Favorite cover songs

For every great band, there seems to be an army of cover bands waiting in the dark like vampires. Most of them commit the musical equivalent of repainting the Mona Lisa with house paint, taking perfectly good songs and draining away everything that made them special.

But every now and then, someone pulls off the impossible. A familiar tune is dismantled, rebuilt, and somehow emerges with an entirely different soul. Those are the rare covers worth celebrating, not because they imitate the original, but because they dare to challenge it.

All that you don’t really need is to be found at Amoeba Records in San Francisco.

Here are a few of the good ones.

• Nine Inch Nails – Dead Souls (Joy Division)
• Jeff Buckley – Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen)
• Gary Jules – Mad World (Tears For Fears)
• Marilyn Manson – Sweet Dreams (Eurythmics)
• Jimi Hendrix – All Along the Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
• Johnny Cash – Hurt (Nine Inch Nails)
• This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren (Tim Buckley)
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Tower of Song (Leonard Cohen)
• The Animals – House of the Rising Sun (Woody Guthrie)
• Tori Amos – Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana)
• Soft Cell – Tainted Love (Gloria Jones)
• The Knife – Heartbeats (José González)
• Pet Shop Boys – Always On My Mind (Brenda Lee)
• Nirvana – The Man Who Sold The World (David Bowie)
• José Feliciano – California Dreamin’ (The Mamas & The Papas)
• Cowboy Junkies – Sweet Jane (Velvet Underground)
• Tori Amos – Enjoy the Silence (Depeche Mode)
• Ryan Adams – Wonderwall (Oasis)
• Placebo – Running Up That Hill (Kate Bush)

Know a cover that deserves a place on the list? I’m always looking for another version that makes me hear an old song in a completely new way.