What are the examples of people covering camp/smartass/"lol irony" songs and turning them straight and poignant?

There are countless examples of performers turning old songs and corny sentiment into a knowing joke, but what are the cases where the opposite happens and someone takes a song that was originally very knowing, or campy, or smirking indie, and they turn it into something thoughtful, serious, poignant or full of pathos?

Is there an mp3 of Low making "Cut Your Hair" into a dirge about the loss of innocence? If not, what is there on this genre?

Only half counts since the original is by Gloria Jones, but Soft Cell's cover could be seen as the former, and Coil's cover would be the latter. Although Coil and Soft Cell are friends, so it's not that obvious either way. And yes, wouldn't call Gloria Jones "smirking indie" ever.

ur "Tainted Love" that is

There's also M. Ward's cover of David Bowie's "Let's Dance". The cover could very well be lol irony, but it's such a painfully boring cover, that it's difficult to bother parsing any lol-irony from it.

And calling the original Let's Dance "smartass" isn't fair at all, but it definitely has some camp

I think I get what the thread's asking... but camp, irony, and smart-assed-ness are rarely tied together tho :-/

Evan Dando "Step By Step" (New kids on the block cover)

i don't think there are many (any?) examples of this. evan dando, for instance, is a much more ironic and smirking performer than nkotb, and regardless of how he approaches it, that element is always gonna be present in his covering a big teenpop hit like that.

there are many examples of indie covers of big, glossy pop hits that strip the original down to something simple, understated and and often poignant. bedhead & macha's cover of cher's "believe" springs to mind. (can't find a youtube clip, but i'm sure there's a stream out there somewhere). these sorts of covers tend to play a poker-faced game with irony, presenting the material without an obvious wink, but still managing leave the question hanging.

it's very hard to think of counterexamples, though. for one thing, people haven't really started to revisit and recast 90s-style indie irony. for another, it's hard to imagine what the impetus might be. the built in wtf appeal of lemonheads guy covering nkotb or bedhead covering cher probably wouldn't apply to wrenching, funereal cover of beck's loser.

You're right.. The way he sings "Don't you know the time has arrived" is not to be taken 100% seriously, but he covered the song well IMO.

These are difficult to think of. Does this count?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJzetFWiXx0

Red House Painters turn "silly little love song" by Wings into something pretty ;_; somehow.

not to mention AC/DC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAcJrPQwaH8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=masNmZy5d6Y

That was KISS wasnt it? ;P but yeah, that one too!

xpost

http://www.last.fm/music/Susanna+and+the+Magical+Orchestra/_/It%27s+a+Long+Way+to+the+Top

speaking of ac/dc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRmYfVCH2UA

Red House Painters turn "silly little love song" by Wings into something pretty ;_; somehow.

there's a fragility and poignancy to "silly love songs" to begin with, so that makes sense. indie folk stripping excessive pop & rock down to a defeated and/or lovely whisper is sort of an unnamed mini-genre. see cat power doing "free bird", etc, etc.

funny thing is that it works great even for material that has absolutely no quality of sadness to begin with. e.g., those awesome ac/dc covers by red house painters, psychic emperor covering the misfits, tons of others. bonnie prince billy's cover of "big balls" is a personal favorite.

i don't think there are many (any?) examples of this. evan dando, for instance, is a much more ironic and smirking performer than nkotb, and regardless of how he approaches it, that element is always gonna be present in his covering a big teenpop hit like that.

this is otm, every example i've tried to think of has had intentional comedy value, like the Alanis "My Humps" or Jimmy Fallon doing the "Fresh Prince" theme as Neil Young, etc.

"Spit on a Stranger" by Nickel Creek. Except I don't know if the original by Pavement is all LOL iorny or not.

Is "There She Goes" by sixpence none the richer ironic? I just googled that Coldplay covered "Perfect Day" on youtube. The audience is really into it, but so would I be.

