we spent like over an hour on this
Sam and I were talking and reached the conclusion that Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan should have a slap fight for the title of "My Song Has the World's Crappiest Cover Version
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Comments 18
And perhaps the most impressive member of Scarlett's band is her backing vocalist, a guy named David Bowie who's had some success outside of Johansson's band as well.
Also one of those "no one else agrees with me", but in terms of bad covers of "Hallelujah", I have to put Buckley up there with all the others. It just pains me deeply every time I hear it. He managed to take a really unique and powerful song, and make it sound like most generic pop ballad ever.
And for Dylan, some of it's just a function of there being so many covers out there, period. He's probably got some of the best and some of the worst covers around. Ani DiFranco doing "Most of the Time" is wonderful, as is Los Lobos doing "On A Night Like This" (which sadly doesn't appear to exist online). And I think this might be simultaneously one of the best and worst covers ever: Come una ( ... )
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I don't find Buckley's cover generic, but I can see the pop elements in "Hallelujah." I guess I feel the song is consciously populist. Leonard Cohen is quoted as saying that he got into the music industry because he wasn't making enough money as a writer. (Which is pretty baller: "Oh, I need money, guess I'll break into the music industry." You have to be Cohen to pull that one off.) Which of course isn't to say he's a hack, but it indicates a general interest in pleasing large numbers of people, which I don't think is always bad art. I'd say Buckley makes the song more accessible because he plays up the emotion of the melody, whereas I often feel Leonard Cohen uses melody as something which enhances his words and inflections.
Not like I spend a whole lot of time thinking about Leonard Cohen or anything, so don't think that.
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As I mentioned in a reply to Ann down below, I think somehow I just hear the Buckley version differently. I love sentiment. And that's my problem with Buckley's version. When I hear that song, it sounds to me like he doesn't care at all. I get zero emotion out of it. On a technical level, the performance is perfectly adequate, but it just feels like it's going through the motions. Other covers, however lacking in technical merit, at least sound to me like the song means something to singer.
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Relatedly, I have a very large collection of covers of "Wild Horses" by the Rolling Stones. I'm obviously obsessed with the Bush version; Jewel's is one of the worst.
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