Toughest or Easiest Song to Cover?

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From Filter, regarding The Bang on a Can Marathon in Manhattan June 2-3:
"Among the highlights ... the Bang On A Can All-Stars will be performing Brian Eno's masterpiece 'Music for Airports' as the clock strikes midnight."

My first reaction was, "How they hell are they gonna do that?"
But maybe it's a lot easier than I think, and 99.99 percent of the crowd won't know the difference anyway.

― Jazzbo, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:25 (eighteen years ago)

'4 minutes 33 seconds' is both the easiest and the toughest maybe.

― pisces, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:28 (eighteen years ago)

I've always thought deeply personal stuff like Neil Young's "Tonight's The Night" would be hard to cover...(House Of Love didn't seem to have a problem with "Pink Frost", though)...

― henry s, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:29 (eighteen years ago)

This will sound retarded to most: "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

Easy cuz, well duh...

Hard cuz, well I saw the MELVINS cover this and I was interested in the song for the first time in X years.

― valoss, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:50 (eighteen years ago)

Hard cuz no one actually knows what the lyrics are

― braveclub, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:52 (eighteen years ago)

Some orchestra has covered "Metal Machine Music", that can't have been too easy?

― Tom D., Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:54 (eighteen years ago)

Among the highlights ... the Bang On A Can All-Stars will be performing Brian Eno's masterpiece 'Music for Airports' as the clock strikes midnight.

Actually I've got this on CD, bit of a waste of time really

― Tom D., Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:55 (eighteen years ago)

airports are pretty dead after midnight

― sexyDancer, Thursday, 3 May 2007 14:58 (eighteen years ago)

Louie Louie! Hard because of the canonical Kingsmen, easy because if you even get close, people say "Hey, Louie Louie."

― I eat cannibals, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:21 (eighteen years ago)

Watching American Idol, I've decided that there's a bunch golden oldies that shouldn't be covered, because the production and the original performance so overwhelm other qualities the song might have. Foremost among them: "Unchained Melody" and "Fever".

Any cover of "Stairway to Heaven" seems to become a novelty cover, regardless of intent. The same goes for a few other paradigm-shifting songs: "Good Vibrations", "Strawberry Fields Forever", "Like a Rolling Stone", "Anarchy in the UK". Those tracks are so time-and-space specific.

― bendy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:24 (eighteen years ago)

Psychic TV did a "Good Vibrations"
Hendrix did a "Like A Rolling Stone" (dedcated to Dylan's grandmother)

― sexyDancer, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:29 (eighteen years ago)

Any cover of "Stairway to Heaven" seems to become a novelty cover, regardless of intent. The same goes for a few other paradigm-shifting songs: "Good Vibrations",

HI DERE

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:32 (eighteen years ago)

Psychic TVs "Good Vibrations" has always struck me as a pointless cover, perhaps not novelty enough. Hendrix, though- that one is pretty good, probably because it's proximate enough to the original.

― bendy, Thursday, 3 May 2007 15:59 (eighteen years ago)

"Knocking on Heaven's Door." Easy because it's three of the most obvious chords in the universe (you don't even have to alternate between C and Am7 as the original does -- just go G D C and it's still recognizable). Hard because, post-Clapton, post-GnR, post-every-dormroom-seduction-ever, it's impossible to sing it and not sound like an utter douche.

― Erroneous Botch, Thursday, 3 May 2007 17:03 (eighteen years ago)

I've often heard that the hardest song to cover was the Star Spangled Banner, at least for vocalists, which is of course why we sing it at the start of every sporing event here...

― NYCNative, Thursday, 3 May 2007 17:12 (eighteen years ago)

Aren't vocals the big factor? How does someone sound like Lemmy, or Geddy Lee, or Mark Hollis..?

― bassace, Thursday, 3 May 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)

I'm thinking very rock-centric, of course

― bassace, Thursday, 3 May 2007 19:05 (eighteen years ago)

I've never heard a good cover of Teen Spirit. It's pretty much a guarantee that the drummer will always play it wrong.

― billstevejim, Thursday, 3 May 2007 20:22 (eighteen years ago)

That Sunkist version of "Good Vibrations" is kinda scary, especially when that chorus comes in.

― ColinO, Thursday, 3 May 2007 20:47 (eighteen years ago)

"Bohemian Rhapsody". All attempts have been awful, other than maybe parody efforts such as Weird Al Yankovic and Bad News.

I also imagine that some Kate Bush songs, such as "Babooshka", will be difficult to most.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 3 May 2007 21:55 (eighteen years ago)

As for easiest, that must be 4'33.

― Geir Hongro, Thursday, 3 May 2007 21:56 (eighteen years ago)

That Sunkist version of "Good Vibrations" is kinda scary, especially when that chorus comes in.

Terrifying. "I picking up good vibrations (HOOOOO!), she's giving me excitations (HEY!)" It's by Gym Class Heroes, btw.

― St3ve Go1db3rg, Thursday, 3 May 2007 22:22 (eighteen years ago)

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