Maybe "I Hate Myself For Loving You" turning into "I've Been Waiting All Week for Sunday Night" by Faith Hill.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFREWbwgIMA

This is really tough. As pointed out above, there's tons of examples of earnest indie people making already-sincere songs MORE sincere than before - I'd add The Blow's "Come On Petunia" which reinterprets "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic," but in a weird way this is a cousin of the indie drive to add irony, in that either way they're reducing the avenues for experiencing the song as fun for its own sake. Someone brought up Beck's "Loser" and in a weird way, Beck was doing whole albums of this process - Mutations and Sea Change as tasteful/sincere/straight albums on the heels of Odelay and Midnite Vultures.

I'm intrigued by the point that we just haven't gotten far enough from the age of irony for this to kick in; maybe we should beat the curve by identifying songs that are ripe for this treatment. I nominate half the work of They Might Be Giants, who often did straight, earnest songs but still had a general gloss of nerdiness that made it all kinda winky-winky. But "Birdhouse In Your Soul," "Ana Ng," "They'll Need A Crane," "Nightgown of the Sullen Moon" etc would all make fine straight-up songs.

The Smiths are also probably a goldmine for this kind of thing.

Also, I think this can only work when the new performer's audience isn't really plugged in to the original thing, because if they are, the awareness of its previous irony is going to poison the whole thing. I can imagine an angsty-but-not-goofy "Flagpole Sitta," but knowing the original and its associations it'd be hard to hear any cover as not being "Hey, ha ha, we're doing that zany song that we all liked when we were 17!"

Maybe a better approach would be songs that were kind of obscure as to their own status in the first place - I don't know why, but I'm thinking of "Whoever You Are" by Geggy Tah....it's a song about a banal subject sung by a guy with a funny voice in a band called Geggy Tah so you have to think this is supposed to be silly in some way, but there's nothing in the tune to really force that impression and it could be quickly rehabilitated into some genuine statement of appreciation for the kindness of strangers. I dunno. Give it to James Blount and see what he can do with it.

Hm, I rather like the idea of doing a dour, acoustic version of "they'll need a crane".

I'm thinking maybe what Tori Amos did with the Eminem song "Just the Two of Us" or something. Turning comedic-horror into serio-horror.

http://partyends.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/nilsson-sings-newman.jpg

The Silos - Let's Take Some Drugs and Drive Around

This was originally done as a jokey country song by a guy named Michael White. But The Silos remove the wink and make it a teenage anthem. The result is one of best songs I've ever heard.

Key lyric: Just say no to drugs/That's easy if you've got/the kind of life/I have not/But honey if I did/I'd lay that money down/buy some more drugs/and drive around

Is there an mp3 of Low making "Cut Your Hair" into a dirge about the loss of innocence?

But this differs from the original only in being a dirge!

Bryan Ferry! His covers sound camp and smart-ass, but they're deeply poignant.

I know the songs themselves aren't camp and smart-ass (well, "Sympathy with the Devil" and "The `In' Crowd" are), but when he opens his mouth I expect the vibrato to render them camp, yet the opposite happens.

does this count?
http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/bestselling-music-2006/2835-1.jpg
transcendent jazz renditions of somewhat corny standards might be a whole other thread, i dunno.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bzKzbucdnE

Orignal was certainly smart-ass, at least (or its singer was anyway), if not all that other stuff.

oops:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bzKzbucdnE

There must be some "serious" covers of '80s ZZ Top songs too, right?

Robert Forster did a poignant rendition of Heart's "Alone", the original of which may not have been conceived as irony, but it's certainly always been enjoyed as such.

Has it? I enjoy it cos it's awesome.

Well, not "always." At least by Heart fans (of which there are many).

Honestly though I'm not sure how you distinguish the kind of songs requested here from cases where singers (usually ineptly) just drain most of the sarcasm and wit from songs they cover -- Ronstadt doing Zevon or Costello, Minelli doing Pet Shop Boys, Tori Amos doing Nirvana, 3 Dog Night doing Newman, Staple Singers doing Talking Heads (actually, that one may have been an improvement), whatever. (Though maybe what keeps those from counting is the "poignant" requirement, since most were more poignant to begin with. It's not like making songs more emotionally simple always makes them more powerful, obviously.) (In fact, VH's "Jump" is way more powerful than Aztec Camera's, too.)

