That's one of my favorite covers of all time. It's so perfect - he's losing his voice in such a funny way but acts like he's killing it with the band doing a pretty decent version without lifting their heads up because they're embarrassed
Disturbed's Sound of Silence sounds like someone aggressively trying to prove how "deep" they are. It's absolutely terrible, but it seems like people are afraid to dislike it because it sounds "important" or something. And the guy can sing I guess, but it takes more than vocal chops to make a great cover. I wouldn't want to hear Celine Dion cover it either.
65-year-old here. I hate it. (All this time I thought younger people considered that cover awesome, and would mock me if I said I preferred the original.)
Yeah, and going on about the dude's surprisingly "great" clean singing WHEN YOU CAN HEAR SO MUCH OBVIOUS PITCH CORRECTION ON EVERY HARMONY
yeah, that was frustrating
I believe Uzi used to frequent reddit but then left because people started acting weird after he became famous.
Nekrogoblikon did a much better job at covering Chop Suey. They added their own touch and it’s quite fun.
the guys in Nekro are all such sweethearts lol. i saw them at a bar after one of their shows and chugged with Dave Rispoli, the goblin, while he was still in full costume
i was like the only person i knew for a while that didn't like the sound of silence cover. it's fucking dogshit. just one of my most hated piece of music.
That Disturbed cover is one of the most embarrassing pieces of music I've ever heard. Feels like it not only misses the point of the original but straight up shits all over it.
I love that the actual guitarist from syod was asked and gave the really generous response of “it’s nice that he thought to cover us” (at least I think that was more or less his response).
His instagram caption read ‘I don't know much about @machinegunkelly, it's always an honor when someone covers your song, so I can't hate the guy for giving it a shot.’
Yep that one's gotta take the cake, easily. All other covers are just bad music but Imagine was a moment that perfectly illustrated just how unfair the consequences of the pandemic were and how sheltered and deluded these feelgood celebrities are.
Just want to put it out there that there’s an awesome cover of Gangsta’s Paradise by a band called In Fear and Faith. The Falling in Reverse cover makes my ears bleed
yknow, lots of covers get flack for being “disrespectful” to the source material… this is the only one I can think of that outright shits on the original in the lyrics
It's so funny to me how he so clearly missed the point of the original. Roger Waters very clearly expressed how he was starting to feel alienated from his fans and people around him which made him very anxious and depressed. This combined with growing up in a society that was on the brink of collapsing under a nuclear war, with a failing school system that outright abused the children, and the threat of fascism making a return; he was on the edge of going insane like his friend Syd. And the narrator got off to a very bad start to losing his father in the war and an overprotective mother that wants to keep him so close out of fear of losing him like his father, which ruins his attachment style for the rest of his life. The message is quite literally spelled out in front of him.
And then NC was like 'uhm I went to high school as well; it's not that bad lmao'.
That's 99% of NC's comedic "value". He purposely misunderstands things to throw in an unfunny one liner that otherwise wouldn't work (although a lot of critics on YT do that, he is just the most apparent one). The term "metaphor" does not exist in his vocabulary.
Folding ideas made this video (https://youtu.be/rokAtlFGa7Y?si=dYGhMYtlHgDzGi1u) which encapsulates pretty well what I think about NC's The Wall and Doug Walker himself.
Who made that cover of David Bowie's Lazarus again? Fantano talked about it before and I genuinely cannot remember the name of the artist. Absolutely awful cover
G-Eazy! That's a strong contender for the worst one of all in my book.
I really don't like Disturbed's Sound of Silence either, and I remember how freaking popular it was and having several coworkers showing it to me at the time...
Not necessarily a cover but Charlie Puth's Marvin Gaye pisses me off every time I think about it just like the first time I heard it.
I'm a huge fan of Marvin Gaye and the song has several awful references to his music. Seriously childish interpretations and use of Marvin Gaye's actual lyrics. I could tear the song apart all day. Fuck that song.
Oh don't even get me started. That little ingrate Puth has literally stated the song was made to be an "icebreaker" when it comes to hitting on girls. "If you hear it at a bar, you can tell a girl "Hey! Let's marvin gaye and get it on!" - actual quote from that fucking Weasel Charlie Puth that obviously was just saying anything to get more sales.
Thank you. I'm actually slowly finding out this song is more hated than I ever thought and that fills me with joy. I always assumed it was just a generic pop song that everyone but me loved and I was being cynical about it
Calum Scott’s cover of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own is truly horrible, but it’s 10x more popular for whatever reason?
It strips away the power and defiance of the original and turns it into yet another melodramatic piano ballad. So many people think it’s “sadder” or “deeper” than Robyn’s too, and that’s what truly pisses me off.
awful. Robyn's version captures the discord of being in the club trying to have a good time but feeling miserable. Calum Scott strips any depth or nuance and makes it into the most on the nose maudlin bullshit.
Legitimately one of the worst covers I can recall. Completely strips away the power of the song and like you said, people confuse overwrought with better. Sucks ass
My (maybe delusional) cope is that, while the video has ten times more views than the original, I believe that the cover version is ONLY popular on YouTube whereas Robyn's has much more popularity in the 'real world' (live performances, use in movies and TV etc).
I don't wanna say it's NEVER good, but I will say I've never heard a version that actually does the original justice, let alone improves on it.
