When the cover is better than the original.
A comment on brianarn's recent post got me thinking about the few times that I've liked covers of songs better than the original songs. My short list includes:
- Red Hot Chili Peppers' cover of "Higher Ground" by Stevie Wonder
- Information Society's cover of "Are Friends Electric?" by Gary Numan
- Jefferson Airplane's cover of "Wooden Ships" by Crosby, Stills, & Nash (technically not a cover, since one of the members of Jefferson Airplane co-wrote it but wasn't credited)
- Abba Teens' cover of "Gimme Gimme Gimme" by Abba (yes, I know, that makes me a horrible person)
- Danielle Dax's cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows" by the Beatles
- Fortran 5's cover of "Layla" by Eric Clapton
- Señor Coconut's cover of "Smoke on the Water" by Deep Purple
- Jefferson Airplane's cover of "High Flyin' Bird" by Richie Havens
- DJ Sammy's cover of "Heaven" by Brian Adams