Yeah I was complaining last night about how that shitty mope piano acoustic cover of "Sweet Child of Mine" that's doing the rounds at the moment is way less poignant or soulful than the original.

Also that it's shit and everybody involved shd never be allowed to record ever again.

Also Great White (or Barry Manilow) covering Ian Hunter, Quiet Riot covering Slade (twice), Motley Crue covering Brownsville Station (and maybe Carrie Underwood covering Motlery Crue later too), Megadeath covering the Sex Pistols, etc -- if glam and punk bands weren't "camp," nobody was. And in none of these cases does the new singer's misunderstanding of the humor in the original make the song more poignant (well, maybe Carrie doing the Crue; undecided about that one).

"Robert Forster did a poignant rendition of Heart's "Alone", the original of which may not have been conceived as irony, but it's certainly always been enjoyed as such."

yeah, let me echo others here, there is nothing ironic about my love for this song.

In fact, VH's "Jump" is way more powerful than Aztec Camera's, too

I must disagree. When I read this topic title, Aztec Camera's "Jump" was the first thing that came to mind. The original song's bomast obscures the poignancy of the actual lyrics, but Roddy brings them out front and center.

No

the "irony" has always been in making the songs "straight and poignant", no? it's a one joke move. kinda like steve allen reciting rock lyrics in mock poetic voice. for every memorable aztec camera "jump" cover there are 50 more "haha, i get it, it's an n.w.a. song" examples. i think red house painters might have done it best. if you didn't know whose songs they were, you would have thought that silly love songs and shock me and long distance runaround were their songs. cuz everything they did turned into a red house painters song! the best example i can think of is gira/jarboe as world of skin doing now i wanna be your dog as funeral dirge. they made it work. the goth approach is a good one. like leather nun's gimme gimme gimme. they transform the song pretty convincingly.

Susanna & the Magical Orchestra covering Kiss' "Crazy, Crazy Nights", maybe? Or something on the Sun Kil Moon album of Modest Mouse covers.

i reviewed an actually pretty amazing album by a swedish folk singer doing acoustic covers of songs by the death metal band dismember and it ended up being one of my favorite albums of the year. some of the versions were really powerful. it made me wish that there were more modern folk songs about napalm raining down on the world. seriously, it was better than any nick cave album from the last 20 years.

http://www.metal-norge.com/images/omtaler/2049.jpg

Give it to James Blount and see what he can do with it.

i definitely meant James Blunt here btw

but camp, irony, and smart-assed-ness are rarely tied together tho

The original song can be any one of those things. I wasn't lumping them all together as one description.

On another note, that Neil Young sings "Fresh Prince" theme is the funniest thing Fallon's every done imo:

http://www.latenightwithjimmyfallon.com/blogs/2009/11/neil-young-sings-the-fresh-prince-theme-song/

the best example i can think of is gira/jarboe as world of skin doing now i wanna be your dog as funeral dirge. they made it work. the goth approach is a good one. like leather nun's gimme gimme gimme. they transform the song pretty convincingly.

― scott seward, Saturday, December 5, 2009 8:07 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

would be fun to someone turn low-style wrist-slitting beauty dirge into, like, tongue-in-cheek glam metal.

was speaking on the world of skin's iggy. havna heard the leather nun's abba.

and it "would be fun TO see someone turn low-style wrist-slitting beauty dirge into..."

coffee

"Killing An Arab" was apparently covered by a number of skinhead bands.

Bryan Ferry! His covers sound camp and smart-ass, but they're deeply poignant.

But camp IS deeply poignant which is why I don't quite get this thread. And why the word 'straight' stings here.

Nilsson Sings Newman comes pretty close to what I THINK this thread is about. So does Bonnie Raitt's version of "Burning Down The House."

But camp IS deeply poignant which is why I don't quite get this thread. And why the word 'straight' stings here.

the slashes I put in the thread title seem to be misleading.

