Really BAD Covers

Subject: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:05 PM

We have a thread for really GOOD covers. This is for their opposites. People who should have let the original stand as-is.

First nominees:

Donna Summers - MacArthur Park
Madonna - American Pie
Pearl Jam - Last Kiss

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Elmore
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:15 PM

Trini Lopez "If I Had a Hammer"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Will Fly
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:23 PM

Terry Wogan - "The Floral Dance"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: alex s
Date: 06 May 10 - 12:45 PM

Ronan Keating - Father & Son

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: melodeonboy
Date: 06 May 10 - 04:21 PM

Status Quo - Rockin' All Over The World

(Moral: Don't send boys to do men's work!)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Goodnight Gracie
Date: 06 May 10 - 04:49 PM

One of the most bizzare and funny covers is a video of Debbie Reynolds singing If I Had a Hammer. She is in a cocktail dress and surrounded by chorus boys.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 May 10 - 05:09 PM

I used to say terrible things about Trini Lopez, but I've mellowed a bit in my old age. He give me a certain nostalgic comfort, but I still wonder why had had to have those dishes clanging and rattling in the background.

Alex included the Donna Summers cover of "MacArthur Park" on his list of bad covers, but I have to say I think the Richard Harris original of "MacArthur Park" is just as bad. The park itself, is quite nice, as urban parks go. It's a nice transition from Wilshire Boulevard to downtown Los Angeles.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 May 10 - 05:43 PM

"Madeira, M'Dear?", rendered *not funny* by The Limeliters.
"City of New Orleans", rendered *pedestrian* by The Country Gentlemen.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:10 PM

Amy Winehouse's cover of "Valerie"

Dolly Parton's "Stairway to Heaven"

Madonna's "American Pie"

Hillary Duff's "My Generation"

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"

The list is endless......

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Bill D
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:20 PM

Read 'em & weep - Leonard Nimoy & Bill Shatner..

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: maple_leaf_boy
Date: 06 May 10 - 07:43 PM

Jessica Simpson's cover of "These Boots Are Made For Walking"

and my rendition of "Hurt", which I haven't played in the longest time.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:25 PM

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"

BAD ?

Not in my book !   That's my favourite version.


DC

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: beeliner
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:31 PM

The three worst that come to mind immediately:

"I'm Walkin'" by Ricky Nelson

"Mrs. Robinson" by Frank Sinatra

"Whiskey in the Jar" by Thin Lizzy

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:31 PM

QUOTE
Dolly Parton's "Stairway to Heaven"
UNQUOTE

Obviously you never heard Norman Gunston's version....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:48 PM

.... or come to think of it Rolf Harris...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: mousethief
Date: 06 May 10 - 10:58 PM

Wash your mouth.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:54 AM

The Rolf Harris version is SO bad that it's good, in an "ironic" way. The Dolly Parton version is just BAD!

And no, I haven't heard the Norman Gunston version.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 10 - 03:56 AM

... or come to think of it .... shudder ... ANYTHING that Norman Gunston did ... "I can hear the drums Fernando" "There was something in the air that night" ... that's for sure....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:37 AM

for those who don't know Norman Gunston

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:43 AM

I don't think you can really have Norman Gunston in this list, because he was a fictional satirical character in the first place - a bit like Alan Partridge (Steve Coogan) over here in the UK. You have to have genuine people genuinely beating the crap out of otherwise good songs.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 04:53 AM

Sorry, but the Shatner and Nimoy trump card has already been played. Mind you - Telly Savalas' 'If a picture paints a thousands words' must be up there with the greats.

Heard Zeppelin's 'Whole lot of love' done by Mary J Blige the other day. I am still too shocked to put in a report on it...

DeG

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:22 AM

Dolly Partons "I will always love you"........ a few have tried... the odd hit but it can't compare with Dolly singing it to Burt Reynolds in 'The greatest little Whorehouse in Texas'
Dolly singing to Burt.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 07 May 10 - 05:58 AM

This topic came up in a radio show. Burned into my memory are:

Bill Shatner's: (When I Was Seventeen) It Was a Very Good Year
The Brothers Four: Revolution

I like some of the Brothers Four tunes. Just goes to show you what can happen when you try to emulate a style you just don't appreciate. Big Daddy could take a new song, sing it in a 50s do-wop style and make it sound both hilarious and good at the same time. Brothers Four...nope.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 07 May 10 - 06:52 AM

Jose Feliciano's "Light My Fire"
BAD ?
Not in my book !   That's my favourite version.
DC

There's no accounting for taste :-)

To me he just murders it...I get no impression at all that *anyone's* "lighting his fire"...nice guitar work, but NO emotion.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:39 AM

Anything played by the Irish rebel band Athenrye......they grate on my nerves....

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Amergin
Date: 07 May 10 - 07:41 AM

Oh and anyone cruel enough to cover that horribly over maudlin song "Seasons In the Sun".

