The best covers of all time?

[Hrolf The Ganger]

Janis Joplin has been mentioned on here before for her covers, but one that I think was wonderful was her interpretation of Summertime originally written by the Gershwin brothers for Porgy and Bess. A brilliant version.

Summertime has been covered over 1600 times, second only to Yesterday by Lennon and McCartney which, at over 2200 covers, tops the list.

I would go with the Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong version.

 

[Stirlingsays]

Give me the original any day.

Yep, a very good song, never heard a bad version of it.

Some songs are so good they are hard to screw up with covers.....I remember hearing Michael Jackson do 'Behind the Mask' most known by Eric Clapton (a song by Japanese synth-pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra, adapted from an instrumental watch commercial tune written in 1978 by Ryuichi Sakamoto), which is another very good song and even though I thought the Jackson cover was poor the sheer quality of the song still shines though.

When you hear the lyrics, from Clapton it sounds a perfectly normal song about a two faced romantic relationship, but coming from Jackson you have the sense that he's also referring to himself.....and while I don't quite believe he was a kiddie fiddler you can understand how listening now has some dark undertones.

He was an odd and private guy engaged in a career that was very on show.

 

[Part Time James]

Cradle of Filth's cover of Sleepless by Anathema