I was just listening to Bohemian Rhapsody, and remembered someone singing it on American Idol once and wishing he hadn’t done that because it’s IMPOSSIBLE to come close to how good the original is…some songs should be classified as untouchable, that no one should ever attempt to do a cover of, and Bohemian Rhapsody is one of them.
What are some others?
I’m thinking a lot of Bob Dylan songs…Beatles too.
No songs should be covered, IMO.
Why do you say that?
Its not creative really, and I’ve never heard a cover that was on par with the original. When you play someone else’s song you dont have the same passion, emotion, etc that the original artist had. I do agree that some things are harder/worse to cover than others though.
no girl should ever cover a nirvana song.
I will disagree and say that there are no songs that shouldn’t be covered. For some songs the likelihood is low that any given cover will be sufficiently well done and original to overcome the established expectations of the original. Nevertheless no song is above a new interpretation.
Bullshit. Songs can and do affect listeners strongly enough to make them passionate about them. Passionate enough to want to create a new version.
Every classical performance is essentially a cover.
been playing in orchestra for 4 years now, and i never thought of it that way.
Hahah, true that. Obviously referring to Tori Amos doing Smells Like Teen Spirit…
to DK: think about the fact that The Beatles didn’t write Twist and Shout, but its one of their most famous, or at least well known songs. It was written by the Isley Brothers, but the Beatles covered it and it was so freakin’ awesome that everyone forgets the Isley Brothers version…
x 10000
Chase
Well notwithstanding that Tori Amos is a bit annoying, it wasn’t bad.
Here’s a couple of “girls” doing a really nice Battle of Evermore by Led Zeppelin.
I agree with JJugle, there’s nothing that shouldn’t be covered. Distinctive songs like Bohemian Rhapsody may be difficult to cover well, but for a band to reinvent the song in their own style still takes originality and talent.
sometimes you can put a twist on a song…play it in a different genre or something…sometimes thats interesting
Here is a very nice album of covers of songs from the 60s called Bleecker Street.
There’s even one by John Gorka which is good. 
I have heard (and collected) many covers of songs that are as good as if not better than the original. Raphael is right, all songs should be covered. You never know when an artist’s interpretation will strike a note (bad pun intended) with you.
There is a thread whose topic is covers of songs.
I found this thread with a little used trick known as the “SEARCH” function.
Oh I know! I hate what lenny kravitz did to american woman or what rascal flats did to life is a highway, some bastard coverd white room and I was soooo mad cause that’s like my favorite song.
None of my favorite songs should be covered poorly. 
Sometimes you hear a cover and you just sit back and say “yeah, that was good”. Sometime someone or a band will have a new interpretation that makes the song interesting again. Sometimes someone will just do the song really well. That’s all good.
If there were no covers then we would never have Johnny Cash’s version of Hurt (originally by Nine Inch Nails).
I used to consider Pink Floyd songs off limits to covers. Then I heard the Australian Pink Floyd Show (and saw them live) and I changed my mind. They didn’t reinterpret the songs or play them differently. They just played them very well. It was as if Pink Floyd was performing. It was good.
When Queen did the reunion tour with Paul Rodgers doing the singing I didn’t go. I didn’t buy the album and not sure that I want to listen to it. I’m not saying that the tour should not have been done. The reviews said it was all done very well and Paul Rodgers did an excellent job. But I didn’t want to see the tour. Plus the show was in Key Arena in Seattle and the thought of the acoustics in there makes me cringe.
- Sinead O’Connor - Troy
- Eric Clapton - Circus leaves town / Heaven
are songs not to be covered!
But the best cover I heared is Johnny Cash doing U2’s “One”. I did’nt know his history. But from his voice I clearly extracted that he hitted his wife, while when I hear U2 singing it I never have the feeling Bono hits his wife.
The idea of “ownership” of a song is a fairly new one. At one time, there were songs and there were performers. The good songs became “standards” and lots of the performers did them - sometimes well, sometimes badly.
Chuck Berry was/is one of the greatest lyricists of the rock era, a great “performer” but a fairly mediocre “technician” on the guitar. At one time, everyone did Chuck Berry’s songs, and most of them did them as well as or better than the man himself. Status Quo did a great version of Bye Bye Johnny; The Rolling Stones did a great version of Carol.
Eddie Cochran was one of the greatest of the early rock and roll singer songwriters - a great singer and talented blues guitarist. Sid Vicious, who had rather limited technical ability, did iconic versions of Cochran’s C’mon Everybody and Somethin’ Else. (Ironically, as Sid’s stage persona was based on nihilism, whereas Somethin’ Else may be the most aspirational rock and roll song ever written.
Elvis Presley did a passable version of Carl Perkins’ Blue Suede Shoes. There are plenty of people who think of it as an Elvis song. Motorhead did a reasonable version of Dion and the Belmonts’ The Wanderer and of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates’ Please Don’t Touch.
However, there are certain songs that I can’t help feeling should be sacrosanct. I remember cringing then walking out of a shop where they were playing an easy listening muzak version of Freebird. Elton John’s version of Honky Tonk Women is similarly unconvincing for a number of reasons.
That I entirely agree with. Some major “classics” should really be untouchable. I was horrified when a couple of my all time favourite songs were covered, and made the top ten. The cover versions had been tweaked, and “updated” to a shudderingly dreadful degree. That said, this will always be subjective, and anyone who had not heard the originals, or who did not hold them as special would have been fairly well impressed by the covers.( in my view because the songs were so damn good to begin with.)
Covers can improve on the original, but probably do so less often than they fail.
I certainly don’t understand why Elton J needed to cover anyone’s music.
Nao