Head for Cover

Covers, in my opinion, are a glorious thing. Whether a band is sampling, mashing up, or covering, there’s a good chance I’m going to enjoy it. Sure, Miley Cyrus singing Backstreet Boys isn’t going to do anything for me, nor is Nickelback singing anything, but doing a cover is automatically going to increase the chances for a pleasing performance, for me at least.

Some people get upset at covers. I was playing a song which sampled The Cure recently and my passenger’s response was “They’re ruining it.” Typical Cure fan. They’re not ruining it. They’re reimagining it. They’re taking something existing, and generally favorably accepted, and twisting it into something new. And while I have a slight issue with bands that do nothing but covers (I’m looking at you Me First) I think doing them as part of your act is great.

And generally, the stranger the better. Sure, David Bowie’s cover of China Girl is good, but he’s covering Iggy Pop. It’s like imitating your twin. It’s much more fun when Johnny Cash covers Nine Inch Nails or Placebo covers Kate Bush. Mix it up and show us something new.

Sometimes the results are just amusing, but sometimes the cover surpasses the original. Who doesn’t like Save Ferris’s Come on Eileen better than Dexy’s? It’s only embarrassing when you don’t realize it’s a cover. I was at a concert where they started playing 99 Luft Balloons and a kid yells “Yeah Goldfinger!” Admittedly, the Goldfinger version is great, but I still wanted to smack the kid. But it happens to the best of us; I just found out Nothing Compares to U is a Prince song. My bad. (And yes, I just referred to myself as the best of us.)

Anyway, the point of this post was to show this clip:


Glee is a dang fun show. I had a bit of a heterosexual crisis last week watching this episode. I was thinking about how much I enjoyed this show, then Kristin Chenoweth showed up and I liked it even more. And then they started singing Queen and I liked it even more. And I then realized I needed a girlfriend. Point being, take one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite bands, have a glee club (which incidentally is not my favorite musical subgenre) cover it and the result is fantastic.