I love cover songs, usually. If done right they can rival the original or,   in some cases exceed them. 

 Here are a few of my favorites from throughout the years.

 Of course, in the usual list fashion, there are some rules I set for  myself: 

 

1 - I have to also really like the original version. This means Soft Cell's "Tainted Love" and Naked Eyes "Always Something There To Remind", two songs I can listen to and never tire of, can not be on the list because I barely know the original Goria Jones or Niel Sedeka versions, Agnostic Front's "Crucified" because I am not really fond of Iron Cross's original. 

2- No songs from the album that were all covers or from tribute albums. There are some I really like Sonic Youth's version of The Carpenter's "Superstar" ( itself a cover of a Delaney and Bonnie song) would be on this list but was usually recorded for the purpose of being on that collection. These were all done because the bands just liked them.

1- 7 Seconds - 99 Red Balloons (NINA)  - Walk Together, Rock Together LP (1985,

BYO Records) - There was a time when I had a 45 of Nena's hit which had the German version on one side and the English on the other side. I used to play one side, flip it over, and repeat.  I'm sure there are many fans of the Reno, Nevada melodic hardcore band 7 Seconds who are not aware this is a cover since they have been playing it for so long. For me it was seeing this on a cassette copy of their Walk Together, Rock Together Ep  (before it was extended to a full album) that brought me to be a fan of the band. 

2 - Botch-  O Fortuna (Orff) - John Birch Conspiracy EP (1997, Excursion Record) - An opera opus turned into a math/metal anthem. Pretty cool that Botch took on such a task so early in their career. 

3 - Breeders  - Happiness is a Warm Gun (The Beatles) -

Pod Album (1990, 4AD Records) - Being a humongous Pixies fan, I, of course, picked up bassist Kim Deal's (now on guitar) side project The Breeders, with Tanya Donnelly (Throwing Muses), bassist Josephine Wiggs (Perfect Disaster), and drummer Shannon Doughton (who was really Britt Walford from Slint, who I would not hear until the next year when Spiderland was released).. A couple songs in, as the producer Steve Albini called them, "The Bangles From Hell" debut album Pod was a cover of The Beatles' darkest song "Happiness is a Warm Gun" (off "The White Album"). Somehow the Breeders version was even darker fitting the mood of the album. Side Note: Kim's sister Kelly would not be a part of the band until 1992's Safari EP

4 -Down By Law - Best Friend (The Outlets) - S/T LP  (1991, Epitaph Records) - On Down, By Law's debut album they were Dave Smally, of course just off a stint fronting my favorite band ALL (as well as Dag Nasty and DYS, but I have to admit I had not heard either of those bands yet), backed by Dave Naz, Ed Urlik, and Chris Bagnozzi of The Chemical People. Two bands are part of what I call "The Big Three of Cruz Records" ( The third being Big Drill Car). Of course, I bought their self-titled debut album on the day it was released. The album has twelve powerful surf-influenced melodic punk songs. Right dab in the middle is "Best Friend", a song the liner notes say was originally by The Outlets. It would be almost 25 years until I would finally hear the Outlets's version when a comp of theirs popped up on Spotify. 

5 - The Futureheads - Hounds of Love (Kate Bush) - The Futureheads LP (2004, Rough Trade

Records) - Kate Bush is such a great and classic singer, with very complex song parts (check out the strings in her original version of this song) I am sure covering her song is not an easy task. The only other ones I've heard are Red Kross doing "Wuthering Heights" (on the Freedom of Choice comp) and Placebo doing "Running Up That Hill" years before Stranger Things gave the song new life. Somehow this XTC meets Stiff Records UK band pulled it off turning it into a fast-paced sing-along tune on their 2004 debut self-titled album. 

6 - Juliana Hatfield - Raisans (Dinosaur Jr) - Forever Baby EP ( 1992, Mammoth Records) - While in her previous band The Blake Babies, Julianna Hatfield had covered "Severed Lips", off Dinosaur Jr's self-titled debut album. That song would have probably made this list if as a seriously deep cut, Juliana hadn't covered a song off of my all-time favorite album Dinosaur Jr's You're Living All Over Me. Probably very hard to find a physical copy so search this song out on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever else you listen to music. While there check out the all-electric version of the song "Nirvana", which was previously recorded acoustic on The Blake Babies Rosy Jack World EP (where the "Severed Lips" cover was also located). 

