Cover songs that are worse than the originals

I don't mean just garden-variety attempts that you like less than the original, or some Youtube rando who has no business trying to cover the Righteous Brothers. I mean covers that either you don't understand how so much more popular they are, or are genuinely bad, even offensive.

Like Madonna putting her greasy fingers all over "American Pie" levels of offensive.

I bring this up because I had the displeasure recently of hearing "Sounds of Silence" as attempted by something called Disturbed. Now the man had a good, deep voice, and I appreciate the fitness of a group called Disturbed wanting to sing those lyrics. But the execution was all wrong. There were a lot of missed beats exactly like some rando amateur would pull on karaoke night, and underneath was added this musical swell of power and heroism that has absolutely nothing to do with the lyrics. It was, well, offensive.

Madonna's "American Pie".


Manson's "Sweet Dreams".
I know, a lot of people liked that one.
Annie Lennox could squash Manson with one vocal chord tied behind her back.

We already have a thread for this. (Or, at least, the thread turned into a list of totally shitty covers.)

https://wordforge.net/index.php?threads/the-official-cover-thread.108338/

disagree! Many of those covers measured up to the originals, or came close. This thread is apparently about established performers who MASSACRE/MAKE A MOCKERY OF/GIVE BIRTH TO A HELLISH ABOMINATION of the original. Anyway, here is my first contribution to the cause:

Bob Seger's "The Little Drummer Boy" and Guns and Rose's "Live and Let Die."

I think Joan Jett covered "The Little Drummer Boy" too - never heard the Seger version. As for "Live And Let Die" I suppose it's worse than the original but not by much IMHO. Not Paul Mcartney's best moment that's for sure.

Your personal vendetta/obsession over me is pathetic. You know damn well a lot of those songs are good. You just don't like me so you slam anything and everything I say or do. Furthermore, how would you know, I thought you had me on ignore?

I was tossed out of a sears once for screaming in agony hearing sheryl crow covering zepplin. All it made me do was want to punch someone. I had a feeling I was not the only one.

Then there is the horror of Nicky French total eclipse of the heart.

OMFG no. Not even listening to that to hear the horror.

so who exactly thought that this was a good idea?

you could turn your volume off! Then at least you would get to see them play "air guitar" and dance like drunk soccer moms!

Without viewing that I know that my heart will go on.

OK, now I can check off the used a celine dion dad joke off my bucket list.

Thanks for the set up.

The original song was a crappy horror show (that ought to bring down the wrath of Gen Xers on me) but somehow Miley Cyrus makes it even worse.

this is media central of course (not red room) so I won't mention how her version could have really taken it to the next level of awesome by ending the song with a shotgun blast to her head!
RELAX! A shotgun wouldn't do shit to her thick skull anyway.

I really thought this would bring the comet - I really did!

The original version shuffled through on my iPod when I was driving home from work and I was trying to remember who the shitty band was that covered it a few years back.

Didn't metallica do a shitty cover of that before this shitty cover?

everything Metallica covers turns out shitty. Bob Seger's "Turn The Page" (Ginger Lynn still looking good) is an example.

Okay the original "Harlem Shuffle"! Not linking the Stones version - you all know it. BTW the beginning is the beginning of House Of Pain's "Jump Around"!

I don't know, they did decent covers of "Am I Evil?", "Blitzkrieg", "Breadfan", and "Crash Course in Brain Surgery".

Isaw the Eurythmics in '86,
Annie was a quasar on coke.

I saw Manson live in 1997.
most boring, unspontaneous show I've ever been to in my life.

This would be career demolishingly bad for lesser artists! But this far into long successful careers even something this horrifying couldn't derail them. Was this a situation of of a friend talking you into a bad idea? The blind leading the blind? Regardless this is chock full o' fail at every level.

