Cover songs are better.

Oh yeah, there are some amazingly talented people out there. Sometimes the original keeps the soul, and other times the cover brings out aspects of the song the writer never considered.

 

Some covers are good, like Johnny Cash's cover of "Hurt" and Marilyn Manson's dark spin on "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" and "Tainted Love". I'm not sure if I prefer his cover of Personal Jesus or Depeche Mode's though.

 

Some can be, but some can be truly awful.

 

I don't really listen to YouTube covers. When it comes to "professional" covers, it can go both ways.

A bad cover is Darius Rucker covering Old Crow Medicine Show's "Wagon Wheel."

[YOUTUBE]hvKyBcCDOB4[/YOUTUBE]

[YOUTUBE]1gX1EP6mG-E[/YOUTUBE]

A good cover was Luke Bryan's version of One Republic's "Apologize."

[YOUTUBE]U_6BwuBDCMM[/YOUTUBE]

 

Covers can be better than the original, but not always. There are many talented people on youtube, but once I heard the original song, I can't stop comparing the cover to the original.
One of my favs is Alexandra Burkes's Hallelujah and I like Groove Coverage's songs also.

I don't know if nightcore is considered as cover, but I like some of them. For example this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spKBuPxd00M

 

Covers are awesome when they take a song and give it a fresh new style or identity. I wouldn't say they're always better, I've heard some pretty bad ones that just missed the point or didn't do the original justice, but I've also heard plenty that are really creative and interesting in their own right. Ideally I do think a cover should be respectful to the original, most people cover songs to pay homage to their influences afterall, but at the same time it should unique and have it's own identity, otherwise you're just copying someone else and there's no real point. A few of my favorite covers: =o ~

A Static Lullaby ~ Toxic (original: Britney Spears)

A Fire Inside ~ Jack The Ripper (original: Morrissey)

Peter Gabriel ~ My Body Is A Cage (original: Arcade Fire)

Deep Purple ~ Beethoven's 9th (original: You know what the fuck Beethoven is) xD

Ronnie James DIO + Yngwie Malmsteen ~ Dream On (original: Aerosmith)

Massive Attack ~ Superpredators/Metal Postcard (original: Siouxsie and the Banshees)

Evanescence ~ Lacrymosa (original: Mozart - Requiem (3rd movement, part 6: Lacrimosa)
^^^mostly she just sampled it, rather than a true cover, but, still neat so I threw it in here anyway ^^

 

It could go either way, but Superfruit, look them up, is AMAZING.

 

Although I don't mind covers what I see as completely ugly and pointless are remixes.

 

I Fight Dragon's cover of The Future Soon by Jonathan Coulton. So gooooooood.

 

Covers and remixes are almost always worse

 

Remixes can be alright, I've heard a few that I like, but generally tend to like them less than covers. I feel like less effort goes into alot of them.

 

I don't mind covers if the artist has their own material. I don't really listen to people who only do covers. What I hate is when I'm looking for music on YouTube, but I only find crappy covers.

 

Like PeacefulWarrior says: once I've heard both the cover and the original version of a song, I can't help to compare them.

In that way I liked the Limp Bizkit version of "Behind Blue Eyes", until I heard the original. I like the original from The Who just much more than that cover.

And there is one song of which there are enough covers, but not a single one I heard actually comes close to how good the original is: Bohemian Rhapsody. Wait, actually every cover I've ever heard of any Queen song is bad compared to it's original. People, just stop covering Queen songs altogether! Unless you are a Queen cover/tribute band of course, I liked a live performance of Queen Mania I saw in 2013 a lot.

But there are also songs of which I find the cover better than the original, for example "Sympathy for the Devil": I think the Guns N' Roses version is way better than the original from The Rolling Stones.

And there are covers that are as good as the original: the cover of "Land of Confusion" by Disturbed is as good as the original from Genesis.

Oh, and there are a few fun covers like "Umbrella" and "Oops, I Did It Again" by Children of Bodom that are nice too. There are actually a lot of pop songs covered by metal bands, and most of them I actually find better than the original.

 

Finally found a cover that made me go "wow" worthy of posting on here. Those not familiar with the original might not be impressed but I loved the hell out of this.

[youtube]cwSE-mGMQoA[/youtube]

 

I love people who don't just "cover" the songs. When you cover a song, you gotta put your own spin on it, as it shows your musicality as a singer and as a potential artist.



I usually dislike acoustic covers as they are really tired for me. Some songs are better left uptempo and it just sounds incredibly sad when done wrong acoustically.

 

I don't like covers, but I like a lot of sampled music, and like listening to different versions of samples.

Both of these songs are beautifully done, and pretty different. The original is an American song, one cover is done by an artist from L.A, and the other is by an artist from Paris. Covers are usually done by people from the same country so it's cool to listen to ones that are in another language, degiheugi completely transforms the song, and you would think it was a French song originally.

Damu the Fudgemunk - Brooklyn Flower

[youtube]I5vfRwT8I30[/youtube]

Degiheug i- Danse Avec Moi

[youtube]JLcNjbNkGC0[/youtube]

Here's another, done several different times, the original

Judy Clay and William Bell - Private Number

[youtube]eeuVS6vnN7w[/youtube]

Metaform - Crush

[youtube]NUniXb8d0iI[/youtube]

Pretty Lights - Finally Moving(my favourite version)

[youtube]Sk9XYQMRiLY[/youtube]

Nightmares on Wax - You Wish ; not my favourite but the best version, they really turned it into their own song, and it gives me nightmares.

[youtube]6Ew85HKMcyg[/youtube]

 

A few covers I like, mostly rock covers of non-rock songs:

Boyz in the Hood-Dynamite Hack (originally NWA)
Social Distortion-Ring of Fire (originally Johnny Cash)
Korn-Word Up (originally Cameo)
Meat Loaf and Marion Raven-It's All Coming Back To Me Now (originally Pandora's Box, then Celine Dion)
Smashing Pumpkins-Landslide (originally Fleetwood Mac)
Third Eye Blind-Mine (originally Beyoncé)
OAR-Fool in the Rain (originally Led Zeppelin)
Metallica-Turn the Page (originally Bob Seger)

And a few songs you probably didn't know were covers

No Doubt-It's My Life (originally Talk Talk)
Soft Cell-Tainted Love (originally Gloria Jones)
Blinded By The Light-Manfred Mann's Earth Band (originally Bruce Springsteen)
Red Red Wine-UB40 (originally Neil Diamond)

 

Basically any cover by The Beatles or Pearl Jam I like the better. And songs like All Along the watchtower