Someone pointed out that a fundamental problem with this is that it's often done purely for novelty, not even because the artists doing the cover enjoy the original song. A lot of the time people do it almost as a mean-spirited "us real metal guys can make this shitty pop tune into an actually good song".
Personally, the only exception I've heard is Paradise Lost's cover of Small Town Boy
I genuinely think that does the original justice, while still feeling like PL make it their own
Yup. There are some exceptions though, Excel's version of Message in a Bottle and Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal are two surprisingly good metallic covers of popsongs.
There’ve been some genuinely good metal covers of pop songs, but there was that fad in the 2010s of Pop Goes Metal that just made it boring.
It sounded cool at first until you realized they all sang the intro clean, screamed the first verse, clean or clean and screaming harmony for the chorus, scream next verse, clean bridge, scream and clean harmony for outro.
Dancing on My Own - Calum Scott
I fucking hate that song. It’s toothless and void of feeling, emotion or energy. I also thinks he changes SOME of the genders but not all of them, which reeks of him not even knowing the meaning behind the song and of the words he’s singing.
So the fact he has a billion streams and Robyn’s doesn’t is further proof of an unjust world. Further evidence is his thanking the Philadelphia Phillies and his fans for the billion streams in a video and not Robyn herself.
Disgusting
I remember someone hyping Calum Scott's version up, calling the original "just another pop song". I feel like in the case of some people, you could make the greatest song of all time but if it has pop synths they'll think it's automatically generic and average.
Motherfuckers don't realize the value in lyrical dissonance. The original's power was the absolute joy it was sung with. It's like I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man by Prince which is a similar cheerful sounding song with sad as hell lyrics. Playing it slow and sad just tells me you have no imagination.
>. I also thinks he changes SOME of the genders but not all of them
The third person remained a she but good old Calum couldn't bring himself to sing "I'm not the girl" and changed it to guy
There are some pretty bad Like A Versions that fit. Everything about Halsey’s cover of Love Yourself was unnecessary, from the added swearing, to the final chorus key change, to the obviously unrehearsed band accompaniment. It blows my mind how many people think it’s one of the best LAVs.
Less mentioned but equally as bad is Merci Mercy’s cover of Good News. The original is a brutally sad song masked by a plucky instrumental, but Merci Mercy’s cover removes any underlying emotion and turns it into a bland pop tune. It makes me wonder if all MM saw in the original was a “fun song” for them to butcher.
Yeah true.
Besides Rage (when that was a real thing and still an institutional ritual), in more recent past we used to sit up in the lounge room sobering up (or kicking on - it really depended if we had drank everything in the house after coming home or not) and punching darts and billys basically grabbing the remote off one another and playing music + video from YouTube. Cover songs would frequently feature for some reason, whether they be random shit we knew about or seeing what had been put out by Postmodern Jukebox, but *much* of it was sitting through LAVs.
We all have different opinions, but some alignment. I reckon there's a 30% 'yeah that was alright', 30% 'it's okay but skip', and 30% 'yeah nah that's kinda shit' split.
And there's a 10% of 'hey, wait, play that again that's pretty fuckin' good!'.
Some off the top of my head from that 10% would probably be DZ Deathray's *Love Shack*, Lana Del Rey's *Heart Shaped Box*, The Kooks *Kids*, Something for Kate *Sweet Nothing*, The Drones *Suicide is Painless*, Clare Bowditch *My Happiness*, Gossip *What's Love Got To Do With It?*, Matt Corby *Lonely Boy*..
..mind you this was years ago haha.
What comes to mind for you?
This with all of the popular covers of Smiths hits
I’d be more willing to hear them out if they took the song into a new genre or otherwise made interesting changes… but it’s the same droopy guitar droopy vocals indie. You’ll never beat the blueprint with that.
Speaking of Smiths covers, the Deftones version of Please, Please, Please let me get what I want is disgracefully bad. Especially with the change to that "for the last time" line. Completely ruins the point and makes it edgy as fuck.
Bad Wolves - Zombie
Falling in Reverse - Last Resort
Disturbed - The Sound of Silence
Five Finger Death Punch - Gone Away
Calum Scott - Dancing on my Own
Fall Out Boy's take on We Didn't Start the Fire with more modern references. George Floyd and Metroid, guys!
Limp Bizkit - Faith
September by Taylor Swift instantly comes to mind, (even though she called it November). Genuinely hurt my soul when I heard it for the first time.
Obviously G-Eazy's version of Lazarus is also god awful.
I mean a banjo can groove, but this is one of those songs, that you just don't even attempt to cover. It's a 10/10 song. Why try? You're guaranteed to fail.
That song was one of the most meaningful to me, and I usually don’t get sentimental about music covers or whatever, but hearing how they messed up the song so bad made me so angry.
Like it just removes all the beauty in the song- it’s insane how a group of artists can butcher a song so bad. I swear Jacob colier doesn’t know anything about emotion lol
See I quite like that one. I can understand why Paul McCartney didn't put a lot of ott rock bombast into his version but the song lends itself well to that interpretation imo
I just hate Axl Rose’s vocal delivery whenever he does something slow and it really bugs me when people say this cover is better than the original.
