Remade for Your Entertainment

It's as if we're all living in déjà vu!  Every year, a movie that we have already seen is either remade (“Dawn of the Dead”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”; WHY?!?) or is resurrected (“Predators”, “Scream 4”).  The same can be said with music as well. 

It's no surprise that most of the bands that we all know and loved originally started out life as cover bands.  They gained popularity by playing songs that people were already familiar with and this was the main reason people attended their performances in the first place.  They didn’t want to hear any of their original work, they wanted to hear them play classics like “My Generation” or “Crazy Train”.

The same can be said now especially with already established bands.  Every once and a while, a band that people are already familiar with releases an updated version of a song people have heard of sometime during their life.  Most times, these new acts actually make the song better than the original performers did, but some people may feel otherwise.

So, today’s post is opened to your interpretation as I show you both the original and the cover version of the same few songs.

First up, “Careless Whisper” by George Michael.  (Not really considered “rock”, but whatever…)

Now, here is Seether, a post-grunge band’s take on the same song.  (Available on the Deluxe Edition of their 2007 album “Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces”).

Let’s take a listen to Tears For Fears’ “Shout”.

And compare it to the metal band Disturbed’s “Shout 2000”.

Here’s the Johnny Cash classic “Ring Of Fire”.

And here’s the punk band Social Distortion’s take on it.

Whenever it comes to remakes, in the case of movies I always prefer the original over ANY of the remakes (I’m looking at you Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”!).  However, with these and a few other covers, I prefer the remakes over the original songs.

My reason is because they all present a fresh and interesting take on songs we’ve already heard.  In the case of “Shout 2000” by Disturbed, I absolutely LOVE this song!  It is without a doubt the PERFECT fight song and should be used in a fight scene in any movie or TV show! J

Now, of course you don’t have to agree with me about any of this, so I now open the floor up to all of you.  Which do YOU prefer, the original versions of songs or covered versions of songs?

If you enjoyed this post, then please tune into my friend James’ radio show “J Bird Radio” on WICR every Monday from 4pm to 5pm and check out his “Originally Remade” segment which plays both the original and covered version of any given song! J