Your Covers Blown (or played)?

Cover Version Suggestions? - whats your top 10 songs ripe for a cover version in this day and age?

I used to do a bit of Home Recording/Electronic Music 'Construction' but for the last year or two have had difficulty getting back into it...

I'm not sure what it is; lack of time; lack of insipiration; more serious relationship perhaps...

Anyway I feel like doing a few cover versions to get back into teh swing of things but can't for the life of me think of any songs i'd want to do.

I do Electro/folk/pop/indie sort of stuff. i.e Home/Bedroom Studio Computer setup with a few synthesizers, guitar, bass guitar, drum machine, micropones...

posted by mary8nne (18 comments total)

I keep waiting for that hard as nails, big as a mountain, loud as fuck version of Neil Young's Heart of Gold that my heart tells me is out there.
posted by philip-random at 10:57 AM on October 27, 2008

I believe this may be what you're looking for.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 1:52 PM on October 27, 2008 [1 favorite]

Not being trolly either . . to me the best songs for covers are ones with a simple, nursery rhyme quality to them and the works of messrs H&O certainly have that.
posted by arcanecrowbar at 11:02 PM on October 27, 2008

I personally love genre-crossing covers. Maybe think of a couple of songs from other genres you enjoy and concentrate on how you could make them into electro/folk/pop. This works especially well for silly things like TV show theme songs.
posted by gregoryg at 11:38 PM on October 27, 2008

Expanding on that, I would like to hear a folk/indie cover of the Knight Rider theme.
posted by god particle at 11:44 PM on October 27, 2008

anything by robyn hitchcock
posted by dagosto at 2:43 AM on October 28, 2008

I favorited the Hall and Oates comment because I agree completely with it, and also because I have tried, unsuccessfully, to record a cover of "Rich Girl" at least half a dozen times.

Most of my inspiration comes from covers. TV theme songs. Jingles. Making quiet songs loud, making poppy songs rock, making rock songs swing. Showtunes are great too. I recommend "The Surrey With the Fringe on Top."
posted by uncleozzy at 5:53 AM on October 28, 2008

I tend to do a lot of covers because I really love doing them and seeing how you can make a song be your own without all the bothersome writing. I like all the song choices above.
What are your favorite songs? What bands do you love? Pick a few of their songs and pay attention to what they're doing. Is there a certain part that sticks out for you? Maybe deconstruct some Bacharach and David or other songwriter's work?

My wife and I did a whole covers album after watching some recent band that sounded like the Smiths and feeling that they were depressing enough the first time around (please forgive the self link; I tend not to promote us here very often unless it's a song on an album or something, but this seemed like a good place). Somewhere there's versions of a Men at Work and Duran Duran song that never quite worked out as well.

Good luck.
posted by sleepy pete at 6:02 AM on October 28, 2008

Yeah i'm looking for something that can be a but of a 'radical version' - ie significantly different from the Original 'genre crossing' I suppose.

TV themes.. sorry too 'novelty' for me. I'm not looking for something that gimmicky. I've already done gimmicky in the past
posted by mary8nne at 7:40 AM on October 28, 2008

thanks for the tips.

Maybe Hall & Oates (although I've already done Your Kiss is on my List) and lately had been considering Duran Duran - "Planet Earth".

Maybe something Yacht Rock would be a good idea. where you can roughen it up a bit.
posted by mary8nne at 7:43 AM on October 28, 2008

I've always been extremely bad at doing covers that are significantly different from the original.

I have a strong tendency to do very faithful covers that would be how I would have done it if I were in charge at the studio. But, with few exceptions, people do tend to say that my cover is often better than the original -- mainly because I tend to pick songs that, in their original version, never sat well with me as fulfilling their promise.
posted by chimaera at 11:17 PM on October 28, 2008

Funny you should post this. I had so much fun doing my Lenny Kravitz cover I've decided I'm going to try and do an albums worth of covers in a shitty style. I've been thinking about for suggestions here for my project. On my list now are Immigrant Song, Stone Cold Bush, and Rock Me Amadeus. Anyone got other suggestions for songs that can/should be played badly?
posted by mexican at 9:12 AM on October 29, 2008

I like to do covers of songs I really like that I can't do straight covers of—stuff where I don't have the equipment or the vocal temperament or the instrumental chops to pull off a straight-up clone job and so have to change things up out of necessity. You could go hunting for songs you love that sound nothing like what you do yourself, basically.

Anyone got other suggestions for songs that can/should be played badly?

Oh man. November Rain. Please. Anything legendary and dramatic and stupid from the 80s, really, but a proper G&R drama takedown would be wonderful.
posted by cortex at 10:38 AM on October 29, 2008

Funny you should post this. I had so much fun doing my Lenny Kravitz cover I've decided I'm going to try and do an albums worth of covers in a shitty style. I've been thinking about for suggestions here for my project.

And funny you should post this, mexican, cause it's right in line with a suggestion I just received a couple days ago from MeFiMu's own micayetoca. But rather than go into it here and derail mary8nne's thread, I'm making a Music Talk post about it here.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 7:15 AM on October 30, 2008

Sorry for hijacking your thread, mary8nne. I'd like to offer you some suggestions, but it's a little hard to come up with a suggestion for you without some base point of reference. What does your own music sound like? I can also second robyn hitchcock. Maybe a song from Perspex Island or something. Or a Smiths song. Or a Penguin Cafe Orchestra song. Or Cherry Pie by Warrant.
posted by mexican at 12:35 AM on October 31, 2008

well i think i want to sound somewhere between Pavement and Fischerspooner. if that makes sense. - had been thinking of covering pavement or Sebadoh, oh wait. maybe Dinosaur Jr would be good.
posted by mary8nne at 2:08 AM on October 31, 2008

how about a stephen malkmus song then? church on white? or my favorite, troubbble. if you decide to do a stephen malkmus song and want someone to help with a part or two, let me know. I've been wanting to seriously try and cover one of his songs for a while.
posted by mexican at 7:54 AM on October 31, 2008

I've never really listened to any of Malkmus' solo stuff. Well actually I only liek the early Pavement stuff. they lost their way towards the end.

I'm thinking maybe Dinosaur Jr - Freak Scene at the moment. listened to it today and it certainly brings back memories.
posted by mary8nne at 9:43 AM on October 31, 2008