Certain concept bands are much better with stylized editing through media. I learned with NIN that seeing them in a big concert is not like going to a club. Something like MM or NIN in a club setting where the show is the environment would be the ideal way to see them. A lot of death metal performances are best in a more intimate environment.

To command a huge arena or stadium is difficult. Floyd tries to make a huge show with their music and their fans turn their big events into an event that can cover a stadium. I know GnR has the energy to put on a good show when they do perform. I am not sure if I would want to see manson in a big venue. Maybe they suck at live performance.

I look at people like Billy Joel and Elton John and their performances are somehow really grand and the whole stadium gets into it. I remember watching soundgarden before GnR and thinking they were never going to make it because the whole audience and performance was just bland as fuck.

It is presence really. I am not surprised to find a gimmicky band like MM does not have it. That is not to say I don't like some of their music, but they seem to be more TV and computer oriented imagery than a performance band. They don't have a coherence to plot like certain freaky artists do.

You have to remember the time. There was a lot of musicians doing the global performance thing. You had live-aid, the wall coming down, and all sorts of inclusionary pop. To get bowie and jagger to do something like that really contrasted a great 80's style. Everyone was wang chunging and things happened like that.

I am not ashamed of 80's dorkiness. I am not going to do that.

Exactly... Manson was very much going for the imagery of "The Wall" and it flopped in a half filled arena designed for 20 000. Don't know if I'd credit him as being "concept", although..."unoriginal" could also fit in to the adjectives. The openers, specifically Rasputina, were pretty mindblowing. But to compare it to contemporaries such as the Impotent Sea Snakes or the Genitorturers is a disservice, let alone actual shockers like Wayne/Jayne County or GG Allin... well, you can see all the influences they poorly ripped off.

Not sure why you've introduced death metal in the same paragraph as NIN and MM? Manson is nothing but spooky pop and NIN I've always considered as light industrial from the era when goth was coalescing into something unique from punk-I htink I get where you're going though, that they're as much a multi media presentation as a performance. Still, I'd agree that the dm genre is best in mid sized venues.

Now Elton John I saw back in '02. And yeah, total energy over two sets in front of 40 000 people. But that's not the type of artist one goes to see for whacky stage hijinks so much as the flawlessly executed recital of new and old faves. Paid a week's wages for S1 R 10 seats so we could actually get in on the stage crush-got the girl fiend an autograph on my ticket stub though, so worth it .

that video literally was from/for Live Aid.

Where I grew up there was a decent venue where a lot of death metal performance bands would play. Their stage shows were great, but you would never be brought into it in a large arena. By death metal I am referring more towards the gothic end of it. I think it was King Diamond and a bunch of bands like that which played there every so often. The show was surreal and encompasing, but if it was in an arena or stadium I do not think it would have done as well. Maybe a smaller arena, but the club venue was perfect.

MM was just a gimmick. I will give him the fact he was a decent talker, but he was obviously exploitive and that is what kept me from really wanting to see them. They were a shallow pop freak show made to sell to a larger audience than more refined bands. I was a huge NIN fan at the time and had many arguments over integrity. Reznor was innovative and an artist, but manson was more of a producer's creation. I like how NIN and Reznor have matured over the years. His stuff is not meant to appeal to everyone, but for those it does he has offered up some real exploratory work. I am not talking about the stuff that went onto mainstream success. He is one of the last people who I could appreciate the composition rather than the pop hits.

I had some friends who were into GG allin and what I call the self destructive performers. I could hang because I cared for them as people but that performance just made me worry more for the artist and fans. You can't stop the darkness, but sometimes that does not help.

That would make sense. My experience of live aid was a bit mixed. I was a teen and at a party for the big wigs at the GM plant in tarrytown/sleepy hollow NY. I was hanging with a bunch of rich kids in their hot tub and we were drinking and making out. The only thing I remember from it was about twenty minutes of I want my MTV. Back in that day we did not have a lot of replay recordings so I was more caught up in the general mood of the time, and teenage hormones.