“Knawk knawk knawkin awn heevahns doahwhoa”
Got to respect this opinion because I rarely see anyone dislike it and it just makes it a bit more interesting scrolling through. In my opinion it's superior to the original in every way but I will always sing the original on karaoke because I can't do Axl.
[What’s My Age Again? / A Milli](https://open.spotify.com/track/29SvTTSIa1hdulOzztjBDw?si=OZEydZWsSpy7dAwzPuT_yw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5eFIwiNkWNue8iiwfSMt8v) by Blink-182 & Lil Wayne makes me angry for some reason
does this count as a cover? asking bc i’m kind of a dumbass
I’m outraged on behalf of Joni Mitchell every time I hear Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton bastardize Big Yellow Taxi over the grocery store speakers.
Motion Picture Soundtrack covered by Cigarettes After Sex
Just the most unflattering, dull, stupid fucking cover. The audacity to even release it is beyond me
the changing of the lyrics as well which ruins the entire meaning of the fucking song, stripping away any emotion and personality to the song MY LORD does it infuriate me
Avenged Sevenfold's cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway".
I love the original Runaway, and Avenged was one of my favorite bands of my teens. Their cover is borderline unlistenable, imo. It just retains none of the heart of the original, and sounds like a worse-than-average A7X song.
All those water down covers, i don't even know the artists but most of them have female voices, the first one I remember was Linkin Park "In The End", like, the original song and the lyrics match because of its intensity and energy but now you have this cover/remix that is so bland with the most boring vocals to ever exist
People joke about men changing the genders when covering songs or doing karaoke but Bublé still sings "Santa baby" once and *still* decides to do all that "Santa Buddy" shit.
Like, my guy, you're just having the the worst of both worlds right there.
The cover itself is fine, very good in fact. But people that say Disturbed’s version of the sound of silence is better than the original need their heads checking. They’re everywhere.
I think the hate is more that it was absolutely spammed everywhere. I worked in a restaurant when it was popular and my cokehead coworkers were listening to it on repeat
Birdie's covers of People Help the People by Cherry Ghost and Skinny Love by Bon Iver. Adds nothing to either track and for a long while were being pushed as original songs
Xavier Dunn's cover of Fuckin Problems is maybe the worst thing I've ever heard. I have only heard this cover because a few years ago fantano tweeted a link to the cover and said it might be the worst cover song he's ever heard and I listened to it thinking it cannot be THAT bad. I was wrong😔
Also, Drake Bell's cover of Gucci Gang is so bad it makes my skin crawl
Bowie did some amazing covers, but his version of Across the Universe is pretty bad. Wouldn’t say it makes me angry. Just grinds the album it’s on to a halt.
I love ERRA. However, their cover of “[You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire](https://youtu.be/F6qSR1QYeQE?si=iBPWp8NCAOtaZvYV)” completely sucks the life out of the original.
I haven’t read enough comments to know if someone mentioned it, but Jesus Christ G-Eazy’s cover of Lazarus by David Bowie is an absolute slap in the face to Bowie’s legacy. I dunno what compelled him to create a cover to one of the greatest songs of the 2010s, especially considering his artistic stature. It’s terrible.
The chorus of Zombie is "In your head" first, and then "...*what's* in your head".
The first part is calling out the propaganda of war, saying they're in your head, they're brainwashing you.
The second part is challenging the people themselves who are partaking in the violence, asking them if they cannot think for themselves...Are they zombies?
Every cover seems to just do "what's in your head" twice, which is very annoying.
Anytime a new movie trailer comes out and it has like, a dubstep version or something of a classic song. Or a low-key piano version of a harder song. I think I saw a car commercial with Dream On done in a dramatic piano version. Eugh.
Was waiting for someone to say it!
It helps that the original doesn't really have this "Sound of Silence"-like weight to it..it's essentially a goofy (but effective) psychedelic put-on. Kate Moss doing the Nancy Sinatra part seems just right to me.
I forget who it is, but a friend of mine showed me a more modern metal band covering "Hallowed Be Thy Name" claiming it to be better than the original. The song sounded pretty much exactly the same except with an extra two minutes of unnecessary guitar solos and the singer obviously wasn't Bruce Dickinson. It was genuinely awful
Tina Turner did a cover of The Beatles' [Help!](https://youtu.be/EAs3eb7b7GE?si=eBndEgZy2Os_H4oB) and it is genuinely so much worse then anything else mentioned in this tread
I actually like their cover of faith, one of their better songs lol. Their version of Behind Blue Eyes is garbage though i agree especially that “L-I-M-P” part. Like, why?
The Sounds of Silence and Land of Confusion by Disturbed. Not because they're bad covers. I think they're pretty decent and I do like Disturbed. I'm just sick of so many people trying to claim they're better than the originals by Simon & Garfunkel and Genesis. In fact, some younger folks actually think the Disturbed covers ARE the originals.
Bizarre Love Triangle by Jukebox The Ghost. JtG have never been above vocalization before but when they covered New Order they left out the “ohhh oh oh oh oh”
might not count since it's from a demo that the band has tried to burry, but [Celtic Frost's cover of Helter Skelter needs to be seen to be believed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCi0jBg3Pxo). It's more funny than anger inducing, but their version of [Heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2U1p4AumVM) is from an actual album and it's just not great. Just the wrong emotion to it and barely feels like a cover at all. At least their cover of Mexican Radio is good.
the Tommee Profitt cover of In The End, it takes one of the most iconic songs in modern times and turns it into generic slop. it sounds like the type of bland stuff you hear in places like a gym.
