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This could go one of two ways: bad versions of good songs or covers of songs that weren’t any good in the first place. The one that brought this topic to mind for me was Scream’s “Green Eyed Lady” from Another Shot for Bracken. The original was the soundtrack for Dr. Madblood, a local late night horror cheese show I grew up with. I will never not think of that show when I hear this song. Plus, it’s just schlocky as hell and Scream did not improve it one bit.

I hate the gimme-gimme thing that dumbs down any song to it’s power chord/90npm Ramones style equivalent. I guess it was kind of funny or clever the first hundred times. And the final result isn’t necessarily ‘bad’. Just generic and unimaginative as fuck. Every time I hear a punk band do a cover song, it’s some variation of this. I think the Dickies did it best. Everyone after can just fuck off.

Here is an example of taking a bad song and making it sassy & sensual.






I asked her to cover Too Drunk Too Fuck next, fingers crossed!

7 Seconds’ cover of “99 Red Balloons” is a lousy version of a great song. [Ducks].

xxxHunterxxx wrote:7 Seconds’ cover of “99 Red Balloons” is a lousy version of a great song. [Ducks].

I have always thought it was a fun cover live, but the recorded version is a great big "meh". Especially after you have heard it two or three times.

FlexMyHead wrote:Here is an example of taking a bad song and making it sassy & sensual.

Wow, I can't believe how terrible that is. Like, if "Green Eyes" had been a top 20 hit in 1985 that version would be featured in a film trailer this year. It's that kinda bad.

Wow she is gorgeous but that cover SUCKS.

FlexMyHead wrote:Here is an example of taking a bad song and making it sassy & sensual.






I asked her to cover Too Drunk Too Fuck next, fingers crossed!

FormerLurker wrote:Wow she is gorgeous but that cover SUCKS.

X2

SamDBL wrote:I hate the gimme-gimme thing that dumbs down any song to it’s power chord/90npm Ramones style equivalent. I guess it was kind of funny or clever the first hundred times. And the final result isn’t necessarily ‘bad’. Just generic and unimaginative as fuck. Every time I hear a punk band do a cover song, it’s some variation of this. I think the Dickies did it best. Everyone after can just fuck off.

This. I was disappointed when I heard the original „Paranoid“ for the first time.

However, I quite enjoyed The Punkles‘ ramonesstyle cover versions of Beatles songs.

pedro wrote:

xxxHunterxxx wrote:7 Seconds’ cover of “99 Red Balloons” is a lousy version of a great song. [Ducks].

I have always thought it was a fun cover live, but the recorded version is a great big "meh". Especially after you have heard it two or three times.

I can't tell if you two are trolling here, honestly.

Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

jaybird wrote:

FormerLurker wrote:Wow she is gorgeous but that cover SUCKS.

X2

What’s her live schedule so I can show up and yell ‘show us your tits!’ during this song.

SamDBL wrote:Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

I've sung it "Dave-style" while doing drunk karaoke before to the tracks of the original version... seems to get a good response, haha

jaybird wrote:

SamDBL wrote:Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

I've sung it "Dave-style" while doing drunk karaoke before to the tracks of the original version... seems to get a good response, haha

To my chagrin, it is the most recognizable and beloved song we ever did. Go figure. Also, anyone ever notice how MxPx does our arrangement of the song? Weird.

The Lemonheads’ cover of “Luka” is ghastly and inexplicably popular. (And I love the Lemonheads).

SamDBL wrote:Also, anyone ever notice how MxPx does our arrangement of the song? Weird.

It never crossed my mind until now. Definitely have to re-listen to that. I do recall liking that little interlude of Cheap Trick's Surrender.

Mark T. wrote:

SamDBL wrote:Also, anyone ever notice how MxPx does our arrangement of the song? Weird.

It never crossed my mind until now. Definitely have to re-listen to that. I do recall liking that little interlude of Cheap Trick's Surrender.

Dave came up with 'surrender' in our version because he didn't want to do 'ah de la daaaa'. Which, I guess, gave them the idea for that interlude. Other than that, all of the tempo changes are in the same spots and the guitar player does the octave stabs I put in one of the verses because I was too dumb to think of anything else back then. I think the lyrics are even changed where Dave changed them in other spots? I dunno. Iet the guy a few years ago. Nice guy. This did not come up.

SamDBL wrote:Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

It gives me satisfaction that someone who played on it says that because I just flat out don't like that song and couldn't fathom why anyone would want to cover it; it was such an annoying earworm back then.

JGJR wrote:

SamDBL wrote:Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

It gives me satisfaction that someone who played on it says that because I just flat out don't like that song and couldn't fathom why anyone would want to cover it; it was such an annoying earworm back then.

Drummers idea. And he was obviously much more in tune with our audience. I think it’s kinda silly. Turns out, fans of 90s punk *love* silly. These days we throw on a 3 or so minute outro extension on it so that I can do a long solo. Which at least makes it less boring to play.

I remember Dave talking with some other band after a Don't Sleep show and mentioning have he didn't like doing cover songs unless they were changed up a bit to noticeably make it sound different than the original.

lewdd wrote:I remember Dave talking with some other band after a Don't Sleep show and mentioning have he didn't like doing cover songs unless they were changed up a bit to noticeably make it sound different than the original.

That explains the Dag covers...

Sam, maybe you should have Cleopatra or Kung Fu reissue all DBL cover songs on one release.

I'm not a fan of the Minor Threat cover of "Good Guys".

lewdd wrote:Sam, maybe you should have Cleopatra or Kung Fu reissue all DBL cover songs on one release.

