For some reason, I find cover songs almost endlessly fascinating. Julian Sanchez remarked yesterday that “For some reason, I had remembered the Bangles cover of ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’ as being much better than it is.” Similarly, up until yesterday I had recalled Orgy’s cover of “Blue Monday” as bad, but then I heard it randomly and it’s really, really, really bad. Conversely, the comment thread to Julian’s post turned up a link to Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt”, which is fantastic.
The true tragedy of the “Blue Monday” episode, however, is that they were covering a perfectly excellent song. The best covers, accordingly, are the ones that actually take a bad song and turn it into a good one. “Love Buzz” is what comes to mind, but there are others.