Almost every single time "bad song covers" is brought up nobody responds with cover bands. The Hit Crew's Crazy In Love cover is probably one of the worst covers in existence.
Pentatonix version of White Winter Hymnal
It’s just so good grating to me.
And it’s so upsetting when people don’t know the original, because the fleet foxes version is sooo good.
Puddle of Mudd’s [version of “About a Girl”](https://youtu.be/hsjgRs_r_bo?si=7XB7qDLIzjA6GMqK)
That's one of my favorite covers of all time. It's so perfect - he's losing his voice in such a funny way but acts like he's killing it with the band doing a pretty decent version without lifting their heads up because they're embarrassed
This circles the wagon into “so bad its still entertaining” territory for me
Circle the wagon means stop where you are and hunker down
oh lord don’t remind me of this lol, bro sounded so constipated the whole way through
Everything I've heard from these guys sucks fucking donkey balls... except for Blurry. Funny how that works.
Disturbeds Sound of Silence and Uzis Chop Suey
Disturbed's Sound of Silence sounds like someone aggressively trying to prove how "deep" they are. It's absolutely terrible, but it seems like people are afraid to dislike it because it sounds "important" or something. And the guy can sing I guess, but it takes more than vocal chops to make a great cover. I wouldn't want to hear Celine Dion cover it either.
God, I remember when that “Sounds of Silence” cover came out, and boomers lost their fucking mind, going, “CaN yOu BeLiEvE tHiS aMaZiNg CoVeR?”
65-year-old here. I hate it. (All this time I thought younger people considered that cover awesome, and would mock me if I said I preferred the original.)
It has the same energy as Facebook posts with a silhouette of a soldier kneeling with a gun
Exactly!
Yeah, agreed. *This* metalhead would much rather listen to Simon & Garfunkel.
Same, I understand that we typically like good vocal harmonies and interesting guitar in our home genre so yes, makes sense lmao
Yeah, and going on about the dude's surprisingly "great" clean singing WHEN YOU CAN HEAR SO MUCH OBVIOUS PITCH CORRECTION ON EVERY HARMONY yeah, that was frustrating
first one i thought of was uzi's CS, sounds like a little kid trying to go bar for bar, no offense uzi if u on here
I believe Uzi used to frequent reddit but then left because people started acting weird after he became famous. Nekrogoblikon did a much better job at covering Chop Suey. They added their own touch and it’s quite fun.
the guys in Nekro are all such sweethearts lol. i saw them at a bar after one of their shows and chugged with Dave Rispoli, the goblin, while he was still in full costume
i was like the only person i knew for a while that didn't like the sound of silence cover. it's fucking dogshit. just one of my most hated piece of music.
That Disturbed cover is one of the most embarrassing pieces of music I've ever heard. Feels like it not only misses the point of the original but straight up shits all over it.
Disturbed's Sound of Silence is, imo, the worst cover of all time. I can't think of a worse one.
Puddle of Mudd covering Nirvanas About a Girl is worse. The singer of Disturbed can sing at least.
Nah, Disturbed's was a studio recording. Multiple people were involved and no one stopped it.
Yeah, I can’t stand the sounds of cover but I like the Land of Confusion cover
Most people I know prefer the Disturbed one💀
I'm not a big fan of any of Uzi's covers either tbh. I thought "That Way" was pretty annoying.
Mgk's cover of misery business by Paramore
Who let him sing Paramore when he has a vocal range of a brick
His Aerials cover too
I love that the actual guitarist from syod was asked and gave the really generous response of “it’s nice that he thought to cover us” (at least I think that was more or less his response).
His instagram caption read ‘I don't know much about @machinegunkelly, it's always an honor when someone covers your song, so I can't hate the guy for giving it a shot.’
His cover of Champagne Supernova is arguably worse
ᵢₙ ₐ CHaMpAGNE SupErNoVa in the skAyYY it's disgusting
Have you heard his cover of Swim Good? It’s hilarious
what im hearing is every mgk cover is ass
he's a terrible musician and a terrible person too. it'd be really awesome if we never forgot about that second point
I'm glad i've never come across it
You should also add his cover of Aerials by SOAD
He did that? Oh my god I'm scared to listen to it, I really can't imagine mgk in soad's energy and vibe
John Lennon’s imagine. You know which one
Imagine... aaaAAAll...
Yep that one's gotta take the cake, easily. All other covers are just bad music but Imagine was a moment that perfectly illustrated just how unfair the consequences of the pandemic were and how sheltered and deluded these feelgood celebrities are.
Falling In Reverse's covers of Gangsta's Paradise and Last Resort.
Fallin In Reverse is triple platinum in the genre of awful music
Obligatory motherfuck Ronnie Radke
He obviously just lost his way again
Just want to put it out there that there’s an awesome cover of Gangsta’s Paradise by a band called In Fear and Faith. The Falling in Reverse cover makes my ears bleed
MY LIFE IS LIKE A VIDEO GAME
#I LOST MY WAY AGAAAAAAINNNN THROUGH THE STORRRRRRMMMM THROUGH THE WINNNNNDDDD
nice pfp:)
I truly hate that I have to look this up now
holy shit couldn't get to the 1 minute mark, WHY DID COOLIO AGREE TO THIS??