I know camp, smartass, and irony don't always go together and aren't the same. People are listing songs that undo those original qualities, or toy with them, or invert a song or a sentiment back into something mainstream or straight (perceptually speaking), make them unironic, simplistic etc. We're talking about a couple of different things, actually, but they can all sort of relate.

What I want somebody to explain to me is how "lol irony" is different than just plain old regular irony (which, contrary to what some people above seem to think, was not invented in any particular "age," with or without They Might Be Giants's help.)

Also, was Mandy Moore covering XTC any good?

Not as good as Moore covering "Drop the Pilot."

But camp IS deeply poignant which is why I don't quite get this thread. And why the word 'straight' stings here.

It often is. Early Ferry covers are just as moving if not more than the originals. Here's where camp isn't deeply poignant: "Sympathy with the Devil" is boring camp; Ferry's version is grand camp, and still not very interesting.

Bonnie Raitt's version of "Burning Down The House."

I forgot about this!

It's hard to articulate that irony question neatly. How and when "lol irony" or the aforementioned 90s-style cult of irony, smirking indie etc began, and how it differentiates from other irony and what came before, is a can of worms.

It's like when someone asks "wait, what do you mean by 'hipster', anyway?" 900 posts later...

re: mandy

I don't remember her cover being too bad. Kind of just there, and like everything else I've heard from her since she decided she wanted to be less like Britney and more like Michelle Branch, way back when.

xpost

My problem isn't so much a conflating (or a PERCEIVED conflating) of campy/irony/smartass but the fact that camp is on one side and poignant on the other.

And yes, when DID The Age of Irony start?

After the Age of Bronzey iirc

wah wahhh

The specific "age of irony" comes up b/c of the inversion suggested by the thread question - we're looking for people doing the opposite of the now extremely hackneyed "take a sad song, and make it hilaaaarious!" Which, while obviously not an invention of the alterna-age, became a thudding cliche at some specific moment.

Spike Jones to thread.

Right. Or Alan Sherman.

barbie girl - the "sad" (and boring) version:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JLCawOs-go&feature=PlayList&p=1DCBB3A4E5B07FD9&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=9

Also confused by:

someone takes a song that was originally very knowing...and they turn it into something thoughtful

What exactly is the difference?

i disagree up above. the original i wanna be your dog was not a funeral dirge. not even a peppy one.

the nu-irony for me started with punk. the whole haha take a cheesy pop song and make it really fast. and i loved it. then it got old. and the slow maudlin approach got old too. my fave of that variety might still be i'm not lisa by killdozer. and i did like jump. but that got old too. most of these are not worth two listens. it helps if you just really like the song and want to sing it no matter who you are. ALL world of skin covers are good. so are red house painters covers. they are just good interpretations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wea8ZpcVbUM

not quite right on either element but it kinda fits

I guess what World of Skin and RHP have going for them is a focusedness of sound i.e. their covers become like all their other songs whereas most people doing the shitty maudlin acoustic thing don't normally sound that way but have adopted it to show us all how deep they are or something

i guess lol irony covers are preferable to actual serious maudlin covers. i'm thinking of jeffrey gaines and his peter gabriel cover and that horrible twee tears for fears cover. maybe just cuz i've heard them more than any novelty cover.

I guess I just don't picture Spike Jones's or Alan Sherman's audience showing up to hear them do unfunny material and then they get to a hilarious ironic version of whatever song and the audience starts nudging each other and cracking up "OMG he's doing a piss-take of (current popular hit tune)!"

That is, I see your point but I think the phenomenon the thread asks us to invert is a bit narrower and more specific.

plus, really, before punk, the parody was king. not humorous cover versions with the same lyrics, etc. or if spike did an actual cover it would involve a lot of carn horns and other fx.

and yes i know there are a million examples of funny covers before punk. so don't even try it! but spoofs and parodies and answer songs were more the rage. probably all downhill after this album anyway though:

http://www.fab4collectibles.com/chipmunksLP.jpg

or downhill after bill cosby! who did some of the best and funniest pop covers. (meaning they were funny and great to listen to more than once.)

Hooray for the Salvation Army Band is godhead.

