Staff Playlist #10: Covers

The cover version is an art form often fraught with problems. Stick too close to the original blueprint and you might as well have not even bothered. Try something radically different and you risk upsetting fans of the original. Simply play the song in a different musical style and you risk having your version written off as pure novelty. However, the best artists manage to take the source material and bring something new and exciting to it, bringing out nuances that were previously buried and making the song their own. On occasion, a cover version can be so good that it becomes the definitive version - for example, most people probably that Marvin Gaye's I Heard It Through The Grapevine is the original, unaware of the fact it had been previously released by both Smokey Robinson & The Miracles and Gladys Knight & The Pips.

Below, we've chosen some of our favourite cover versions for your entertainment. This is by no means intended to be a definitive list of the best cover versions of all-time, but we hope you enjoy it all the same. It would be a little silly if you couldn't listen to the tracks yourself, so in the spirit of sharing, the songs are available as a playlist over at last.fm, Grooveshark, Spotify and 8tracks. Have a listen, you're more than likely to discover a new favourite.

The Clash - I Fought The Law

Let’s face it, even the punks loved cheesy songs from their childhood. Not that the original was that cheesy to begin with, but there was certainly nothing punk about it, save its restless energy. This must be what Strummer et al picked up on when they decided to cover this track. Of course, they turned it up to 11 and gave it the throbbing pulse of a thousand aortas, as only they could. But the essence was preserved and this remains a great pop cut, albeit for a generation that had had enough of pop. Alan Shulman

Saint Etienne - Only Love Can Break Your Heart

The best covers tend to be ones that are most removed from their source. Saint Etienne completely elude the challenge of having to match up to Young’s acoustic guitar and piano ballad, by shifting its 3/4 plod into a syncopated, dub-inflected 4/4 alt-dance beat, retaining only the melody and lyrics of Young’s song – as a notorious musical chameleon himself, I’m sure he approved. There’s none of the melancholy of the original, but it was catchy and replayable enough to launch Saint Etienne’s career. Stephen Wragg

David Bowie - Shapes Of Things

This Yardbirds classic gets a glam reboot on Pinups (1973), a collection of sixties covers that would become Bowie’s last record with The Spiders From Mars. It was a glorious ending, and this is one of the album’s standout tracks. Mick Ronson’s sustain-laden solo is a good retrofit to Jeff Beck’s original. Angel Aguilar

Little Roy - Sliver

Unplugged In New York showed once and for all that beneath the swampy guitars and anguished howls, Kurt Cobain could certainly write a tune. It's the strength of the song that makes this cover work - Sliver was always a fairly throwaway track (in the very best sense) and its repetitive chorus is perfectly suited to the off-beat choppiness of reggae. What was originally a tale of childhood unhappiness has been packaged into something altogether more pleasant (crucially, this version omits the last line of "Wanna be alone"). Instantly recognisable and yet completely transformed, Little Roy shows that if you pick your source material well, you can't fail. Joe Rivers

Mr. Little Jeans - The Suburbs

Arcade Fire's The Suburbs was my favorite record of 2010. And I have unashamedly used the titular track in various mixtapes, with the intention of wooing various female love interests. There's something about Win Butler's voice, and his yearning that makes this song stand out from an album of excellent songs. I recently discovered this cover in the backwaters of the blogosphere and was hooked. Mesmerized. The original version of The Suburbs is filled with grandiose instrumentation and lavish soundscapes - Norway's Mr. Little Jeans (AKA Monica Birkenes) has replaced the orchestral arrangements with eerie and and sparse synths, and topped if all off with her ghostly and resonant vocals. An effervescent gem that leaves an indelible mark on the listener. Lukas Clark-Memler

Patti Smith - Gloria

Sorry, this is yet another punk track, but the form was bokoo amenable to the aggressive reinterpretation of coiled dynamite that never had the chance to explode. Smith totally reinvents and yes, owns, this already formidable song by weaving a poem over it with one of the great opening lines in rock – "Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine". Fuck yeah. The gradual tempo change is guaranteed to get your pressure rising and the attack, especially on the brilliant breakdown, cannot be outdone, which is why she was really the first female rock star. Who needs vulnerability? I’ll take confrontation. And yes, I saw Patti and Lenny Kaye in the Village a couple weeks ago and I’m still buzzing on it – you gotta problem with that? Alan Shulman

Cap'n Jazz - Take On Me

To be honest, I avoid studio covers as a rule, especially if I loved the original. So while I’m not saying I dislike Take On Me, it’s a bit too much of a guilty pleasure for me to listen to by choice. But Cap’n Jazz were unselfconscious and sloppy – this is a shamelessly indulgent cover that transforms that all-too-twinkly falsetto chorus into a rousing emo scream-along. I love this because Cap’n Jazz found emo potential in radio pop, not attempting to approach the cover intellectually, but perfectly achieving that same cathartic release that every teenager has at some point screamed into a hairbrush. Stephen Wragg

Hart-Rouge - Dieu À Nos Cotés

Covering a Dylan song is always a risky endeavor - and many purists are disgusted by the thought of possibly not doing justice to the master himself. But having seen Dylan in concert a number of times, I realized that there is no definitive versions of his songs; he plays them differently every time, allegedly so his audience cannot sing along. This beautiful and haunting cover by French-Canadian folk outfit, Hart-Rouge, takes Dylan's protest anthem to a new dimension. The harmonies, the strings, the vibrato. Though I guess singing in French makes everything seem more passionate and inspired. Lukas Clark-Memler