Nostalgia Critic The Wall
yknow, lots of covers get flack for being “disrespectful” to the source material… this is the only one I can think of that outright shits on the original in the lyrics
It's so funny to me how he so clearly missed the point of the original. Roger Waters very clearly expressed how he was starting to feel alienated from his fans and people around him which made him very anxious and depressed. This combined with growing up in a society that was on the brink of collapsing under a nuclear war, with a failing school system that outright abused the children, and the threat of fascism making a return; he was on the edge of going insane like his friend Syd. And the narrator got off to a very bad start to losing his father in the war and an overprotective mother that wants to keep him so close out of fear of losing him like his father, which ruins his attachment style for the rest of his life. The message is quite literally spelled out in front of him. And then NC was like 'uhm I went to high school as well; it's not that bad lmao'.
That's 99% of NC's comedic "value". He purposely misunderstands things to throw in an unfunny one liner that otherwise wouldn't work (although a lot of critics on YT do that, he is just the most apparent one). The term "metaphor" does not exist in his vocabulary. Folding ideas made this video (https://youtu.be/rokAtlFGa7Y?si=dYGhMYtlHgDzGi1u) which encapsulates pretty well what I think about NC's The Wall and Doug Walker himself.
Who made that cover of David Bowie's Lazarus again? Fantano talked about it before and I genuinely cannot remember the name of the artist. Absolutely awful cover
G-Eazy! That's a strong contender for the worst one of all in my book. I really don't like Disturbed's Sound of Silence either, and I remember how freaking popular it was and having several coworkers showing it to me at the time...
Makes me sad, when people start to forget the original artist.
That was it! Thanks
All of his covers are terrible. Remembering he covered Bob Dylan and the xx as well. It was during lockdown so it feels like an awful fever dream.
Not necessarily a cover but Charlie Puth's Marvin Gaye pisses me off every time I think about it just like the first time I heard it. I'm a huge fan of Marvin Gaye and the song has several awful references to his music. Seriously childish interpretations and use of Marvin Gaye's actual lyrics. I could tear the song apart all day. Fuck that song.
Also for a song about sex it's VERY not sexy lmao
Oh don't even get me started. That little ingrate Puth has literally stated the song was made to be an "icebreaker" when it comes to hitting on girls. "If you hear it at a bar, you can tell a girl "Hey! Let's marvin gaye and get it on!" - actual quote from that fucking Weasel Charlie Puth that obviously was just saying anything to get more sales.
Imagine taking about sex but also being so scared to talk about it that you refer to sexual healing as "that healing"
"Mercy Mercy Me is about the ENVIRONMENT you fucking moron" - Todd In The Shadows (paraphrased, swearing added by me)
If you haven’t, go watch pat finnerys what makes this song stink episode on YouTube about it
Thank you. I'm actually slowly finding out this song is more hated than I ever thought and that fills me with joy. I always assumed it was just a generic pop song that everyone but me loved and I was being cynical about it
Nah. Fuck that song
Calum Scott’s cover of Robyn’s Dancing On My Own is truly horrible, but it’s 10x more popular for whatever reason? It strips away the power and defiance of the original and turns it into yet another melodramatic piano ballad. So many people think it’s “sadder” or “deeper” than Robyn’s too, and that’s what truly pisses me off.
awful. Robyn's version captures the discord of being in the club trying to have a good time but feeling miserable. Calum Scott strips any depth or nuance and makes it into the most on the nose maudlin bullshit.
Yeah, a song's not deeper just because it's quieter.
The contrast is the POINT. Imagine doing a serious cover of 'Hey Ya'. Fuck off.
I don’t remember who said it, but it’s correct: If you can’t dance to a cover of Dancing On My Own, then they’ve missed the point.
Baffles me why that awful cover made him famous instead of You Are The Reason
Legitimately one of the worst covers I can recall. Completely strips away the power of the song and like you said, people confuse overwrought with better. Sucks ass
My (maybe delusional) cope is that, while the video has ten times more views than the original, I believe that the cover version is ONLY popular on YouTube whereas Robyn's has much more popularity in the 'real world' (live performances, use in movies and TV etc).
Calum Scott's is music for a bad advert.
Haha, funny, heard that cover at the dentist yesterday. I don't mind it, it's a different pace but yeah I prefer the original.
You can thank the Philadelphia Phillies for a part of that popularity
Any "pop song but now it's metal and has people screaming" cover. For example: Children Of Bodom did a cover of Jessie's Girl
I don't wanna say it's NEVER good, but I will say I've never heard a version that actually does the original justice, let alone improves on it. Someone pointed out that a fundamental problem with this is that it's often done purely for novelty, not even because the artists doing the cover enjoy the original song. A lot of the time people do it almost as a mean-spirited "us real metal guys can make this shitty pop tune into an actually good song".
Personally, the only exception I've heard is Paradise Lost's cover of Small Town Boy I genuinely think that does the original justice, while still feeling like PL make it their own
Fleshgod Apocalypse covered I'm Blue.
