Guys, We've Reached Peak Cover Tune
Thursday, August 2, 2018 at 07:40AM We've hit full circle here. After posting about Weezer's big hit covering Toto... Toto has returned the favor and is now covering Weezer's "Hash Pipe." Either nothing matters... or it all matters. I haven't decided yet.
The Toto money quote from Rolling Stone:
“We figured since we were smoking hash since before they were born, that’s the one we should do,” guitarist Steve Lukather told the crowd. “This is our tribute to Weezer, god bless ’em.”
This sort of sets the mind ablaze. We can think of all sorts of odd band pairs that can cover each other. Think about it: Imagine Dragons covering L.A. Guns. MGMT covering Kix. Why not? There are no rules anymore about anything really. Might as well have fun.
Watch Toto cover Weezer’s 2001 hit “Hash Pipe” at their Vancouver tour launch https://t.co/NIAJhKI30l pic.twitter.com/tzZLnEflmS
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) July 31, 2018
Reader Comments (8)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8h0u2lhsVI
Examples such as:
Toto covers Kansas
Asia covers Europe
Pink covers Yello
Sweet covers Eminem
America covers Boston and Chicago.
Enuff Z'Nuff covers INXS
Salt N Pepa cover Meat Loaf
Helmet covering The Talking Heads
Bare Naked Ladies covering David Lee Roth
and for specific songs there is:
Genesis covers From The Beginning
Lil Jon covering Big Bad John
Fastway covers Slow Ride
Doing covers is a long, tried and true practice by musicians paying homage to their favorite artists and songs spanning the ages since the creation of music. Needless to say, though I have many playlists covering many genres, I lean toward Metal covers and have created several huge playlists with names like “Covered in Metal”, “Metalized”, “Got You Covered”, etc.
Primo examples on these playlists run the gamut from classic to recent with such ditties as Priest’s cover of Joan Baez’s “Diamonds and Rust” or SteelCity’s version of Vinnie Vincent Invasion’s “Back On The Street”.
But the whole thing going on with TOTO and WEEZER trading covers takes it to a whole new level, marking the first time when a cover is answered by another cover with the energy of immediate social media interaction, giving a sort of in-the-moment trending millennial hipster cred to TOTO, making them relevant again almost overnight.
I agree with Allyson and JT, the bigger the contrast between an original song and it’s cover, the better! Check out Charlotte Gainesborg’s hauntingly cool rendition of “Hey Joe”, in reality, a cover of a cover of a cover but popularized by Hendrix with his version released in 1966. Or Novo Amor’s take on Gn’R’s “Welcome To The Jungle”.
You can file Novo Amor’s and Gainsbourg’s covers under “Chill out”, which is an awesome thing to do after a night spent listening to bombastic cranked up Metal or Punk versions of our favorite tunes at high volume. Another fun thing to do is play a Chillout playlist with mellow versions of Hard Rock songs at a cocktail party full of people nursing Martinis who aren’t necessarily predisposed to shouting over “Appetite for Destruction”. And you sorta feel like you’re getting away with something or not selling out completely when hearing Paul Anka’s version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in the background while noshing on canapés and sipping a nice Rosé.
But the real fun is imagining covers that don’t exist yet like Imagine Dragons covering L.A. Guns or MGMT doing KIX, as Allyson has suggested. How about “Home Sweet Home” covered by Sturgill Simpson? Okay, okay! Lemme keep thinkin’!
I certainly will give these covers a listen.
Hope everyone's had a great summer.
Gus does a killer version of a song I always dreamed of covering if I could ever get it together to start a band and one I always thought would have been a natural for Deep Purple ...
“Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits.
Man, G blows it up bigtime! Enjoy!