopher O’Riley recorded an absolutely beautiful version of “ ” (my personal favorite Radiohead song) for his album True Love Waits: Christopher O’Riley Plays Radiohead. Radiohead in 1997 on their groundbreaking alubm, OK Computer. 2004 – Calexico covered “ ” on their Convict Pool EP. Originally recorded in 1967 by the rock group Love. 2004 – Kentucky country musician Dwight Yoakam covered – a song written about Kentucky. Apparently Dwight likes the song so much that he decided to record two different versions for his album of cover songs, Dwight’s Used Records. Here are Dwight's versions - " " and " ". 2004 – Seu Jorge recorded a Portuguese language acoustic classical guitar version of the song “ ” along with several other Davie Bowie hits for the soundtrack of Wes Anderson’s movie, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. in 1974. 2005 – Sun Kil Moon recorded a downtempo acoustic cover of “ ” on Tiny Cities. in 2004 as a B-side. 2006 – Folk artist Gillian Welch released a live cover of Neil Young’s “ ” on her Black Star EP (along with a great cover of Radiohead’s “Black Star”). Originally recorded by Neil Young in 1979. 2006 – Mastodon covered the instrumental song “ ” on a tribute album put out by Kerrang! Magazine marking the 20th anniversary of Metallica’s album Master Of Puppets, in 1986. 2006 – Damien Jurado covered “Pink Moon" as part of an unreleased 5-track EP of Nick Drake songs. The songs have floated around the internet amongst the fans of Jurado’s earlier acoustic works in the years that have followed. Drake on his famed 1972 album, Pink Moon. 2007 – Polyphonic Spree recorded a very uplifting version of the song “Lithium” as a bonus track on The Fragile Army. The in 1992 by Nirvana. 2007 – Yo La Tengo contributed their cover of “ ” to the soundtrack for the art-house Bob Dylan biopic I’m Not There. Bob Dylan in 1966. 2007 – Cake’s cover of “ ” was release on their compilation album B-Sides And Rarities. The song was originally recorded by Black Sabbath on their seminal 1970 album, Paranoid. 2008 – Katy Perry (that’s right, I said Katy Perry) released a surprisingly enjoyable acoustic live take on “ ” on the Australian tour edition of her album One Of The Boys. earlier that same year. 2009 – Discovery, an indie electronica duo consisting of Rostam Batmanglij from Vampire Weekend and Wesley Miles from Ra Ra Riot, covered “ ” on their album LP. by The Jackson 5. 2009 – Iron & Wine covered “ ” on their compilation of live and unreleased recordings, Around The Well. by British rock band, New Order. 2009 – Experimental pianist Marco Benevento covered “Golden” on his album, Me Not Me. in 2003. 2010 – John Legend & The Roots recorded an incredible 11 minute cover of “I Can’t Write Left Handed” on their album, Wake Up! in 1973. 2011 – James Blake covered “ ” on his eponymous electronic/dubstep album. by Canadian musician, Feist. 2011 – Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit covered “ ” on the Record Store Day release, Sing For Your Meat – A Tribute Album To Guided By Voices. GBV in 2002. 2011 – Bon Iver covered “ ” on a two-sided single along with Peter Gabriel, opposite of Gabriel’s cover of Bon Iver’s song “ ” for Record Store Day. Gabriel in 1992. 2012 – The age of the takeaway show took over with Father John Misty’s cover of “Do You Realize??” for the AV Club’s YouTube channel. The Flaming Lips in 2002. 2012 – Continuing on the shoulders of the takeaway trend, the YouTube video featuring Mavis Staples singing “ ” along with Jeff Tweedy and Nick Lowe prior to her show at the Civic Opera House in Chicago gathered over a half-million views. The Band in 1968 on their famed Music From Big Pink album. 2013 – Fiona Apple covered “Pure Imagination” for a short video advertisement for Chipotle restaurants, later releasing the song as a single on iTunes. The song was originally written for the soundtrack to the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory, and was recorded by Gene Wilder, the titular character. 2014 – Margot and The Nuclear So & So’s covered “ ” on Laundromat Records’ Wes Anderson tribute album, I Saved Latin. in 1972. 2014 – Bahamas covered “You Were Always On My Mind” on an impressively well procured Starbucks compilation album for Valentines Day, Sweetheart 2014. Soul singer in 1972. 2014 – Sturgill Simpson covered “ ” on his breakout album Metamodern Sounds In Country Music. The by the British new wave group When In Rome in 1988.
December 23, 201411 yr Ahem. I'm feeling like you only somewhat value my opinion anymore. All three are legit for inclusion on the list, based on your criteria. ...missed that part about "I began my list of best cover song at the beginning of the latest millennium, tracking the best covers of the latest 15 years. Beginning in the year 2000...", didn't ya? The Gourds covered "Gin & Juice" in 1998, Townes covered "Dead Flowers" in 1993, and Steve Earle's "State Trooper" cover was recorded live in 1985...although it wasn't released until 2002. Ryan Adams' "Wonderwall" on my list, fo sho.
December 23, 201411 yr ...missed that part about "I began my list of best cover song at the beginning of the latest millennium, tracking the best covers of the latest 15 years. Beginning in the year 2000...", didn't ya? The Gourds covered "Gin & Juice" in 1998, Townes covered "Dead Flowers" in 1993, and Steve Earle's "State Trooper" cover was recorded live in 1985...although it wasn't released until 2002. Ryan Adams' "Wonderwall" on my list, fo sho. Obviously. Could've sworn I heard Ryan do "Wonderwall" in the '90s. Those years run together, though.
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