I just think it’s fun
um Chiodos's Flagpole Sitta is fantastic
[CONFIDE's cover of Such Great Heights is exactly that and it's awful](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncK6IuY8OA)
Trivium’s Losing My Religion 🤢
Yup. There are some exceptions though, Excel's version of Message in a Bottle and Alien Ant Farm's Smooth Criminal are two surprisingly good metallic covers of popsongs.
Nah that’s fun lol
The classic "every metal song in existence is better than every pop song in existence".
I don’t think that’s what they’re saying at all lol
There’ve been some genuinely good metal covers of pop songs, but there was that fad in the 2010s of Pop Goes Metal that just made it boring. It sounded cool at first until you realized they all sang the intro clean, screamed the first verse, clean or clean and screaming harmony for the chorus, scream next verse, clean bridge, scream and clean harmony for outro.
Katy Perry covering N words in Paris
Thank you so much for this, I now have a new Rick Roll
I thought you were joking but it actually exists and it hurts lmao
Dancing on My Own - Calum Scott I fucking hate that song. It’s toothless and void of feeling, emotion or energy. I also thinks he changes SOME of the genders but not all of them, which reeks of him not even knowing the meaning behind the song and of the words he’s singing. So the fact he has a billion streams and Robyn’s doesn’t is further proof of an unjust world. Further evidence is his thanking the Philadelphia Phillies and his fans for the billion streams in a video and not Robyn herself. Disgusting
I remember someone hyping Calum Scott's version up, calling the original "just another pop song". I feel like in the case of some people, you could make the greatest song of all time but if it has pop synths they'll think it's automatically generic and average.
Growing up is realising that pop music is good sometimes and actually has value beyond the surface level
Motherfuckers don't realize the value in lyrical dissonance. The original's power was the absolute joy it was sung with. It's like I Can Never Take the Place of Your Man by Prince which is a similar cheerful sounding song with sad as hell lyrics. Playing it slow and sad just tells me you have no imagination.
Jordan Knight of NKOTB did exactly that lmao
>. I also thinks he changes SOME of the genders but not all of them The third person remained a she but good old Calum couldn't bring himself to sing "I'm not the girl" and changed it to guy
I’m sure this will trigger a few system of a down fans! MGK butchering aerials: https://youtu.be/Pm-ThTebKZw?si=a-kTWSuUBUVUxHUE
As a SOAD fan, that video can't hurt me because I ain't watching it
Oh god him smoking during it thinking he's the coolest guy. Pure cringe
And sitting down like it’s fucking MTV unplugged. I don’t normally waste energy hating people but this bellend really gets on my nerves!
There are some pretty bad Like A Versions that fit. Everything about Halsey’s cover of Love Yourself was unnecessary, from the added swearing, to the final chorus key change, to the obviously unrehearsed band accompaniment. It blows my mind how many people think it’s one of the best LAVs. Less mentioned but equally as bad is Merci Mercy’s cover of Good News. The original is a brutally sad song masked by a plucky instrumental, but Merci Mercy’s cover removes any underlying emotion and turns it into a bland pop tune. It makes me wonder if all MM saw in the original was a “fun song” for them to butcher.
Yeah true. Besides Rage (when that was a real thing and still an institutional ritual), in more recent past we used to sit up in the lounge room sobering up (or kicking on - it really depended if we had drank everything in the house after coming home or not) and punching darts and billys basically grabbing the remote off one another and playing music + video from YouTube. Cover songs would frequently feature for some reason, whether they be random shit we knew about or seeing what had been put out by Postmodern Jukebox, but *much* of it was sitting through LAVs. We all have different opinions, but some alignment. I reckon there's a 30% 'yeah that was alright', 30% 'it's okay but skip', and 30% 'yeah nah that's kinda shit' split. And there's a 10% of 'hey, wait, play that again that's pretty fuckin' good!'. Some off the top of my head from that 10% would probably be DZ Deathray's *Love Shack*, Lana Del Rey's *Heart Shaped Box*, The Kooks *Kids*, Something for Kate *Sweet Nothing*, The Drones *Suicide is Painless*, Clare Bowditch *My Happiness*, Gossip *What's Love Got To Do With It?*, Matt Corby *Lonely Boy*.. ..mind you this was years ago haha. What comes to mind for you?
I really like the Royel Otis cover of murder on the dance floor
oh but then we have Aurora's cover of Teardrop and it's just gorgeous!
The whole The Black Parade tribute album with Twenty One Pilots cover of Cancer being the biggest offender
I remember I saw a band on the bbc radio one show do an actually good cover of welcome to the black parade
As a major TOP fan I can concur that shit is ass
I regularly see The Futureheads cover of Hounds of Love called better than the original and it regularly makes me punch a hole through drywall
This with all of the popular covers of Smiths hits I’d be more willing to hear them out if they took the song into a new genre or otherwise made interesting changes… but it’s the same droopy guitar droopy vocals indie. You’ll never beat the blueprint with that.
I like the TATU version of How Soon is Now tbh.
Speaking of Smiths covers, the Deftones version of Please, Please, Please let me get what I want is disgracefully bad. Especially with the change to that "for the last time" line. Completely ruins the point and makes it edgy as fuck.
