1. The original has to be a well known song. Sure, I'd get excited if I heard some random band cover an h&s song, but virtually no one outside the MFR community would know what the hell was going on.
2. The cover has to be done in the spirit of the original. As much as I liked Sheryl Crow strumming her guitar to "Sweet Child O' Mine," I'm sure the guys of Guns 'n Roses were rolling around in their collective graves. Or something.
3. The cover has to be original. There's no point in doing a cover song if you make it sound like the original. The artist has to do something to take possession of the song, without breaking rule two.
4. The cover has to stand the test of time. Sure, we all cried along with Whitney Houston when she sang, "I Will Always Love You," but who doesn't think it's the most cheesetastic, overplayed love song that makes you want to strangle yourself whenever you hear it these days?
5. The cover song can't be the vehicle to the artist’s fame. You can't ride a song someone else did first to the top. Either do a cover song because it's fun and cool and you don't care about becoming famous, or do a cover song because it's fun and cool and you're already famous. Apologies to Alien Ant Farm.
6. The cover song has to be on a record somewhere. You can do a really great cover, but if no one knows about it, you can't really call it "The Best," can you? A song covered live and then put on record is perfectly acceptable, but not until it's actually recorded and distributed.
7. The cover has to be complete. You can't sample part of a song, write a whole bunch of stuff yourself, and then call it a cover. Apologies to Diddy. (No, wait. No apologies there. My bad. He just needs to stop.)
8. Bonus points for covering a bad song and making it good, more bonus points for covering a good song and making it great, and even more bonus points for covering a really awesome song and making it even better.
So, keeping those rules in mind, I couldn't bring myself to anoint these as the "Best":
howie&scott - any cover they never recorded
Pearl Jam/Neil Young - Keep On Rockin' in the Free World
No Doubt - Come On Eileen
Run DMC - Walk This Way
Reel Big Fish - Take On Me
Boyz II Men - Yesterday
Life in General - Daydream Believer
Manfred Mann - Blinded by the Light
Marilyn Manson - Tainted Love (a cover song I actually called before it happened)
All good cover songs, no question. It's hard for me to not name Not Doubt's "Come On Eileen" as my best cover song ever, because that was such a great song to begin with. But when someone tops it, you can't deny it. So, I give you, as the best cover song ever, Goldfinger's "99 Red Balloons."
The original was well known, in English and German. It's a song about the craziness of nuclear war redone by a punk band. Goldfinger made it their own by speeding it up a bunch and then starting it in English before doing a verse in German. It's still good now after it came out a number of years ago. They weren't "famous" then, and I'd argue they're not really "famous" now, despite some video play on MTV for a bit, and some radio play every once in a while here. It's recorded not once, but twice, first on the album Stomping Ground, and then on the live album Foot in Mouth. They covered the whole song, and they get bonus point for making a cool song much better.
I'd like to hear what other people think of this, or other cover songs, but just keep the rules in mind (or suggest new ones).
