The Best and Worst Covers in Music. -

[Absolutego]

It's not exactly groundbreaking, but if Into the Void was written in the early 90's this is pretty much what I imagine it would've sounded like:

This is by far my favorite cover of an Alice in Chains song:

On the other hand, this is abhorrent and I will never understand all the praise it got upon release:

 

[Wooo]

This song was originally created by The Yardbirds. Then Aerosmith did a awesome job with this cover.

 

[UnKillShredDur]

I've heard people raving about Weezer's "Africa" cover for months.

Spoiler: This one:

I love the original song in general, and even though the Weezer version has Weird Al (almost always a winner in my book) in the vid, I still actually preferred a shitty Christian band's cover, tbh:

If you want to talk about great Weezer covers, I did actually hear one I liked quite a lot:

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Smashing Pumpkins had a couple of great cover songs.

Never Let Me Down Again. (I enjoy it as much as the Depeche Mode one.)

Landslide.

The Maine has some catchy cheerful covers as well.

You Get What You Give (originally by the New Radicals)

The Sign (originally by Ace Of Base)

 

[Mr. A. L. Mao]

Just found out that this was a cover, but no doubt the definitive version of the song:

This one, on the other hand, is auditory cancer:

Covers in a bizarre, trippy, "let's get stoned and record" style from members of GWAR. "Syncha mutherfuckin' gone" makes me laugh every time

 

[Sprig of Parsley]

The Offspring did this better than the Damned in my opinion. Not that the Damned's version was bad.

 

[Maggots on a Train v2]

Two songs that sound like solid folk songs once all the 1970's music memes got stripped out of them.

 

[Chocolate Elvis]

Grace Jones singing Joy Division manages to be both an over-theatrical wreck and a perfectly listenable bit of post-punk dub at the same time.

 

[Islamic Creampie]

The original is a great song by a great band, this is embarrassing bullshit.

 

[Meat Poultry Veg]

On the other hand, this is abhorrent and I will never understand all the praise it got upon release:

I liked Disturbed, but their cover of this song absolutely defeated the purpose. It's also nothing without Simon and Garfunkel's silky smooth harmonization.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

Woo, boy. I consider myself a cover connoisseur. I'm actually looking forward to checking out all 14 pages of this thread, but it's going to take me so long.

I've heard people raving about Weezer's "Africa" cover for months.

Spoiler: This one:

I love the original song in general, and even though the Weezer version has Weird Al (almost always a winner in my book) in the vid, I still actually preferred a shitty Christian band's cover, tbh:

This is the first song that came to mind reading the OP about the worst covers. It doesn't even sound like a cover, it sounds like an exact recreation. I thought, what is even the point of this cover? Why is it getting so much air play? Just play Toto's version. I bet the average listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Or is this just too meta and/or ironic for me? Granted, I only ever heard it on the radio. Listening to it with headphones makes it sound a little different, and the video is kind of fun. So my opinion of this song is upped slightly.

Speaking of good covers of this song:

...and here's a few covers I'm not so fond of:

I love this guy. Most of his covers are great. So every time I hear Weezer's non-cover of Africa, I think this guy's cover should get the air play.

One cover song I will argue that is better than the original is Johnny Cash's version of "Hurt". FIGHT ME!

I don't know if any of these songs have been mentioned yet. Here are some cool and interesting covers I've thought of off the top of my head.
Symphonic metal version of Adele's "Rolling in the Deep":

Metal version of Rhianna's "Umbrella":

Power metal version of Katy Perry's "I kissed A Girl":

Ska version of Alanis Morrisette's "You Oughta Know":

Rap/Reggie/Metal version of Black Sabbath's "Sabbra Cadabra":

 

[UnKillShredDur]

This is the first song that came to mind reading the OP about the worst covers. It doesn't even sound like a cover, it sounds like an exact recreation. I thought, what is even the point of this cover? Why is it getting so much air play? Just play Toto's version. I bet the average listener wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Or is this just too meta and/or ironic for me? Granted, I only ever heard it on the radio. Listening to it with headphones makes it sound a little different, and the video is kind of fun. So my opinion of this song is upped slightly.

Could you be a bit more specific? I cited two different covers in that post you quoted, one I liked and one I didn't. I'm assuming you agreed with me and think Weezer's version of Africa was meh, but it really isn't clear from your post.

 

[Drunk and Pour]

Could you be a bit more specific? I cited two different covers in that post you quoted, one I liked and one I didn't. I'm assuming you agreed with me and think Weezer's version of Africa was meh, but it really isn't clear from your post.

Yeah, the Weezer one.

 

[TheImportantFart]

Nobody's mentioned Rick Astley's cover of "Uptown Funk"?:

 

[ProgKing of the North]

The good:

And of course, the ultimate cover:

Now there's plenty of bad covers out there, but two to me stand out. This one because Mike Love brings in the Sugar Ray dude to massacre his own band's song, which he cowrote (the video is some hilarious cringe, too)

And this one has to be the worst of all, because instead of simply being an awful cover, that worthless cunt Kenny G decided to tunelessly masturbate OVER THE ORIGINAL LOUIS ARMSTRONG RECORDING

To wash the taste out, here's a GOOD cover of WAWW

 

[Dolphin Lundgren]

Two good covers that the Red Hot Chili Peppers did.

Higher Ground and If You Want Me To Stay.

 

[FH 721]

Going into videogame territory for a moment here, I don't think anything in a long while will dethrone Wolfenstein 2 for the title of worst cover of a Twisted Sister song.

Where the fuck was Mick Gordon when they were coming up with this travesty.

 

[PL 001]

Worst cover I've heard is Disturbed's cover of The Sound of Silence.

These re.tards really missed the point of the song. Simon and Garfunkel wrote a song expressing melancholia and disillusionment regarding the general apathy and self centeredness of society. Disturbed released an angsty, whiny, emo cringefest. They really reached Fag Factor 5 with that cover.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

Got another heavy metal one.

Amon Amarth's Twilight of the Thunder God is one of the best songs I've listened to in a long while.

Of course, not everyone likes melodic death metal, especially the rough vocals. However, Sabaton made a cover and it's just as good as the original.

You really can't go wrong with either of these versions.

 

[ES 195]

I find all of Halestorm's covers to be phenomenal almost better than the originals. Their cover of Straight Through The Heart by Dio is great.

Spoiler

Or the Scorpions cover of The Temple Of The Kings

Spoiler

I also find Anthrax's cover of Carry On My Wayward Son to be slightly better than the original

Spoiler

As for some of the worst... Well just about any Dio cover not listed here or Metallica cover you find are typically fucking garbage but I'm incredibly picky with them.