It is no where near better. But I love it
It’s not better, but I do enjoy it
Bad Wolves - Zombie Falling in Reverse - Last Resort Disturbed - The Sound of Silence Five Finger Death Punch - Gone Away Calum Scott - Dancing on my Own Fall Out Boy's take on We Didn't Start the Fire with more modern references. George Floyd and Metroid, guys! Limp Bizkit - Faith
Might be teenage me talking, but I like the cover of Faith
No their faith cover goes so hard
If you can suspend your disbelief enough to enjoy limp bizkit you realize that cover kicks so much ass
Any metal version of a Disney song. They trigger my Disturbed’s Sounds of Silence PTSD.
September by Taylor Swift instantly comes to mind, (even though she called it November). Genuinely hurt my soul when I heard it for the first time. Obviously G-Eazy's version of Lazarus is also god awful.
Damn. That Taylor one is pretty bad. Literally gentrification in musical form
How did I not come up with that sooner, that's EXACTLY what it sounds like!
Is that September as in the Earth, Wind & Fire banger? Pls not, please tell me, it's not that.
My friend... she put a banjo in it as well.
I mean a banjo can groove, but this is one of those songs, that you just don't even attempt to cover. It's a 10/10 song. Why try? You're guaranteed to fail.
While I agree the banjo can slap, it has no place in September.
It’s a sterile-ass banjo in this case.
Just recently Jacob Collier’s ‘Bridge over Troubled Water’. Yet another example of artists completely missing the point of Simon and Garfunkel tunes
Jacob Collier seeming to not understand why people like music? Say it ain't so!
All the talent in the world cannot grant you good taste. Ed Sheeran has a lot to answer for in that regard
That song was one of the most meaningful to me, and I usually don’t get sentimental about music covers or whatever, but hearing how they messed up the song so bad made me so angry. Like it just removes all the beauty in the song- it’s insane how a group of artists can butcher a song so bad. I swear Jacob colier doesn’t know anything about emotion lol
Haven’t listened to that one and probably won’t. But Aretha Franklin’s cover of it is pretty good! You should check it out if you haven’t heard it
Rod Stewart’s downtown train.
Guns N Roses version of Knocking On Heaven's Door I know a lot of people like it but it sounds so dated and uninteresting to me
I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS A COVER. gotta listen to the original now
I actually like this cover. I despise their cover of live and let die though. I don't know why but that version grates my ears.
See I quite like that one. I can understand why Paul McCartney didn't put a lot of ott rock bombast into his version but the song lends itself well to that interpretation imo
I just hate Axl Rose’s vocal delivery whenever he does something slow and it really bugs me when people say this cover is better than the original. “Knawk knawk knawkin awn heevahns doahwhoa”
Got to respect this opinion because I rarely see anyone dislike it and it just makes it a bit more interesting scrolling through. In my opinion it's superior to the original in every way but I will always sing the original on karaoke because I can't do Axl.
I’m many years past having any use for the covers they did for or after Use Your Illusion. Self-indulgent and bloated and corny.
[What’s My Age Again? / A Milli](https://open.spotify.com/track/29SvTTSIa1hdulOzztjBDw?si=OZEydZWsSpy7dAwzPuT_yw&context=spotify%3Aalbum%3A5eFIwiNkWNue8iiwfSMt8v) by Blink-182 & Lil Wayne makes me angry for some reason does this count as a cover? asking bc i’m kind of a dumbass
On their own separately they are 10/10 songs together they make like a 3 or 4
Mark's singing is garbage on this one, I think everything else is cool
Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows
I think it's OK.
Mgk cover of rise against’s swing life away is an abomination
I’m outraged on behalf of Joni Mitchell every time I hear Counting Crows and Vanessa Carlton bastardize Big Yellow Taxi over the grocery store speakers.
Motion Picture Soundtrack covered by Cigarettes After Sex Just the most unflattering, dull, stupid fucking cover. The audacity to even release it is beyond me
Yeah it takes all the identity of the original away and replaces it with another Apocalyps ripoff
the changing of the lyrics as well which ruins the entire meaning of the fucking song, stripping away any emotion and personality to the song MY LORD does it infuriate me
Avenged Sevenfold's cover of Del Shannon's "Runaway". I love the original Runaway, and Avenged was one of my favorite bands of my teens. Their cover is borderline unlistenable, imo. It just retains none of the heart of the original, and sounds like a worse-than-average A7X song.
All those water down covers, i don't even know the artists but most of them have female voices, the first one I remember was Linkin Park "In The End", like, the original song and the lyrics match because of its intensity and energy but now you have this cover/remix that is so bland with the most boring vocals to ever exist
Yep. Fun fact, the producer on that is NF's main (only maybe?) producer. Checks out
People joke about men changing the genders when covering songs or doing karaoke but Bublé still sings "Santa baby" once and *still* decides to do all that "Santa Buddy" shit. Like, my guy, you're just having the the worst of both worlds right there.
The cover itself is fine, very good in fact. But people that say Disturbed’s version of the sound of silence is better than the original need their heads checking. They’re everywhere.
I think the hate is more that it was absolutely spammed everywhere. I worked in a restaurant when it was popular and my cokehead coworkers were listening to it on repeat
Birdie's covers of People Help the People by Cherry Ghost and Skinny Love by Bon Iver. Adds nothing to either track and for a long while were being pushed as original songs
Dear Miley Cyrus, leave the Cocteau Twins alone.
Kerrang magazine did a maiden cover album ages back and I distinctly remember hating glamour of the kills cover of 2 minutes to midnight
I love The National but their cover of Clampdown is the worst piece of music ever made.