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:08 AM

"I don't think you can really have Norman Gunston in this list, because he was a fictional satirical character in the first place"

You aren't an Aussie surely, if you don't know who Garry McDonald was... if you really think that you can separate the two... :-)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:29 AM

Is that covers of the Terry Jack's version, Amergin, or covers of the original French version (La Moribond) by Jaques Brel? I would like to hear someone do it as Brel intended - Wife's infedelity and all but as I don't speak French I am not sure it would translate any better than Jacks (NOT English translation of Jaques!) version :-)

DeG

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: clueless don
Date: 07 May 10 - 08:35 AM

beeliner already mentioned "Mrs. Robinson" by Frank Sinatra, which gets my vote as worst cover of all time. My second-place vote would go to "Gentle on my Mind" by Dean Martin. I like a lot of Dean Martin's stuff, but he sure butchered Gentle.

Don

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:00 AM

Guns N Roses are responsible for dozens of bad covers including one by Charles Manson, but the worst injustice of all is their cover of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heavens Door". Axl's vocal histrionics actually manages to strip the song of it's emotional power.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: JJ
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:13 AM

Re: Terry Jack's rendition of the Jacques Brel song mentioned above.

The English adaptation/translation sung by Jacks as "Seasons in the Sun" is by Rod McKuen...

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:22 AM

Was he from the Bay City Rollers? :-)

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,John from Kemsing
Date: 07 May 10 - 10:39 AM

Anybody who has done "Unchained Melody". Let Al Hibbler be the last word.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: PHJim
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:20 PM

The Lawrence Welk Band's version of One Toke Over The Line ranks right up there. I wonder if Larry realized what "Tokin'" was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ye3ecDYxOkg

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: eddie1
Date: 07 May 10 - 12:59 PM

Sorry folks but when it comes to REALLY BAD these guys are strictly amateurs compared with Cher singing "Bells of Rhymney"!

It is on Spotify for those who tend towards the masochistic!

Eddie

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Ref
Date: 07 May 10 - 09:15 PM

Thank you, Joe Offer. ANYBODY doing "McArthur Park" is a bad cover. Sinatra's "Mrs. Robinson" is also just horrible, as you have a great song stylist completely miscalculating.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: oldhippie
Date: 08 May 10 - 05:59 PM

PHJ, Welk thought it was a new gospel number. "sweet jesus" !

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: RWilhelm
Date: 08 May 10 - 07:32 PM

I love Aretha, but not doing "Elenore Rigby"

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 08 May 10 - 07:36 PM

Well, some consider these great new "interpretations," but although I like the singers, I consider these more "butcherings" of the original songs than mere new "versions":
Eva Cassidy - Over The Rainbow
Bruddah Iz - Over The Rainbow (again)

And I say that because both of them almost totally lost/destroyed the song's melody (plus Iz butchered the lyrics too).

One I don't think is "awful" but IMO can't hold a candle to the way the songwriter herself sings it is Counting Crows' "Big Yellow Taxi."

Then there's UB40's reggae version of Elvis's "(I) Can't Help Falling In Love (With You)." For one thing, he changes the line "Like a river flows surely to the sea, darling, so it goes; Some things are meant to be" to "... flows gently to the sea .." - thus destroying the simile.

One more gawdawful rendition of a song - DK if you could call it a "cover - is Patsy Cline's lounge-singer style rendition of "Life's Mountain Railway."   It's so bad it's actually funny.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rob Naylor
Date: 09 May 10 - 04:54 AM

Gotta add a couple more:

Scissors Sisters version of "Comfortably Numb". 'Orrible!

Ronan Keating's "Fairytale of New York"

Elaine Paige's "Radio Ga Ga"

Rod Stewart's cover of "Sailing"

There's no end to them..............

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Genie
Date: 09 May 10 - 05:11 AM

Anything covered by Danial O'Donnell

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST
Date: 09 May 10 - 06:52 AM

When I read the title of this thread my immediate thought was Frank Sinatra butchering Mrs Robinson. Three people have beaten me to it but it has to be said again - awful!!

Roger

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Silas
Date: 09 May 10 - 07:14 AM

Sadly, Jaques Brell's songs are almost impossible to translate into English and keep the meaning. Port of Amsterdam is almost unrecognisable lyrically to the original (great song though) and Terry Jacks 'seasons in the sun' is a travesty.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 10 - 11:52 AM

I can't really go for Tom Waites' version of "Tiptoe Through the Tulips"...it doesn't hold up well at all against Tiny Tim's definitive rendition.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Tunesmith
Date: 09 May 10 - 11:57 AM

I do hate it when "swinging" finger snapping singers do folkie type material. The way Jack Jones "swings" "Homeward Bound" is the perfect example of this sort of thing.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Rapparee
Date: 09 May 10 - 12:41 PM

It is obvious from the foregoing that you have never heard ME sing -- which is just as well.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 May 10 - 02:06 PM

Bloody right!   ;-)

I've been wondering what sort of a job Celine Dionne could do on "Highway to Hell".

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 09 May 10 - 04:39 PM

I am quite happy with my duvet cover

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: GUEST,Gail
Date: 10 May 10 - 08:09 AM

Bobby Darin's 'Beyond the Sea' is a truly awful 'swinging, finger snapping' cover. It just rips the heart out of Charles Trenet's gorgeous 'La Mer'.

Subject: RE: Really BAD Covers
From: Tug the Cox
Date: 10 May 10 - 09:12 AM

Lee Marvin's 'Wandering Star' would win hands down.....if it wasn't actually the original.