Saturday, March 27, 2010

When the imitation is better

There are lots of cheesy or unusual cover songs out there, but have you ever heard the cover version of a song before you heard the original, and then thought the original was just cheesy? Here are some examples that I've noticed:

The Renegades of Funk
Cover: Rage Against The Machine
Cheesy Original: Afrika Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force

Mad World
Cover: Michael Andrews and Gary Jules
Cheesy Original: Tears for Fears

These original versions may have sounded pretty good when they came out, but when creative people decided to make music in the 1980s, they doomed themselves to be made fun of by the future.

I mentioned this idea for a blog post a while back to a friend, and she borrowed the idea on her blog. Can you think of any other examples of this phenomenon?