“Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen was once a lovely song. The it got covered (often badly), about 7,000 times. I heard Mr. Cohen put a moratorium on recording a new versions, and I rejoiced.
But now, I have heard yet another crappy cover played on my workplace crap radio station. Cover bands playing in bars, I get. But if these artists are so famous for being “talented”, maybe they should write their own fucking songs.
—no, I don’t want to hear your shitty ass version of a perfectly good song, thanks.
This article appears in Feb 4-10, 2010.
If I have to fucking hear “Brown Eyed Girl” covered one more fucking time… fuck. Fuck fuck fuck! I’m so angry now I can’t even think.
Yeah, how come nobody ever does “hazel eyed girl”?
FREEBIRD
Could be worse; it could be a drunken rendition of “Sweet Home Alabama”. Or “Free Bird”. Why don’t people just cover Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein, for that matter?
I heard that version too! I went to the website of that radio station and apparently it was made for Haiti by Justin Timberlake with two other people I’d never heard of. I don’t get why they couldn’t find another, less covered song.
I love the original and one or two of the covers but ENOUGH!!
not that i go to bar anymore but if i hear a bad rendition of mustang sally ever again i could go postal:)
yeah, it’s never the good songs that get covered.. hence some sort of need to ‘improve’ upon them. just look at whiskey in the jar.
If I ever hear “paved paradise” again, I will have earbuds surgically implanted over my eardrums so that I can only hear what I want… when I want.
and not those crappy, tinny apple ipod earbuds either…. some decent fucking ones. They do have to last afterall.
Sounds good zZz… implant me some decent Sennheisers. Even better, Shure.
Hey – cover bands aren’t allowed in the union if they can’t play Mustang Sally. LOL
Sadly, most of use get asked for Brown Eyed girl and / or Mustang Sally, and since they’re monkey simple to learn/play, most bands do them when requested.
zZz – the best Joni Mitchell cover ever was “This Flight Tonight” – even she says Nazareth did a better version of the song than she did…
back in my day every rock cover band was compelledto play tie your mother down; most very badly
Whatever. Leonard Cohen is over-rated… and Jeff Buckley blew his original of “Hallelujah” out of the water.
Shout 2000 (Tears for Fears cover) is one of my fav’s…
drift away by uncle kracker ain’t bad…
I suppose there is a need for a change, but when they sound exactly the same, what’s the fucking point?
like Billie Jean by Chris Cornell was excellent… and refreshing…
but so many are just utter crap.
Blue Monday by Orgy was pretty good. Agreed on Chris Cornell’s Billie Jean. There are a lot of hidden covered gems out there if you’re able to find them. Those that do a horrific job are those that can’t even write their own music in the first place. And don’t get me started on those mediocre cheap club cover bands. I grew up going to Smooth Hermans in Sydney. If it wasn’t the Hip or Bon Jovi, they weren’t hired…… BLAGH
Overrated?! Holy Christ, dude, Leonard Cohen is a fucking BRILLIANT artist. I’m kind of shocked right now.
I don’t mind Jeff Buckley, but he wouldn’t have been able to show off his lovely voice by singing “Hallelujah” without Leonard Cohen’s genius. I bet he doesn’t think Mr Cohen is overrated…
Yeah, perhaps FunkMonkey should actually listen to Leonard Cohen before making such proclamations. I mean, if it’s not your kind of musical taste, that’s one thing. But to question his musical credibility when he has proven his iconic stature in music today? Fail dude.
Cohen didn’t do that song justice at all !
Rufus Wainwrights version is way better than Cohen’s !!
Every night I say a hypocritical little prayer that none of Elton John’s friends will die because if I hear that fucking song again I’m climbing the Dal clock tower with a scope-mounted Remy and enough hollow point ammunition to cater an Afghan wedding reception. Note to Elton, the little boy with AIDS, the crushed Princess and the Italian Fashion Designer were NOT “found in the nude”!
Hey FunkMonkey,
Please don’t let (admittedly) “overplayed-ness” overshadow the brilliance of a song or it’s writer.
Leonard Cohen is one of the best writing talents this country has ever seen—and the fact that such diverse performers can cover his songs and make them sound new again after so many years is just one more testament to his genius.
It was a privilege to see the man perform so many of his best songs here in Halifax last year. Really, each song was like a gift. I have never seen such talent, combined with such graciousness, as I witnessed on the stage that night.
I know his voice is not to everyone’s taste, but it certainly has mellowed over time, and his songwriting—and performing—just gets better and better with age.
Say what you like about cover songs: they can be great or they can be atrocious. But don’t let a bad cover take away from a truly great original.
dead mans curve by nash the slash(jan and dean);the alltime worst knock’n on heavens door gnr (dylan)
good gawd… dylan’s was WAY worse… you should be praising GnR for cleaning that crapfest up.
As someone who has listened to Leonard Cohen extensively I stand by what I said. He is overrated.
His voice sucks, Jeff Buckley did a better job on that song.
I never said he was a bad songwriter. Cohen is a poet, not a singer.
Jeff Buckley is a poet and a singer, and he shows off his voice fine with his own songs, dude.
;eonard cohen is a fucking dinosaur,ad as such,he should’ve been extinct a hundred years ago.where the fuck is all this talent that everyone says is around.all i hear are some wangsta shit,crap,and some board screaching her lungs out.fuck me,where did i go wrong in being born in the last hundred years.
Jeff Buckley was fucking amazing. If he hadn’t died so young he’d have been just as big if not, bigger than Cohen.
Some of the best songwriters are not the best singers. Cohen and Dylan included. There is no doubt whatsoever, that those two are two of the best songwriters ever but neither of them can sing any better than the yahoos who play their stuff on the sidewalks of SPG. On the subject of cover tunes, how about this for a stinker, the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” by Limp Bizkit.
ha… I wonder how much Halle Berry was paid to make out with Fred Durst in the music video. Speaking of The Who….. hell of a performance at the Super Bowl. Nice light show too.
this reminds me of how the barenaked ladies butchered lovers in a dangerous time by bruce cockburn
i fuck’n hate the bare nekkid lady and the who proved themselves wrong by not dying young that was a great performance!
“” Why don’t people just cover Edgar Winter’s Frankenstein, for that matter?””
?!!
There are very few bands in Canada with the chops (and the ARP 2500) to do a “cool” version of this instrumental, and probably none at all right now in Halifax…how does this possibly compare to a stupid cover of “Sweet home”? I don’t get it…
“”And don’t get me started on those mediocre cheap club cover bands.””
Yeah well, we still fucked your girlfriends in the bandhouses after you went home puke drunk…
😉
they’d better thank god/allah/budha/spaghetti monster for csi or people wouldn’t know who they are….
I bet Warren Zevon’s rolling in his grave every time that Kid Rock piece of crap sampling “Werewolves of London” and “Sweet Home Alabama”gets overplayed on the radio.
It is sad that so many artists these days are coming out with “new songs” that are just samples from old good songs, with their shitty repetitive lyrics added in. Most artists dont even actually sing a full song anymore, they just have one or two lines that they repeat over and over again with a beat. I listen to talk radio now , can’t handle our music stations. The music is either really bad or just over played.
Check out YouTube’s version of Hallelujah with Kurt Nelsin and three other guys and a guitar or two … BEST version ever!
death to kid rock death by slow and agonizing methods!
Have you seen Jimmy Fallon’s Neil Young singing Pants On The Ground?