Sometimes it takes a different artist to reveal a song's hidden potential! Join us as we count down our picks for the most radical musical transformations that completely switched genres. Our list includes Johnny Cash's take on NIN, Whitney Houston reinventing Dolly Parton, and Jimi Hendrix electrifying Bob Dylan!
00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today, we're counting down our picks for the top 10 cover songs
00:12that took inspiration from the original, but radically changed in terms of style and sound.
00:25Number 10. Hallelujah.
00:28Jeff Buckley.
00:37Whenever people talk about the truly great cover songs in music history, it's hard not to look at Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah as a prime example.
00:45Taking the gospel-infused roots from Leonard Cohen's original, Jeff Buckley strips things down to bare bones.
00:51The baffled king composing Hallelujah.
00:55However, even though his version is more minimal, his vocal delivery and guitar work elevate the song into a totally different stratosphere.
01:05Buckley's voice carries so much more emotion and weight than Cohen's more understated style.
01:10Whether you prefer the youthful take that Buckley gave us or the more weathered original from the great poet Cohen,
01:15Hallelujah is truly a timeless piece of music.
01:19Hallelujah.
01:26Number 9.
01:27With a little help from my friends.
01:29Joe Cocker.
01:31Ringo Starr didn't sing too many songs in the Beatles' catalog, but when he did, they were generally quite memorable.
01:37If I sang, how did you, would you stand up and walk out on me?
01:43With a little help from my friends is one of the standout tracks on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
01:48and it might just be Ringo's finest hour as a vocalist.
01:51But when Joe Cocker got his hands on it for his debut album,
01:54this chirpy and optimistic song was transformed into a blues rock classic.
01:59Cocker's vocal delivery, along with his backing singers,
02:09imbues this Lennon-McCartney track with a level of soul that takes things to a totally new level.
02:15And trust us, the live versions are even better than the studio recording.
02:27Number 8.
02:29Killing Me Softly.
02:30Fugees.
02:31I heard he sang a good song.
02:35I heard he had a style.
02:39Roberta Flack's legendary number 1 hit Killing Me Softly with his song was so well-received
02:44that it won her a Grammy in 1974 for Record of the Year and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance.
02:50So when Lauryn Hill and the Fugees took the song in a much more modern and hip-hop-infused direction 23 years later,
02:56it was a move out of left field.
02:58However, the result was an absolute masterpiece.
03:01Killing Me Softly with his song.
03:07It perfectly bridged old-school R&B with the direction the genre was headed in during the 90s.
03:12It should come as no surprise that the Fugees came away with a Grammy of their own for their efforts.
03:17Killing Me Softly with his song.
03:21Killing Me Softly.
03:23We didn't know that we needed to hear a stripped-down Tori Amos version of Smells Like Teen Spirit until we actually heard it.
03:41Somehow, someway, this piano-driven take on this grunge masterpiece works phenomenally well.
03:46Here we are now, entertain us.
03:52Gone is all of the heavy distortion and angst-ridden vocals, replaced with a surprising amount of control and restraint.
04:00Amos covers Cobain in a manner that is almost the complete opposite of the original, but it retains some of the attitude.
04:07When a song is truly great, it can take on a myriad of different shapes.
04:12And that's what Tori Amos achieves here.
04:17Number 6.
04:22Nothing Compares to You.
04:24Sinead O'Connor.
04:26It's been 7 hours and 15 days.
04:30Prince's original composition, Nothing Compares to You, was destined to be remembered among his finest pieces of work.
04:39But even though his version is truly excellent, Irish singer Sinead O'Connor reinvented the song as one of the most heart-wrenchingly yet uplifting ballads of all time.
04:48Nothing Compares to You.
04:52O'Connor's voice alone sells the performance, but she also changes the melody in places, bringing some real tension to the chorus.
05:03Prince himself, who famously did not enjoy covers of his work, was actually full of praise for her version.
05:09Nothing, nothing.
05:14But when they finally met, they supposedly didn't get along.
05:19However, that doesn't really matter, because, at the very least, this indirect collaboration between these two iconic artists exists.
05:27All the flowers that you place, mama, in the backyard.
05:34Number 5.
05:35Heartbeats.
05:36Jose Gonzalez.
05:37You gotta give props to Jose Gonzalez for hearing the potential for a modern folk classic buried within the knife's excellent synth-pop anthem, Heartbeats.
