Covers: Warm and snuggly or hot and stifling

Covers are a controversial thing in the world of music listeners. Some people love them. Some people think they were the first evil let out of Pandora's Box. Others don't even realize they exist "Britney didn't write (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction? What?"

For me, it really depends on the cover. Some I love. Some bother me. But truth be told, I'd rather listen to a cover that sounds nothing like the original than hear it basically remade. Anyhow, the way I see it there are three types of cover songs.

1.) The Tribute cover.
I'm not talking about singing a song for a tribute album or a tribute concert. That's a different issue entirely. This is more a la Jack White singing Dolly Parton's Jolene. And not changing the genders because it's how she would've sung it.


These are fine. They may sound similar to the original version, but hopefully not too much.

2.) The "it's a really good song, so I'm going to put my own spin on it" cover.
This is the most common sort of cover, and is generally not even thought about, since almost everyone does this. For instance, Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen. If I can't stand his original version, I could go out and listen to a version by any of the following people: Elisa, Maxwell Murder of Saturday's Car Ride Home, Rea Garvey of Reamonn, Alex Lloyd, Sephira, Adam Nikkel, Keren Ann, Willie Nelson, Beefy, Bono, Bon Jovi, Blake, Bret Darby, Clare Bowditch, Fred Eaglesmith, Steve Acho, Allison Crowe, Patricia O'Callaghan, Jackie Greene, Julie Felix, Damien Leith, Anthony Michael Hall [2], Bettie Serveert, Kenny Zhao, John Owen-Jones, Custard, k d lang, Kevin Max, Gord Downie, Simple Plan, Gov't Mule, Steffen Brandt/Tina Dickow (in Danish translation), K's Choice, Enrique Morente (flamenco version, translated to Spanish), Street to Nowhere, Wayne Whittaker, the Prayerbabies, Kevin Christy, Kathryn Williams, Lucky Jim, Over the Rhine, Pat Terlizzi, Myrra Malmberg, Susanna and the Magical Orchestra, Michael Wolff, The Brown Derbies, Imogen Heap, Popa Chubby, Jimm Zombie, Joe Wilson, Kristian Meurman (in Finnish), Hilary Scott, The Choir of Hard Knocks and Kate Voegele.

Okay, that was a bit unnecessary, but Wikipedia made it so easy.

Point is, there are songs like this that everyone forgets are covers, because everyone covers them. Another great example would be Knockin' On Heaven's Door. Or Yesterday by the Beatles.

3.)The Tragedy Cover
This is not so much the reason behind the attempt as it is the failure of said attempt. What exactly do I mean? This and this (not embedded due to awfulness).