For a very
interesting set of covers, you should listen to some of the Leningrad Cowboys productions, such as these nuggets from their "Happy Together" album:
- "It's only Rock 'n Roll" by The Rolling Stones
- "Happy Together" by the Turtles
- "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan
- "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin
- "California Girls" by The Beach Boys
- "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Soviet Red Army Choir backing helps create a very original sound.
Their newer album "Zombies Paradise" (with a heavier sound) also adds:
- "What Is Love" by Haddaway
- "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey
- "My Sharona" (I actually really like this version) - by The Knack
Or, if you're feeling like some pain - try some of the covers done for the specialty Ballroom Dancing CD's (cf Casa Musica, Dancelife, Dancehouse etc). They often need to create their own recordings of songs in
strict tempo, and this can sometimes lead to a real
"what the ... ?" moment.
So many of today's radio friendly "dance" tracks are covers of older songs (usually from 70s or 80s) - such as Eric Prydz "Proper Education" (Pink Floyd), or Rogue Traders' "One of My Kind" (covering/mixing INXS's "Need You Tonight")
Then you have all the piano tribute albums (eg for Iron Maiden)
If you like Kraftwork, then you could always get the "8-Bit Operators" album - a tribute with a number of different artists covering Kraftwork's material using only old 8-bit sounds (eg from really old game consoles/computers). It's not as painful as it sounds
You may want to check out all the parody works (such as by Weird Al Yankovic), but these aren't actually cover's I suppose.
Nils Landgren released an interesting album in 2004 called "Funky ABBA", where a host of ABBA tracks are recorded, but completely transformed into Funk variations.
Years ago, there was a series of record releases called "Hooked on Classics", which had a full orchestra playing classical music over a disco-like beat... crazy stuff. Now days, a couple of Orchestras are doing something similar, but playing well known pop songs with just the Orchestra. The main ones I'm aware of are:
- "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Genesis Hits and Ballads"
- "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Hits of Pink Floyd"
- "The London Symphony Orchestra Performs the Music of Sting"
- both of the above have also done a cover of "Stairway to Heaven"... of course
Then there are the other odd hits & misses like:
- Def Leppard doing David Essex's "Rock On" (2006 "Yeah!" album);
- Erasure covering Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill";
- Apocalyptica (a string quartet) covering Metalica's "Enter Sandman";
- Tori Amos covering Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on piano;
- David Hasselhoff covering Ted Mulry Gang's "Jump In My Car" (oh God, did he HAVE to ????);
- Fatboy Slim covering (and I think improving) Groove Armada's "I See You Baby";
- Men Without Hats covering ABBA's "S.O.S.";
- The Muppets singing the Beachboy's "Kokomo";
- Sandra covering The Hooters classic "All You Zombies";
- Marilyn Manson covering Soft Cell's "Tainted Love";
- (PS: Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" is also actually a cover - originally recorded by Gloria Jones.);
- Shirley Bassey covering Pink's "Get this Party Started" (it grows on you
);
- Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" sampled / remixed so much of "Under Pressure" by Queen & David Bowie I feel it's only a half step away from being a true cover;
- Bananarama's terrible cover of The Beatle's "Help";
- Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing" was covered by T-Shirt and by Clock (practically at the same time), and also by Deee-Lite;
- Danzel covered "My Arms Keep Missing You", originally by Rick Astley
- The KLF (as the Timelords) created "Doctorin' the Tardis" basically out of Gary Glitter's "Rock & Roll (part 2)" and the Dr Who theme.
and of course there's one which I have to finish on:
- William Hung's stupifying cover of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" (I'm dumbfounded this was recorded and published????)
For a very [i]interesting[/i] set of covers, you should listen to some of the Leningrad Cowboys productions, such as these nuggets from their "Happy Together" album:
- "It's only Rock 'n Roll" by The Rolling Stones
- "Happy Together" by the Turtles
- "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" by Bob Dylan
- "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin
- "California Girls" by The Beach Boys
- "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
The Soviet Red Army Choir backing helps create a very original sound. :) Their newer album "Zombies Paradise" (with a heavier sound) also adds:
- "What Is Love" by Haddaway
- "Goldfinger" by Shirley Bassey
- "My Sharona" (I actually really like this version) - by The Knack
Or, if you're feeling like some pain - try some of the covers done for the specialty Ballroom Dancing CD's (cf Casa Musica, Dancelife, Dancehouse etc). They often need to create their own recordings of songs in [i]strict tempo[/i], and this can sometimes lead to a real [i]"what the ... ?"[/i] moment.
So many of today's radio friendly "dance" tracks are covers of older songs (usually from 70s or 80s) - such as Eric Prydz "Proper Education" (Pink Floyd), or Rogue Traders' "One of My Kind" (covering/mixing INXS's "Need You Tonight")
Then you have all the piano tribute albums (eg for Iron Maiden)
If you like Kraftwork, then you could always get the "8-Bit Operators" album - a tribute with a number of different artists covering Kraftwork's material using only old 8-bit sounds (eg from really old game consoles/computers). It's not as painful as it sounds :P
You may want to check out all the parody works (such as by Weird Al Yankovic), but these aren't actually cover's I suppose.
Nils Landgren released an interesting album in 2004 called "Funky ABBA", where a host of ABBA tracks are recorded, but completely transformed into Funk variations.
Years ago, there was a series of record releases called "Hooked on Classics", which had a full orchestra playing classical music over a disco-like beat... crazy stuff. Now days, a couple of Orchestras are doing something similar, but playing well known pop songs with just the Orchestra. The main ones I'm aware of are:
- "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Genesis Hits and Ballads"
- "The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Hits of Pink Floyd"
- "The London Symphony Orchestra Performs the Music of Sting"
- both of the above have also done a cover of "Stairway to Heaven"... of course
Then there are the other odd hits & misses like:
- Def Leppard doing David Essex's "Rock On" (2006 "Yeah!" album);
- Erasure covering Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill";
- Apocalyptica (a string quartet) covering Metalica's "Enter Sandman";
- Tori Amos covering Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" on piano;
- David Hasselhoff covering Ted Mulry Gang's "Jump In My Car" (oh God, did he HAVE to ????);
- Fatboy Slim covering (and I think improving) Groove Armada's "I See You Baby";
- Men Without Hats covering ABBA's "S.O.S.";
- The Muppets singing the Beachboy's "Kokomo";
- Sandra covering The Hooters classic "All You Zombies";
- Marilyn Manson covering Soft Cell's "Tainted Love";
- (PS: Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" is also actually a cover - originally recorded by Gloria Jones.);
- Shirley Bassey covering Pink's "Get this Party Started" (it grows on you :) );
- Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" sampled / remixed so much of "Under Pressure" by Queen & David Bowie I feel it's only a half step away from being a true cover;
- Bananarama's terrible cover of The Beatle's "Help";
- Hot Chocolate's "You Sexy Thing" was covered by T-Shirt and by Clock (practically at the same time), and also by Deee-Lite;
- Danzel covered "My Arms Keep Missing You", originally by Rick Astley
- The KLF (as the Timelords) created "Doctorin' the Tardis" basically out of Gary Glitter's "Rock & Roll (part 2)" and the Dr Who theme.
and of course there's one which I have to finish on:
- William Hung's stupifying cover of Ricky Martin's "She Bangs" (I'm dumbfounded this was recorded and published????)