Actually to be honest I've long blamed the whole eternal "let's take a perfectly good Foreigner or Bad Company song and make it shitty to prove how cool we are" shtick on the Replacements (see: When The Shit Hits The Fans.) So I get your guys' points, too. Still think the intro to this thread is all mixed up in many, many ways, though.

still remember aerosmith's reaction to REM doing toys in the attic. they thought it sucked and that a rock band should cover it instead.

xp In other words, that was a definite shark-jumping moment for me. Before that, I'd actually really liked when the Pop-O-Pies did rap and punk versions of "Truckin," the Big Boys covered "Hollywood Swinging," and James Chance did "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," and so on.

Yeah, they said Run-DMC sounded more rock than REM. And they were right.

golden shower of hits medley by circle jerks was a high point for me.

Ironic original song covered with sincerity? I can only think of one:

"What's So Funny 'Bout Peace, Love, and Understanding?" Nick Lowe wrote it (and played it) as a satirical jab at flower-child naivete. Elvis Costello played it straight and impassioned, an enormous improvement.

the master:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-N_jlF-sRqk

in ironic Chuck/JD partial role-reverse I'll be the guy who will rep for Great White's "Once Bitten" - I like hearing a third-party (besides Bowie whose "Young Dudes" sux imo) deal w/Hunter's rhythms & inflections whether he's successful or not

I tend to believe that people are covering songs because they like them & enjoy playing/singing them & am really kinda suspicious of claims being advanced toward any other motivation for ppl covering songs unless the claims come directly from the person doin the cover

i don't think it has to be some smarmy "ironic" impulse to cover a certain song. but certainly there are times when bands just do a song as a "goof" live or someone says "wouldn't it be hilarious if we did..." it can be in good fun. a lark, if you will.

xp I like Great White's version too, John! Just like Ian Hunter's original a lot more -- he gets all the words right, for one thing! (I also liked when Great White used to cover Angel City songs.)

Funny thing about "Young Dudes," of course, is that it was Bowie's song in the first place. But yeah, he really pulled it off, did he?

he never really pulled it off, I meant

a lot of glam metal bands were bar bands for years so it was pretty easy for them to pull off good covers cuz that's mostly what they played for years anyway. they were the true garage rockers of the 80's. they knew what it took to get a crowd going.

Travis doing Hit Me Baby.

The Flamingos turning the musical comedy tune "I Only Have Eyes for You" into a beautiful doo-wop ballad.

why does this thread conjure up memories of this one: nina gordon - "straight outta compton" ?

Actually, come to think of it, maybe the real sharkjump was Sid Vicious doing "My Way."

Great thread. It's got me wondering about early swing, when swing was metropolitan hepcat music. I wonder how much the speedy takes on old sheet music tunes were considered wacky- the Cotton Club equivalent of the Circle Jerks medley. Fletcher Henderson's, "Chinatown, My Chinatown" for example- that song was 20 years old at that point, probably seemed quite mid-tempo and square. Henderson and Oliver syncopated it, mostly burying the corny "Chinese Riff.

You've got the Mills Bros. take from around the same time, and to my ears it's as surgery and sentimental as most pop from the era, but they end it by harmonizing on "wing wong"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMk4dSy8OhQ&feature=player_embedded

Which seems pretty knowing to me.

And then there's Milton Brown's western swing take- he keeps the syncopation, but sings the lyric straight. Like he's modernizing an old song he loves, taking out the accumulated LOLs, yet keeping the contemporary feel. Something about his vocal really touches me. I wish I could find a stream of it to post. The lyric is such minstrelry, there's no direct emotional attachment to be had, but he fights through all that and sounds so blissfully infatuated.

whoops- didn't link correctly to the "Chinese Riff" article

http://chinoiserie.atspace.com/1915to1929.html#chinatownmychinatown

just in case there was a demand for an acoustic cover of "I Kill Everything I Fuck"

But the original "I Kill Everything I Fuck" was neither camp, smartass, or ironic.

Same could be said for about half the choices mentioned on this thread, tbh.