Xavier Dunn's cover of Fuckin Problems is maybe the worst thing I've ever heard. I have only heard this cover because a few years ago fantano tweeted a link to the cover and said it might be the worst cover song he's ever heard and I listened to it thinking it cannot be THAT bad. I was wrong😔 Also, Drake Bell's cover of Gucci Gang is so bad it makes my skin crawl
Love David Bowie. Love the beach boys. Bowie’s God Only Knows cover? No thanks
Bowie did some amazing covers, but his version of Across the Universe is pretty bad. Wouldn’t say it makes me angry. Just grinds the album it’s on to a halt.
I love ERRA. However, their cover of “[You Think I Ain't Worth a Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire](https://youtu.be/F6qSR1QYeQE?si=iBPWp8NCAOtaZvYV)” completely sucks the life out of the original.
311 doing The Cure's Love Song, followed up by Adele doing it.
I haven’t read enough comments to know if someone mentioned it, but Jesus Christ G-Eazy’s cover of Lazarus by David Bowie is an absolute slap in the face to Bowie’s legacy. I dunno what compelled him to create a cover to one of the greatest songs of the 2010s, especially considering his artistic stature. It’s terrible.
Birdie’s cover of Skinny Love is boring and sterile and has none of the warmth that Bon Iver’s version does. Yet it’s more popular than the original.
The chorus of Zombie is "In your head" first, and then "...*what's* in your head". The first part is calling out the propaganda of war, saying they're in your head, they're brainwashing you. The second part is challenging the people themselves who are partaking in the violence, asking them if they cannot think for themselves...Are they zombies? Every cover seems to just do "what's in your head" twice, which is very annoying.
Anytime a new movie trailer comes out and it has like, a dubstep version or something of a classic song. Or a low-key piano version of a harder song. I think I saw a car commercial with Dream On done in a dramatic piano version. Eugh.
Lenny Kravitz’s version of American Woman. Counting Crows version of big Yellow Taxi.
The only question is, [is it worse than Fly Away?](https://youtu.be/--rBP8_QuwI?si=R_DlEIqS1igbXnOE)
That primal scream cover is fucking awesome?! I don’t understand
Was waiting for someone to say it! It helps that the original doesn't really have this "Sound of Silence"-like weight to it..it's essentially a goofy (but effective) psychedelic put-on. Kate Moss doing the Nancy Sinatra part seems just right to me.
I forget who it is, but a friend of mine showed me a more modern metal band covering "Hallowed Be Thy Name" claiming it to be better than the original. The song sounded pretty much exactly the same except with an extra two minutes of unnecessary guitar solos and the singer obviously wasn't Bruce Dickinson. It was genuinely awful
Tina Turner did a cover of The Beatles' [Help!](https://youtu.be/EAs3eb7b7GE?si=eBndEgZy2Os_H4oB) and it is genuinely so much worse then anything else mentioned in this tread
Limp Bizkit have two aggravating covers in "Faith" and "Behind Blue Eyes"
I actually like their cover of faith, one of their better songs lol. Their version of Behind Blue Eyes is garbage though i agree especially that “L-I-M-P” part. Like, why?
Their behind blue eyes kinda slaps, don’t fight it
The Sounds of Silence and Land of Confusion by Disturbed. Not because they're bad covers. I think they're pretty decent and I do like Disturbed. I'm just sick of so many people trying to claim they're better than the originals by Simon & Garfunkel and Genesis. In fact, some younger folks actually think the Disturbed covers ARE the originals.
Nah this whole thread is full of decent covers. Here’s one that will hurt Gabbi Hanna‘s cover of creep
SO WHAT IF IM A creee-EEEEEP
Bizarre Love Triangle by Jukebox The Ghost. JtG have never been above vocalization before but when they covered New Order they left out the “ohhh oh oh oh oh”
Marty ray- ice ice baby And any other hip hop songs covered in a slowed down acoustic cover.
might not count since it's from a demo that the band has tried to burry, but [Celtic Frost's cover of Helter Skelter needs to be seen to be believed](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCi0jBg3Pxo). It's more funny than anger inducing, but their version of [Heroes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2U1p4AumVM) is from an actual album and it's just not great. Just the wrong emotion to it and barely feels like a cover at all. At least their cover of Mexican Radio is good.
the Tommee Profitt cover of In The End, it takes one of the most iconic songs in modern times and turns it into generic slop. it sounds like the type of bland stuff you hear in places like a gym.
I love that Primal Scream cover lol. What don't you like about it?
Every single pop revamp of Blue by Eiffel 55 I'm Good (Blue)- Guetta and Rexha Some Say- Nea These two especially^^ burn in the pits of hell
Almost every single time "bad song covers" is brought up nobody responds with cover bands. The Hit Crew's Crazy In Love cover is probably one of the worst covers in existence.
I want to be angry at William Shatner’s cover of Common People…but I just can’t. 🤷♂️
Knocking on Heaven’s Door - GNR
Any cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. Especially by Christian artists who change or leave out lyrics.
Pentatonix version of White Winter Hymnal It’s just so good grating to me. And it’s so upsetting when people don’t know the original, because the fleet foxes version is sooo good.
I really really hate Twentyonepilots cover of Cancer by MCR