Best:
Joe Cocker & The Ivy League - With A Little Help From My Friends (The Beatles)
Joe Cocker & The Ivy League - Just Like A Woman
The Byrds - Mr. Tambourine Man/My Back Pages/Chimes Of Freedom (Bob Dylan)
The Rolling Stones - Little Red Rooster (Willie Dixon)
Sonny & Cher - All I Really Want To Do (Bob Dylan)
Deep Purple - Help/We Can Work It Out (The Beatles)
The Rolling Stones - I Don't Know Why aka I Don't Know Why I Love You (Stevie Wonder)
Manfred Mann - The Mighty Quinn/Just Like A Woman (Bob Dylan)
Led Zeppelin - In My Time Of Dying (Bob Dylan)
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - All Along The Watchtower/Like A Rolling Stone (Bob Dylan)
Guns N' Roses - Knocking On Heavens Door (Bob Dylan)
Johnny Cash - One (U2)
Joan Baez - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band)
R.E.M. - Have You Ever Seen The Rain (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Heard It Through The Grapevine (Marvin Gaye)
The Grateful Dead - Not Fade Away (Tim Hardin)
Roxy Music - Let's Stick Together (Canned Heat - Let's Work Together)
Roxy Music - Jealous Guy (John Lennon)
Mark Knopfler & Chet Atkins - Imagine (John Lennon)
The Beatles - Twist And Shout (Chubby Checker)
The Beatles - Dizzy Miss Lizzy (Little Richard)
The Tremeloes - Here Comes My Baby (Cat Stevens)
Aretha Franklin - Respect (Otis Redding)
Nirvana - The Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
Oasis - Street Fighting Man (The Rolling Stones)
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Pictures At An Exhibition (Modest Mussorgski)
Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Blinded By The Light (Bruce Springsteen)
UB40 - Red Red Wine (Neil Diamond)
Deep Purple - River Deep, Mountain High (Ike & Tina Turner)
Best Covers that really aren't any:
Melanie - Ruby Tuesday (The Rolling Stones/they wrote it for Melanie and recorded it after it became a hit for her)
The Rolling Stones - I Wanna Be Your Man (The Beatles/not really a cover because Lennon/McCartney wrote it for The Stones and decided to record it anyway after the Stones version)
Worst covers:
Bananarama - Help (The Beatles..was a hit for them and wasn't meant to be taken seriously but i hated it anyway..)
Joan Baez - Let It Be (The Beatles...now i really like Joan but she kinda overdid it with this one, if thought Let It Be couldn't get any "shmalzier" well..Joan proves you're wrong..)
Mad'House - Like A Prayer (Madonna...the raping of one of my favorite 80's tunes)
Cascada - Because The Night (Patti Smith..see above and simply you don't **** around with Patti..)
Take That - all the BeeGee songs they've covered
Mariah Carey - Without You (Harry Nilsson..well he did it but it was originally written by Bad Finger..however Carey's version is a reason adequate enough to go on a bloody killing spree..)
Mariah Carey - I'll Be There (The Jackson 5)
CCS - Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin...really redundant instrumental cover only bit shittier and surprisingly enough a huge hit for CCS, probably favourited by radio-stations back then because of the rather explicit lyrics of the original..)
Originally posted by Bat Dude
Motley Crue's version of Helter Skelter is pretty badass...And Metallica's version of Am I Evil...
Those, along with Metallica's version of Mechanix ( 😛 ) are the best... The worst, for me at least, would probably be:
Atreyu's version of Faith No More's Epic (the original kicks ass, but Atreyu's version sounds like pure vomit)
Disturbed's version of Faith No More's Midlife Crisis (they ruined my favorite song! 😠 )
Mariah Carey's version of Def Leppard's Bringing on the Heartbreak (she turned it all sappy, which imo, ruined any power the song had. It was completely neutered)
Fall Out Boy's version of Gorilla Biscuits' Start Today (ruined a perfectly good punk song, imo)
The Donnas' version of Ratt's Round and Round (I saw it on a YouTube video and I had to shut it off immediately: How could they ruin Ratt's mega hit!?!)
Good:
Cradle of Filth with Dirty Harry covering Temptation
Akercocke covering Leprosy and Chapel of Ghouls
Evanescence covering Thoughtless
Dream Theater, Russel Allen, Burton.C.Bell & Dave Musatine covering Cemetary Gates
Muse covering Feelin' Good
Within Temptation covering Running Up That Hill
Electric Six covering Radio Ga Ga
Johnny Cash covering Hurt
Bad:
Coheed and Cambria - The Trooper
Fightstar - Breaking The Law
Avenged Sevenfold - Walk
Metallica - Whisky In The Jar
FOB & Keith Buckley - Walk
Fightstar - Leper Messiah
Funeral For A Friend - Damage Inc.
Still Remains - Head Like A Hole
Bring Me The Horizon - Eyeless
Bullet For My Valentine - Crazy Train
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Jesus Christ Pose
Lost Prophets - Davidian
The Automatic - Epic
Gallows - Nervous Breakdown
Darkest Hour - Nazi Punks **** Off (Napalm Death 'nuff said)
Aiden - Drain You
Best:
Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
Nirvana - The Man Who Sold the World
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Higher Ground
Aretha Franklin - Respect
Chris Cornell - Billy Jean
Santana - Black Magic Woman
And of course the greatest:
Dynamite Hack - Boyz in the Hood
Worst:
Marilyn Manson - Sweet Dreams
Sheryl Crow - Sweet Child O'Mine
Avril Lavigne - Chop Suey
Dolly Parton - Stairway to Heaven
Tori Amos' dreadful "smells like teen spirit" will live forever in infamy.
Anything that is a shitty pretty boy chart pop punk cover of an existing previously cool tune.
G'n'R's cover of Sympathy for the devil:
There is no...I repeat...NO excuse for that barbarism.
FNM's versions of the Commodores "I'm Easy" "I wanna f*** myself" and "Warpigs" were so good they arguably better the originals.
G'n'R's "Live and let die" was an awesome cover of the Wings tune.
Machine Head did a really tasty version of Metallica's "Battery"..
Soundgarden's cover of "Stray cat blues" was damn cool.