"Yankee Doodle" exists today as a very patriotic American song but was originally a song sung by British visitors to the colonies poking fun at the Colonial yokels. Pretty radical reclamation imo.

Would "Wild Horses" count? (Susan Boyle, obv)

I'm probably wrong, but I always heard the Rolling Stones' attempts at country music as some sort of "yee-haw" irony, even when the songs were substantially, um, alright.

"Country Honk" seemed to be a classic example, even though it was actually the first recorded version and the single was the remake.

back to the original thread question, as i decided i would understand it: it seemed very common in the late 80s and then the 90s for snarky/irony-besotten american indierock & postpunk/hc bands to throw in wacky covers of & pisstakes on "classic rock", pop & punk tunes. replacements being the kings of this kind of thing, but i also think of killdozer's FM rawk crucifixions; sonic youth doing the carpenters, madonna & crime; camper van beethoven stealing bits & pieces from everywhere, naming a song after zz top, and denaturing black flag; pussy galore mutilating exile on main st; butthole surfers' massive 70s fixation, etc.

that indierock trend certainly grew out of punk's fondness for blitzspeed covers - and probably out of the era's artistic fascination with claiming and repurposing the copyrighted scars that living in a media-saturated culture necessarily leave on one (in the wake of residents, negativland, plunderphonics, and then-current ideas such as sampling, appropriation and postmodernism). But it also grew out of punk's contempt for pop & classic rock. being post-punk "ironic" about classic rock & radio pop allowed indies to indulge a perversely unironic fondness for and fascination with borderline-uncool music & culture without tipping their hands.

irony's always existed, but it seems to me that "the age of irony" was exactly that, and that it's not entirely over yet. i remember how strange david letterman's humor seemed to me in the early 80s. half his shtick seemed to be that nothing particularly funny was going on, but these were the motions that tv presenters were expected to go through, and "isn't it all so freaking weird?". which was certainly funny, or meta-funny or something, but his approach to humor, television and to himself as an instance of humor on television was, in it's time, rather novel. andy kaufman being an obvious (and much more extreme) predecessor, but still...

lot of late 80s and 90s indierock bands seemed to hold similar attitudes wr2 rock and pop (and punk and music and stardom and "the industry" and so forth). sonic youth being the poster children, i suppose.

that's why i say the op's basic question makes perfect sense, even if was phrased in a somewhat misleading manner. no one has really started revisiting the basic indie lol-irony of that era - an era that's still winding down - and recasting it as something entirely different.

...wacky covers of & pisstakes on "classic rock", pop & punk tunes.

^ not the best way to describe the range of approaches employed. sonic youth's "superstar" is neither wacky nor dismissive, but it is profoundly ironic, especially since it existed (in its moment) in close relation to their own "starpower", "into the groove(y)" & "tunic", a song about karen carpenter.

Actually, Rage Against The Machine's cover of Devo 's "Freedom Of Choice" qualifies. Devo were definitely tongue in cheek, and RATM were quite the opposite. rATM didn't even bother with the "Freedom From Choice" lyric switch at the end.

For that matter, neither did Fumanchu's cover of "Freedom Of Choice" do the lyric switch, but I bet Fumanchu weren't thinking they were enlightening the masses or anything with that cover vs RATM

Not demeaning the original "Freedom of Choice" but given Devo's recent career trajectory as far as expensive live shows go, the song is a bit ironic in the grand scheme.

Pajo's Misfits covers may qualify

I don't know how 'smirking indie' they were to start with, but Sun Kil Moon's covers of Modest Mouse def seemed more poignant than some of the originals.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydNhrHXHjAk

Thanks contenderizer, for saying so well what I was blundering towards upthread.

I have often daydreamed about a sparse and desolate version of "I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper". Someone please provide me with this.

Cassandra Wilson - Last Train to Clarksville

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2yFp03gaNg

wow, that cover of "Neverending Math Equation." Would have bitterly offended me in 2002 but it strikes me now as a lovely take on the song. The raging-at-the-sky Brock-ism is drained out and you get something more in the way of a "wistful 30-something surveys all this strangeness we live in" type thing - - but I'm increasingly a sucker for that kind of thing as I get older, and it's a pretty performance in any case. Is the rest of that record as good?

