Cover songs have a way of making you appreciate the artistry and versatility of a great song. The world was shocked by Johnny Cash's cover of Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, Kurt Cobain transformed David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World, and there's HOW MANY famous covers of Come Together?

Some covers take a lot of artistic liberties when it comes to lyrical content and instrumentation, with my favorite example being Macaulay Culkin's band The Pizza Underground, where they would play drums on pizza boxes and replace all heroin references in The Velvet Underground's discography with pizza related themes. It was great.

Other covers try to transform a song through different vocals or tone. There's plenty of great (and some not so great) examples of this on Metallica's Blacklist, which was a release of The Black Album featuring over 50 covers from a vast array of musicians. Highlights for me were St Vincent's Sad But True, Corey Taylor's Holier than Thou, Cage the Elephant's The Unforgiven, Pheobe Bridger's Nothing Else Matters, Of Wolf and Man from Goodnight Texas, IDLES version of The God That Failed, and Kamasi Washington's jazz cover of My Friend of Misery.

My favorite covers are Yaeji's cover of Drake's Passionfruit, Denzel Curry's cover of Bulls on Parade by Rage Against the Machine, and The Wiggles' (yes, The Wiggles) cover of Elephant by Tame Impala.

Here are those songs, though be warned there is some strong language in the final minute of Denzel Curry's cover.

My favorite cover of all time is by one of my top 10 muscians NateWantsToBattle. He did a cover of Emperor's New Clothes and I love his version significantly more than the original by Panic! At The Disco. I also love all covers by Amanda Lee.

Cover songs are hit and miss. Sometimes they can be just as good if not better than the original. Other times they fall flat compared to the original. Its really 50/50 when it comes to a cover song.

However some artists have had success doing a cover up. Here are some of my favorites. In no particular Order.

The Dave Clark 5 do you love me. In 1962 the Contours had a smash with Do you love me (now that I can dance). The song was fast paced. However, 2 years later British Rock Band the Dave Clark 5 did a cover in 1964. They added the British Rock sound to it while keeping the original speed. They also added a Saxophone to it. Their version was also a smash hit being certified gold. Both versions are great but I really like DC5's version better.

Knock on Wood by Ammi Stewart this is a cover of Eddie Floyd's version. Eddie Version had the original. Floyd's version was a top 40 hit peaking I wanna think at number #23 on the charts in the late 1960's. Amii Stewart sped the song up and added a disco theme to it in 1979. Her version is really an upbeat version and its one you can groove to. Her version hit #1 on the charts. Her version is the better of the two.

I need your loving by Johnny Rivers. The original version of this song was done by legendary band the Four Tops. The Four Tops version hit #11 on the charts and went Gold. It established the Four Tops as a top Motown band. Johnny Rivers three years later during the Summer of Love in 1967 decided to do a cover of the song. His version is equally as good as the Four Tops. He just made it more of a soft rock version. Both versions are played on Oldies stations to this day. River's version charted #2 on the carts and also went gold. Both versions are good to listen to.

Sticking with Johnny Rivers he also did a remake of Smoky Robinson's Track my Tears. Smoky's version was also a top 10 hit and was certified Gold. His version had the Motown Sound. Once again Rivers added a new sound to it. His version was also a top 10 hit and was also certified gold. Both versions are played on Oldies stations to this day. I highly recommend listening to both versions.

House of the Rising Son by the Animals. Its hard to know who did the original version as several versions of this song existed before British Rock band the Animals. It appears the Original may have originated in the Blues Band era 1920's to 1940's. I have heard earlier versions. The Animals nailed their cover of this song. The kept the Blues theme to the song. The Animals cover is described as the best cover that keeps the Blues theme. Their version hit #1 on the charts.

My favorite cover of all time is an english cover of my all time favorite song XY&Z it got removed from Youtube for using the original instrumental back in I wanna say 2020 so finding it to post wasn't easy but here's a link to someone who reuploaded it

Unfortunately, the best version I could find is some super low audio quality and bad music video someone made with clips from the anime. As for why some random Pokemon OP is my favorite song of all time and has been for 7 years now, I'd say that I love the way the song bounces back and forth during the verses when wearing a headset and then comes together so perfectly during the chorus and the song has my favorite guitar solo of all time but to focus on the lyrics in this English cover I'll fully admit it's cheesy or whatever but I used to listen to this song a lot when playing games with friends and it always kept me so pumped while playing so it reminds me of those times as well.

If you don't wanna count that since it's just a vocal cover I'll instead say my favorite cover is Escape From The City Funk RMX okay apparently it counts as a remix though it's a different arrangement of instruments a completely different vocalist and everything makes no sense to me but instead I'll go with, the Crush 40 cover of All Hail Shadow

This is the song that instantly comes to mind whenever I see the black and red hedgehog so I'm glad it has been used as his theme pretty much ever since, the original version I've gotten to the point I'd consider it okay but it just doesn't compare to having Crush 40.

I am so glad that you mentioned Denzel Curry's Like A Version cover of Bulls on Parade, because that is immediately what came to mind when I clicked on this thread. It is by far my favorite cover. I don't typically like covers, unless they change the original song in some way. Not only does Denzel's energy fit extremely well with Bulls on Parade, his choice to include a verse from SIRENS | Z1RENZ towards the end is brilliant. I honestly like Denzel's take on the song better than the original Rage Against the Machine version, and that is something I almost never say about covers.

I tend to not like covers, but the toploader version of Dancing in the Moonlight is one of my all time favorite songs.

There are a lot of other covers I like, such as With Confidence's Drops of Jupiter. Those are probably the only two covers I genuinely like more than the original.

bara I will see your Toploader and raise you the Muppets

Believe it or not, “Working My Way Back To You” is a favorite of mine cover by The Spinners. It was originally released by Frankie Vallie and The Four Seasons but how The Spinners put their funk into it was such a masterpiece. Definitely a favorite and one you should listen to.

https://youtu.be/RStkIO7JQd0 Frankie Vallie

https://youtu.be/TY_AlrfB3U0 The Spinners

I really love Florence + The Machine's cover of Stand By Me that was made for Final Fantasy XV. I really enjoy the original song too but something simply hits different about the cover to me.