Jeff Buckley - The Way Young Lovers Do

Multiple posthumous releases have shown that Jeff Buckley live shows had a tendency to be on the self-indulgent side. However, the expanded, two-disc legacy edition of Live At Sin-É provides a wonderful opportunity to observe a uniquely talented artist experimenting with structures, genres and the limits of his own ability. The album is largely made up of covers, and any of them would have been a good choice, but this version of the Van Morrison classic slightly nudges ahead of the others in this instance. It may be over ten minutes long, but you can't help but get swept along in Buckley's reverie, as he loses himself in the music and goes where his guitar takes him. It's not often songs with jazz scat singing are recommended, but it seems to fit perfectly here, and following the wail that heralds the sudden end, it's likely you'll need to prompt yourself to start breathing again, while simultaneously asking yourself, "what the hell was THAT?!" Joe Rivers

Fever Ray - Mercy Street

No, it's probably not one of the greatest covers of all time, but I can think of few other cases where an artist has made another's song so completely their own. For what may well be Fever Ray's last hurrah, Karin Dreijer Andersson took Peter Gabriel's pleasant, but slightly leaden, original and pumped it full of her trademark brand of gothic electronica with exciting, spine-chilling results (and her take on Nick Cave's Stranger than Kindness isn't bad either). Mark Davison

Goldfrapp - Boys Will Be Boys

In its early days before it came disappointingly predictable, BBC Radio 1's Live Lounge cover feature gave rise to some genuinely interesting and unusual cover versions. Arguably, the most well-known (and the best?) of the Live Lounge covers is Jamie Cullum's version of Pharrell Williams' Frontin', a pop-jazz take on a song that I imagine few people had, before the cover, thought of as anything but hip-hop or R&B. But as good as Jamie's Frontin' is, I've decided to give some well-deserved recognition to a track from the Live Lounge archives that's less well-known - Goldfrapp's interpretation of Boys Will Be Boys.  The pop-ska "classic" from the short-lived indie band The Ordinary Boys is transformed by Alison Goldfrapp's silky voice, wah-wah effect trumpets and heavy electronic vibrato into a silky smooth and mysterious cover that's a hundred times more exciting than the original. Craig Stevens

DeVotchKa - The Last Beat Of My Heart

DeVotchKa are a fine bunch of musicians who unfortunately have a habit of over-egging the drama of their material, to the extent that it goes past romantic and into slightly creepy, while Siouxise Sioux's an unique talent who, perhaps unwisely, chose to dial things back a bit for the otherwise great original of The Last Beat of My Heart. So the combination of the two works fantastically well; it's both unashamedly big and swoon-inducingly lovely. Mark Davison

Everything But The Girl - English Rose

You will find this on Fire and Skill, The Songs Of The Jam (1999). Tracey Thorn’s wistful voice honors The Jam’s poignant original. This is one of those ballads that stops you in your tracks and takes you hostage. Heartfelt without being maudlin, Thorn’s sincere emotion could melt the North Pole. Angel Aguilar

Christian Prommer's DrumLesson - Strings Of Life

If you're a fan of cover versions, then you could do a lot worse than check out Tom Middleton's Crazy Covers compilation series. Spread over four CDs, the series includes some quirky and controversial covers; Paul Anka's take on Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit, Ian Brown's interpretation of Michael Jackson's Thriller and a version of Missy Elliott's Get Ur Freak On by Ping Pong Orchestra are almost guaranteed to divide opinion (I can say with some degree of certainty that I know which version of Thriller I prefer). One of the standout tracks for me on Crazy Covers 2 is German DJ and instrumentalist Christian Prommer's version of Derrick May's 1988 house classic Strings of Life. I'm not always the biggest fan of jazz, but there's something about the infectious rhythm on the track that lends itself beautifully to softly brushed snare drums and a jazz piano. Craig Stevens

Grizzly Bear - Boy From School

On first listen, with its thumping dance beat and starry synths, it's not immediately obvious that Hot Chip's Boy From School is actually a tale of lost childhood innocence. But that it is, and that makes it ideal fodder for Grizzly Bear's brand of melancholic folk. This version, recorded for a session with Triple J Radio, lets the haunting harmonies take centre stage, and the result is arguably even more affecting than the original. Joel Stanier

David Bowie - Don't Look Down

David Bowie started covering/collaborating with Iggy Pop in the late 70s and this trend would continue well into the 80s, none more so than on his 1984 release Tonight, where Bowie and Iggy had re-established their friendship. This is the one of five co-writes on that much-maligned album that consisted of some decent cover versions, like this one (the splendid original appearing on Iggy’s essential New Values album), and other new collaborations. While not a patch on the original, this works quite well with a loping reggae treatment and particularly good as incidental music in the guiltily pleasure-able, Julian Temple-directed Jazzin' for Blue Jean mini-film. Pierce Brown

The Byrds - My Back Pages

Few artists have been covered so often - and indeed so well - as Bob Dylan. The Byrds were particularly big fans, covering numerous Dylan tracks over the years, but My Back Pages is arguably the best. The opening melody, driving rhythm and rousing harmonies in the chorus breathe new life into what was a fairly straightforward acoustic track by Dylan, and quite frankly make the original sound a little pedestrian. Joel Stanier

Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U

The best cover versions maintain the sentiment of the original whilst propelling the song in a different direction. Nothing Compares 2 U, a tale of post-separation loneliness (written by Prince) was originally recorded by funk band The Family in 1985. Sinead O’Connor’s version, released five years later, aided by Nellee Hooper’s stark production, highlighted this beautiful song and gave an early glimpse of the brilliance which would follow in Hooper’s subsequent work with Massive Attack, Björk and Madonna. Gary McGinley

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