7 - Helmet - Oven (Melvins) - Smells Like Smoked Sausage 2x7" (1992, Sub Pop Records) - I am

not a big Melvins fan at all. The only two albums I have by them are Gluey Port Treatments and Ozma, because they happen to be on the same CD. I still really listen to them but "Oven" off of Ozma would make it on a lot of my mixtapes. So I was pretty excited when Helmet covered it on one of the releases I received during my one year as a member of the Sub Pop Single club. This song is also Born Annoying, their collection of singles and B-sides 

8 - Killdozer - "I Am I Said" (Neil Diamond) - Little Baby Buntin' ( 1985, Touch and Go Records) - A band that does great cover versions. Each one is sung in bassist Michael Gerld's gravily voice. Even though I love this cover of Neil Diamond's classic tale of "Lost Between Two Shores" I actually like their cover of Coven's "One Tin Soldier" about equally. But that one was on an album of all cover songs entitled This One's For Ladies Only (also previously available on picture disc and 5x7" box set) which excludes it from being considered for this list. 

9 - The Melvins - Goin' Blind (KISS) - Houdini LP (1993, Atlantic Records) - Besides the first

two  Melvins albums are mentioned in the Helmet entry, sometimes I will pull out the 1993 Houdini album. Sometimes to listen to the whole thing but most times is just to blast this awesome version of the Kiss classic. Another cover by the Melvins I can listen to over and over is The Beatles "I Want to Hold Your Hand" but that, like Dinosaur Jr's almost equal version of "Goin' Blind", is on a record of all covers.  

10 - The Damned - Alone Again Or (Love) - Anything LP (1988, MCA Records) - Last but not least is the song that finally brought me to check out the band Love. (You can read about that here: here). Make sure to check out the video where at the end a plane flies by at the exact right moment. 

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4MfR7z5EfdcX6H28lWAbDI?si=bdce13f710a24498

Numbers 79 - 70 of My Top 100 Favorite Albums of All-Time

If you are still interested, here are...

Numbers 79-70 of My 100 All-Time Favorite Albums

 

* means I bought the album right when it was released or at the latest a few months

# means I discovered it later (some of these of course are pretty obvious)

79) Misfits - Walk Among Us- (82, Ruby/Slash) 

- At one time or the other I've had copies of all their pre-reunion albums. Multiple pressings of each. Eventually they were all sold or traded away. I always manage to hold on to a physical copy of Walk Among Us, whether it be CD or album. There are very good songs scattered around other albums and eps but in this one, every track is a classic.(#)

78) King Crimson - In The Court Of (1969, Island) - The only progressive (prog) release on the list. Unless you consider a certain British band that appears later. But at this point I wouldn’t even consider King Crimson all the way into the genre. The lead-off song “21rst Century Schizoid Man” is almost protopunk, "Moonchild" is almost experimental jazz, and the title track classical. Actually add these all together and I guess do get progressive rock. (#)

77) - Dwarves - Blood, Guts, and Pussy (1990, Sub

Pop) - The Dwarves second album and first for Sub Pop they dropped the reverb garage for a far more punk rock sound. It worked out great. B,G, & P may only be 13 minutes long, about as long as a usually Dwarves set was, but it is perfectly filled with all the sleazy fast garage punk you could ask for. Let's just say the album's "notorious" cover art fits perfectly. (*)

76) The Damned - Machine Gun Etiquette (79, Chiswick) - The Damned is a band that I have pretty much every studio album. Except for the maybe the debut a lot of them do possess a good amount of filler. Machine Gun may be the only one which doesn't. Every song is awesome. It also contains my favorite Damned song "Melody Lee". I would say few albums could match if for best closing track in "Smash it Up" parts 1 and 2. (#)

75) Pet Shop Boys - Please (1985, Parlophone/

E.M.I.) - Probably hard to imaging now since the band is so known but when the Pet Shop Boys' video for "West End Girls" was on tv the band had a certain sense of mystery. The song and video contained almost no information. Just a lot of hazy imagery similar to The Specials "Ghost Town" song and video from a few years before. Even the next track "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" had a little. These two songs along with "Suburbia" and eight others have kept Please and its almost equally good follow up Actually safely in my rotation. (*)