05:53He took the original tune and stripped away all of the electronics, adding his own warm voice and acoustic guitar.
05:59In the end, what we got was something entirely new.
06:10In Gonzalez's hands, Heartbeats became an incredibly influential piece of indie music culture in the early 2000s, eclipsing the fame of the original and inspiring a number of cover versions of its own.
06:22It catapulted Gonzalez to international fame and remains his biggest hit to this day.
06:28What'd I be doing now?
06:35Number 4.
06:36Mad World.
06:37Michael Andrews featuring Gary Jules.
06:40All around me are familiar faces, worn out places.
06:47Tears for Fears were truly a special band.
06:49Their ability to write timeless pop classics has made them as relevant as ever in the 2020s.
06:55Mad World.
06:57Mad World.
07:02But even they must have been surprised at how much success Michael Andrews and Gary Jules were able to have with their track, Mad World.
07:10This version totally rips out the foundation of the original, turning it into a bleak but undeniably beautiful slice of perfection.
07:18The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.
07:23Released as part of the Donnie Darko soundtrack in 2001.
07:27This track completely switched up the genre of the original while retaining the overall message.
07:32Songs don't come much sadder than this one, folks.
07:36Mad World.
07:38I will always love you, Whitney Houston.
07:45If I should stay.
07:53When Dolly Parton wrote, I will always love you, it was bound to be a smash hit.
07:58Her understated but sincere performance vocally was matched by some of the most immediate pop lyrics ever written.
08:04However, for as much as Dolly's original was beloved.
08:14When Whitney Houston took the reins in 1992, she took things to a totally different place.
08:20Released as part of the soundtrack for the film The Bodyguard, which also starred Houston, this became the power anthem to end all others.
08:28End all others.
08:33It was a declaration of love that was perhaps bigger and bolder than anything before it.
08:38To this day, it remains the highest selling single by a female artist of all time.
08:42Number two, All Along the Watchtower.
08:53The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
08:54There must be some kind of way out of here.
08:59Say the joker to the thief.
09:01Covers don't come along much more transformative than Jimi Hendrix' take on Bob Dylan's All Along the Watchtower.
09:07The original is a pretty straightforward track within Dylan's catalog in terms of the instrumentation,
09:12and vocal delivery.
09:13No reason to get excited, the thief he kindly spoke.
09:20But when Hendrix got a hold of it, he well and truly blew the doors off their hinges.
09:25It was a shockingly effective overhaul of what was essentially a folk rock song.
09:29Dylan's words were brought to life by an incredibly urgent-sounding Hendrix and his band.
09:43As psychedelic as anything he ever released, it was his incredible guitar work that really set this one on fire.
09:49It's the gold standard for how to reinvent a piece of music.
09:53Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
10:04Mrs. Robinson, The Lemonheads, takes the folk rock roots of the original to totally new places.
10:10Knocking on Heaven's Door, Guns N' Roses, brings Bob Dylan into the world of hard rock.
10:23Knocking on Heaven's Door, Guns N' Roses, I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself, The White Stripes.
10:34An old classic gets a garage rock makeover.
10:36I just don't know what to do with myself.
10:42Maggie's Farm, Rage Against the Machine, Bob Dylan went electric.
10:47Rage went even further.
10:49Stagger Lee, Nick Cave, and the Bad Seeds.
11:00An ancient murder ballad, modernized by the gothic rock icons.
11:04So he walked through the rain and he walked through the mud till he came to a place called the Bucket of Blood.
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11:271. Hurt Johnny Cash
11:30The idea of the old folk troubadour Johnny Cash taking on a song by industrial rockers Nine Inch Nails
11:41might have seemed like the biggest left turn imaginable.
11:44And that's because it was.
11:462. Hurt Johnny Cash
11:46But Cash was pretty adventurous in his twilight years, covering a wide range of music on his critically lauded American album series.
11:58When he turned his hand to Trent Reznor's Hurt, it blew every cover he had ever done out of the water.
12:032. Hurt Johnny Cash
12:04Backed by one of the greatest music videos of all time, listening to this song was like hearing Cash reflect on his entire life.
12:16And he didn't even write the song.
12:18It truly doesn't get any better than this.
12:22I would find a way
12:26What genre switching covers would you add to our list?
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