One song that I seem to prefer most of the covers that I've heard is Come Together. It's not that I don't like The Beatles, but I don't care for their version of their song. I really liked Joe Cocker's version in Across the Universe, but I also prefer his version of With a Little Help From My Friends.
I also like Chris Cornell's cover of Nothing Compares 2 U better than both Prince and Sinead.
Perhaps because it has a more 80's feel to it I like Pseudo Echo's version of Funky Town over Lipps Inc.
Again with the 80's I much prefer Soft Cell's Tainted Love to Gloria Jones.
Sorry hownos, I love you and all, but I can't stand that version of the Tears for Fears song. It turns a bold, moody synthesiser 80s classic into what I consider to be a whiny one-key dirge.
Amazing Grace - Eva Cassidy. Don’t look for it, ‘cause I have, and no one ever recorded it. You may not have heard of her, because her recordings weren’t released while she was alive. That was because the music labels couldn’t categorize her, because she could sing ANYTHING, and sing it better than any who’d come before. I, however, did read an interview with a music industry exec for whom she auditioned, and he said that he should have signed her because, “She sang Amazing Grace and she just NAILED it; but then she sang folk and rock and jazz and blues and pop, and I didn’t know what to do with her.” I take that as a YES.
True Colors - Eva Cassidy
Kathy’s Song - Eva Cassidy
Bridge Over Troubled Waters - Eva Cassidy
Imagine - Eva Cassidy
People Get Ready - Eva Cassidy
Stormy Monday - The Allman Brothers Band
How Great Thou Art - Elvis Aaron Presley
Fever - Elvis Presley duet with Michael Bubble
Spoonful - Cream
Good Morning Little School Girl - Ten Years After
Eyesight To The Blind - The Who
White Rabbit - not a traditional cover, but a digitally-edited track of the original in the closing credits of a first-season episode of Big Little Lies, with Grace Slick offering an a capela rendering of the song with all of The Jefferson Airplane’s musical instruments removed from the track. The result was brilliant, haunting, chilling. The music director on that series made choices that equal, if not surpass, any other that I’ve heard in any movie or other TV series.
Not for nothing: This is a very good topic, with a wealth of possibilities. I’ve heard some EXCELLENT re-interpretations of songs in movies and QUALITY TV series that I hope to be able to name; f’rinstance, the re-imagining of Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song behind the opening credits of the American re-make of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (and the visuals weren’t half-bad, either). [The opening credits of the disappointing STARZ series, American Gods, is a labored emulation and vastly inferior emulation of Dragon Tattoo; but if you try to steal, then steal something good.]
PS Agree about Joe Cocker doing Beatles tunes better than The Four Moptops. For sure he, and most alley cats!, sings better than Ringo Starr! Lennon/McCartney were the George and Ira Gershwin of their day; and they were abetted by George Harrison’s musicianship, and by Ringo’s . . . ? They generally did not do their compositions justice as performers, however, which is testament to their gifts as composers. Absent composers, AND ARRANGERS!, we have no music, so I am NOT slamming a band that was SO POPULAR that their record sales REVERSED THEIR HOMELAND’S INTERNATIONAL BALANCE OF PAYMENTS. Read that again, and tell me what other artist in history has done that. Having said that, I submit that no other artist has equalled The Beatles’ rendition of Let It Be. Their songs are timeless, and provide a platform for the musically gifted. I can’t think of a better legacy to have left.