74) New Bomb Turks - Destroy-Oh-Boy! (1993, Crypt Records) - The legendary New Bomb Turks/Gaunt split had been impossible to find so this was my first time actually hearing them. Nothing I read about the band before this prepared me for this fast bulldozing garage rock. The only time they really let up a bit is about halfway through the album on their cover of Wire's "Mr. Suit". (*)



73) Placebo - S/T (1996, Hut) - The first time I became are of this

UK band was when the last thing shown on 120 Minutes one Sunday night was the video for Placebo's "36 Degrees". There was no introduction of information. I did not even find out until later if the singer was a man or a woman. Brian Molko possesses one of the most original voices out there. Plus the songs are fast and hook-filled. Where some of these bands get their sound watered down when it comes time for an album producer Brad Wood kept all this albums noise intact. Especially on the fast "Teen Angst", "Bruise Pristine", and the pulverizing "Nancy Boy". (*)

72) - The Breeders - Pod (1990, 4AD)- Of course

everyone knows the big hit “Cannonball” with the then consisting it the Deal twins, Kim and Kelly. What too many people aren't aware of it that before recruiting her sister Kim Deal had teamed up with Throwing Muses’ Tanya Donnelly, and Perfect Disaster’s Josephine Wiggs, grabbed Slint’s Britt Walford on drums and released the Steve Albini produced Pod a few years earlier. The album is much darker and creepier than Last Splash, or even anything Kim's main band The Pixies had done, but it also has better hooks and a Beatles cover. (*)

71) The Adolescents - S/T (1981, Frontier) -

The Adolescents debut album was one of the earliest punk albums I heard. Sixteen songs of teenage rage I could totally relate too in "Who is Who", "Wrecking Crew" and "Kids of The Black Hole". Plus the classic "Amoeba". Twenty four years after someone gave me a fourth-generation tape containing this album it still remains in heavy rotation. (#)

70) Cinerama - Torino (Scorpitones, 2003) - A few years after the demise of his former band The Wedding Present David Gedge teamed up with his girlfriend Sally Murrel to form Cinerama. The band still had the similar awesome of sometimes broken-hearted subjects like his former band but they were now just a little quieter, adding almost movie soundtrack orchestration. They put out some singles, compiled on two compilations, and two full-length albums but really shined on 2003's Torino. The Steve Albini production fits the returning buzzing guitars and string arrangements perfectly. David would find the band sounding louder and more similar to his former band. David changed the name of the band back to The Wedding Present. They may be making an appearance later on this list. (*)

NEXT UP: 69 - 60

Out Of The Vault's # 20 - The Pixies - Doolittle

I usually try not to do too many "Out Of The Vaults" in a row but when my wife picked out one of the greatest albums of all-time I just could not wait.

Out Of The Vaults #20 - The Pixies - Doolittle (1989)

Let's try to forget all that we know about the Pixies after the Doolittle album. Forget that we know the band released two more albums before splitting up. Forget we know singer/guitarist Black Francis changed his name to Frank Black and went solo while bassist/singer Kim Deal formed the Breeders with her twin sister Kelly. Let's try to ignore that we know The Pixies reunited in 2004, then celebrated Doolittle's 20th Anniversary a few years later.

While we are at it let's try to forget about The Pixie's first Mini-LP Come On Pilgrim and first album Surfer Rosa because when Doolittle was released I'm positive most of us did not even know those records existed.

Just ignore all that. Wipe it from your mind. Now picture yourself putting Doolittle on the turntable and hearing it come through your headphones for the first time. Hearing one of your all-time favorite albums for the first time. For me, it was when I was 16 years old in 1989.

The Pixies album Doolittle was out for at least a month or two before I finally picked it up. The video for "Monkey Gone To Heaven" was in regular rotation on MTV's 120 Minutes for a few weeks but on those squeaky, fuzzy  VHS tapes I constantly recorded over each week, the song just did not sound too hot.  After seeing in Rolling Stone Magazine that Doolittle was climbing up the charts I figured even though the  "Monkey Gone To Heaven" video had failed to win me over, maybe it was time to give the rest of the album a chance.