I have often daydreamed about a sparse and desolate version of "I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper". Someone please provide me with this.

― brett favre vs bernard fevre, fite (a passing spacecadet), Monday, 7 December 2009 12:30 (4 months ago) Bookmark

You have given me a reason to go on making music. Give me a few weeks, you shall have one.

<3 !

I didn't think this one was an improvement on White Town's original, but some other people on Singles Jukebox definitely did:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQz63A7Effk

I find the thread title somewhat confusing, so I'm not sure if this counts, but I like Obadiah Parker's folkie cover of "Hey Ya!" It's not better than the original (duh), but it's a straightforward reading that they (he?) carry off well. What I find confusing: was the camp/irony element supposed to be in the original, or is it supposed to be a cover version that avoids the trap of camp/irony? The second interpretation applies here, not the first.

Has Andrew Garcia's version of Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" been mentioned yet?

1,000,000,000 times on Idol (much to his chagrin) but no, not here. I think that fits the first-named category (performers turning old songs and corny sentiment into a knowing joke,) not what the OP was looking for.

The Bird and the Bee cover Rihanna's 'Don't stop the music' and it sounds like she is pleading and can't help herself from Hot Guy as opposed to getting her grind on anyway.

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whoops :(

Do you remember the mashup of "Just be good to me" with "Let 'em in"?

That one gives the song a poignant air of desolation. Which neither source had.

Track it down if not, it's one of the best of its kind.

Does Neko Case's cover of "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" count? Heard it for the first time in a restaurant over the weekend, and it made me reassess what a beautiful song it is with Russell's falsetto replaced by Neko's voice.

(Love the Sparks original tons too, though!)

What, the original's not beautiful, then? :-D

Might've known you'd find a Sparks post! As noted, I love the original, but I think sometimes beautiful melodies can be a bit buried by quirky presentations (Zappa, Residents.)

was the camp/irony element supposed to be in the original

That's definitely how the question reads to me. (Which means lots of the nominations in the past couple days shouldn't qualify, unless there is a camp/irony element in those Rihanna/Paula Abdul/S.O.S. Band songs that I've never noticed.)

Yeah, that's how I read it: serious, thoughtful covers of campy originals.

(x-post) I didn't finish that thought. I find the backing track of The Residents' "Hello Skinny" thoughtful and far more serious than lyrics like "Skinny was born in a bathtub" might make immediately obvious.

It's a song about a drug addict, so the backing tracks are entirely appropiate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPOqE7k56nc

Again, how is "Billie Jean" a "camp/smartass/'lol irony' song'"? I really don't get that.

low's "i started a joke" maybe? not that that song isn't heartbreaking already but there was the whole lol bee gees thing in the 90s

I'm comparing videos/performances more than the song, per se. A manchild in sequined socks singing about fathering a child out of wedlock while being pursued by a panthe seems pretty camp to me.

wow, that cover of "Neverending Math Equation."... Is the rest of that record as good?

Yeah, definitely, I think so. I had never even heard any Modest Mouse songs other than Float On when I first heard the covers record, and then when I later encountered some of the originals I was surprised at how radically different they sounded, not just musically, like acoustic vs chugging electric guitars, and the drastically altered melodies/chords, but also the overall tone, singing vs pissed-off yelling

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pB3gAjivrY

bolding the key code:

people covering camp/smartass/"lol irony" songs ... a song that was originally very knowing, or campy, or smirking indie ... Low making "Cut Your Hair" into a dirge about the loss of innocence?

though it's communicated poorly, i don't think Cunga was asking about stuff like billie jean or straight up. emotive covers of big, campy mainstream pop tunes are a dime a dozen, while emotive covers of ironic indie pop (cut your hair, loser, flagpole sitta) are rare.

yea, campy seems like the outlier, but one that made me queue up volebeats' cover of "knowing me knowing you," so cheers to that.

i bet xiu xiu did this.

well, maybe minus the "straight" part...