That’d require them to pay a lot of various labels licensing fees. It would also be hard to track all that shit down. For about ten years straight we said ‘yes’ to any small label one-offs and comps. Many were covers. I don’t even remember half the stuff. And would have no idea of how to track down.
As for making covers sound different… that’s generally how we approach it. However, we were recently asked to be on a ‘punk does yacht rock’ themed Comp. We chose ‘precious and few’ by Climax. And we challenged ourselves to see how close to the original we could get. The fuckin thing is dead on. To the point that it almost sounds like karaoke. So much so that the label then rejected it because they, of course, expected us to do the MFATGG dipshit thing. One day we will release it, though.
Dave did bring up doing a new wave covers thing the other day. We’ll see.

JGJR wrote:

pedro wrote:

xxxHunterxxx wrote:7 Seconds’ cover of “99 Red Balloons” is a lousy version of a great song. [Ducks].

I have always thought it was a fun cover live, but the recorded version is a great big "meh". Especially after you have heard it two or three times.

I can't tell if you two are trolling here, honestly.

I liked the 7 Seconds version in the ‘80s. These days I prefer the original.

SamDBL wrote:

JGJR wrote:

SamDBL wrote:Also, 500 Miles. Horrible. I was totally against the idea from the start. And I can’t believe people enjoy it.

It gives me satisfaction that someone who played on it says that because I just flat out don't like that song and couldn't fathom why anyone would want to cover it; it was such an annoying earworm back then.

Drummers idea. And he was obviously much more in tune with our audience. I think it’s kinda silly. Turns out, fans of 90s punk *love* silly. These days we throw on a 3 or so minute outro extension on it so that I can do a long solo. Which at least makes it less boring to play.

That's not surprising (and true, I think) and one of the reasons I got off that train in the mid-'90s. The pop-punk that followed in the wake of every Epitaph/Fat type band aping NOFX or Bad Religion (but with much less interesting lyrics and vocals) just had much less appeal to me than the stuff that had gotten me into the music in the first place. I generally can't stand silly (note: very different from funny/humor) in music, not just punk but everything. These days, I can appreciate, say, certain Blink 182 songs, but their overall popularity still kinda perplexes me tbh. I must just be too old for it or something.

lewdd wrote:I'm not a fan of the Minor Threat cover of "Good Guys".

I love their version (same goes with "12XU"). I think they did the best versions of both songs tbh and I say that as a huge fan of the 1st 3 Wire albums.

I can remember a local band called TurboHydramatics of American guys who lived in Berlin in the mid-80s.
They played the Minor Threat version of Stepping Stone at their shows and the mostly punk/ underground audience loved it.

SamDBL wrote:

lewdd wrote:Sam, maybe you should have Cleopatra or Kung Fu reissue all DBL cover songs on one release.

That’d require them to pay a lot of various labels licensing fees. It would also be hard to track all that shit down. For about ten years straight we said ‘yes’ to any small label one-offs and comps. Many were covers. I don’t even remember half the stuff. And would have no idea of how to track down.
As for making covers sound different… that’s generally how we approach it. However, we were recently asked to be on a ‘punk does yacht rock’ themed Comp. We chose ‘precious and few’ by Climax. And we challenged ourselves to see how close to the original we could get. The fuckin thing is dead on. To the point that it almost sounds like karaoke. So much so that the label then rejected it because they, of course, expected us to do the MFATGG dipshit thing. One day we will release it, though.
Dave did bring up doing a new wave covers thing the other day. We’ll see.

You're hard on "500 Miles".....but I was less of a fan of the Frank Sinatra cover. Was that recorded pre-you?

captain2man wrote:

SamDBL wrote:

lewdd wrote:Sam, maybe you should have Cleopatra or Kung Fu reissue all DBL cover songs on one release.

That’d require them to pay a lot of various labels licensing fees. It would also be hard to track all that shit down. For about ten years straight we said ‘yes’ to any small label one-offs and comps. Many were covers. I don’t even remember half the stuff. And would have no idea of how to track down.
As for making covers sound different… that’s generally how we approach it. However, we were recently asked to be on a ‘punk does yacht rock’ themed Comp. We chose ‘precious and few’ by Climax. And we challenged ourselves to see how close to the original we could get. The fuckin thing is dead on. To the point that it almost sounds like karaoke. So much so that the label then rejected it because they, of course, expected us to do the MFATGG dipshit thing. One day we will release it, though.
Dave did bring up doing a new wave covers thing the other day. We’ll see.

You're hard on "500 Miles".....but I was less of a fan of the Frank Sinatra cover. Was that recorded pre-you?

Yes. I’ve only ever heard that once, I think. Don’t really remember it.

Interesting.

In my quest to find the absolute worst cover song in history, I think I may have found it.

captain2man wrote:In my quest to find the absolute worst cover song in history, I think I may have found it.

If that's the band COMPLETE (from Texas), and I think it might be, then...yeah, they are so far beyond "worst" that they've come out the other side.
Brilliant.

Can't decide if this is a good cover of a good song, a bad cover of a bad song, a good cover of a bad song, or a bad cover of a good song, so Imma post it in both threads.

jaybird wrote:Can't decide if this is a good cover of a good song, a bad cover of a bad song, a good cover of a bad song, or a bad cover of a good song, so Imma post it in both threads.

I’ll go with bad cover of a bad song. It sounds like they spent All of 10 minutes on it.

xxxHunterxxx wrote:

jaybird wrote:Can't decide if this is a good cover of a good song, a bad cover of a bad song, a good cover of a bad song, or a bad cover of a good song, so Imma post it in both threads.

I’ll go with bad cover of a bad song. It sounds like they spent All of 10 minutes on it.

I kinda agree... but I also think it's so bad it manages to circle back around back to good again.

Bad cover of an okay song, but I have a weakness for KISS. Hunter's assessment of ALL's performance is spot on. I mean, they're not obligated to fuck with it, but it sounds like they put zero thought or energy into the thing.