When the needle hit the vinyl for "Debaser" I am greeted with a couple bass notes before a melodic surf riff comes in. Just when I am about to think this is nothing too groundbreaking, Black Francis's manic vocals take over. Not only are they manic but he is singing about slicing up eyeballs and something in indecipherable French or Spanish. The vocals are not even going with the melody.  What have I gotten myself into here? Soon the first chorus with that smooth guitar from the beginning, only this time with Kim Deal's smooth-spoken vocals contrasting Black  Francis's shrieks of "Debaser". Black Francis's manic vocals return for a second verse. Once again they are still not going with the melody but for some reason, it works. For the second chorus, Kim once again joins Black Francis only time she sings. While Joey Santiago's guitar is bringing the song home I  begin to think this album may be something special. About twenty seconds into the "Tame" I am convinced.

The song goes from a quiet whisper of Black Francis accompanied by a bouncy bass line to the full band accompanied by shrieking vocals and right back down before repeating again. When it is over and I wonder what just happened, the guitars of "Wave of Mutilation" come roaring in. That is exactly what the song sounds like. Close your eyes and try not to picture the sounds or the guitars forming a wave bowling over everything in its path.

"Bleed" proves even more original than Track 2. After an intro of swirling guitar hooks and a steady bass line, we receive our first Black Francis Kim Deal duet only Kim's vocals sound as if they are haunting Black Francis's. After two verses, broken up by more guitars, at just under two minutes the guitars suddenly twist downwards. They continue to twist lower and lower while Black Francis's voice becomes more and more desperate and Kim's voice becomes more and more evil. By the time the song was over, not only was I beginning to think Doolittle may be one best albums I have ever heard, I also think it may be one of the scariest too.

But then something strange happens. A very upbeat bass line comes over the headphones. It is soon followed by an upbeat full band. Just when I think Black Francis's manic shrieks would break in instead he sings very happily. "Here Comes Your Man" turns out to be an upbeat, clean and very catchy pop song. Kim's vocals seem happy for Black Francis's vocals and not haunting them like they did on the last track.

With the song that follows I am reminded this is not a Pop record. "Dead" is yet another totally original-sounding song, with piercing guitars and more of Black Francis's manic vocals, only this time they are distorted and buried under the music. Becoming more melodic for the chorus's, the song acts as almost the anti-version of "Debaser".

At the end of Side One, I find that song which was just on MTV's 120 Minutes for the fifth straight week. "Monkey Gone To Heaven" sounds so much better coming through my headphones than the television speakers. Now I can really hear each one of Joey Santiago's guitar riffs. I can really feel each strum of Kim's bass. There is even a cello and strings lurking underneath the whole song that I never detected when listening to the song recorded on those VHS tapes. As the song and Side 1 came to an end I could not believe I almost didn't give Doolittle a chance.

Of course, I cannot flip the record over fast enough.

Side 2's first track "Mr Grieves" begins with the slow creeping guitar plucks accompanied by Black Francis's now creepy vocals before the song picks up. After hearing this song and it's Spanish-flavored follower "Crackity Jones", I realized Side Two will be no less amazing than Side One.

When the Drummer David Lovering sung "La La Love You" comes on, The Pixies once again prove they can throw a totally different-sounding song into the mix without it sounding at all out of place. David's vocals, as well as the surf-tinged guitar and vocal appearance by all four members of the band (Black Francis contributes a very nice "Shake your butt"), make the song a nice variation on the darker sound of the other songs on the record.

The steady-paced "No. 13 Baby" and swirling build-up of "There Goes My Gun" keep the album flow going before Black Francis calls a halt to it with the slower "Hey". With its totally original format, awesome lyrics and well-placed guitar riffs, and Black Francis varied vocal styles, "Hey" proves to be an unexpected highlight of the album.

After "Silver", with its Black Francis/Kim Deal vocal duet, slide guitar and thudding bass the album is about to come to a close but it is not going quietly. "Gouge Away" begins a steady laid-back song with a bouncy bass line but thirty seconds in the guitars begin to rev back up. Pretty soon Black Francis is back in full manic mode with loud guitars ringing. The song acts as the perfect bookend to "Debaser" up at Track 1 without a clunker anywhere found between them.

Doolittle was a landmark album for me in another way. When I went to the local record store to purchase the album I was shocked to find all the vinyl had been relocated to the back room of the store. Compact Discs and Cassettes had overtaken the much larger front room. When I went to the same record store a year later to buy The Pixie's next album Bossanova, the vinyl section was gone altogether.

Here are The Pixies performing "Wave of Mutilation" in 1990. I urge you to check out all the classic live videos of The Pixies playing songs off of Doolittle on YouTube.