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There’s no finer way in music to pay homage to an inspiration than the time-honored cover song. The Rolling Stones, Beatles, and Led Zeppelin essentially began their careers as glorified cover bands (or rip-off artists, depending on who you ask) before graduating to having their songs remade by everyone from Tiffany to Billy Joel, Bette Midler, Stone Temple Pilots, and Hootie & The Blowfish.

Covers versions can be great (think Johnny Cash’s take on Nine Inch Nails’ “Hurt”), but more often than not, atrocious (think Hilary Duff mauling The Who’s “My Generation”). And then there are remakes so bad they’re almost comical.

Which brings us to Korn’s Jonathan Davis. See, once upon a time, Korn were the leaders of the so-called “nu metal” brigade, a horde of frustrated boys who loved hip-hop and metal and decided to stick their Black Sabbath-inspired white chocolate into some gangsta peanut butter, essentially ruining two genres at once.  

The dreadlocked Davis has made what is practically a second career out of questionable covers, from his band’s trashing of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” to their bagpipe-assisted take on War’s “Low Rider” and an ill-conceived swing at Ice Cube’s “Wicked.” All fun and games, until Davis recently dropped his latest homage, a retread of Lil’ Wayne’s still-fresh “Got Money,” a bouncy clubber in which Davis cranks up the robotic AutoTune vocals and paints himself as some kind of flossy, flashy strip-club-alien lothario from the hood (assuming there is a hood in Bakersfield, California).

 

For the most part, efforts like Davis’ are meant to take an artist out of their comfort zone, so that got us thinking about some of the other cover catastrophies we’d rather forget.

CELINE DION

I could probably pick just about any of Canadian power elf Celine Dion’s covers and throw it on the fire, but her gender-switching decimation of AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” is one of those car-crash horror shows that makes you unsure if you first want to gouge out your eyes or stick needles in your ears, or just do both at the same

 




PUSSYCAT DOLLS

“Tainted Love” is a great 1964 song that already survived a 1981 Soft Cell cover, which has actually become more popular than the original, and barely escaped with its life in 2001 when Marilyn Manson put his goth stink on it. And then the Pussycat Dolls dragged it through their cat box of horrible vocals and over-emoting in 2005, turning it into a pole-dancing anthem that went from reeking of heartbreak to just kind of, well, skanky.

BOWLING FOR SOUP

Generally, when you cover a song the idea is to bring your own unique perspective to it. Apparently, nobody told this to jokey rockers Bowling For Soup, who took Modern English’s classic 1980s hit “I Melt With You” and did nothing at all to it, except let their whiny-voiced singer make us forget what was great about it to begin with. And don’t even get me started on Limp Bizkit leader Fred Durst’s “homage” to the tune. At least he didn’t try to sing it, though his attempt at an ’80s dance is worth a chuckle.



 

Durst video:

 

LIMP BIZKIT

Speaking of Durst, which is something I try to avoid, his band Limp Bizkit’s grunged-up slog through The Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” tried to get all emo, but I suspect the only reason they wanted to do it was so Fred could sing the line, “No one knows what it’s like to be hated.” Oh, and kiss Halle Berry in the video. Two legitimate reasons, actually. Otherwise, it feels like a home demo from a shut-in teen who just learned how to play his acoustic guitar. Again, if you’re going to cover a song, put your mojo on it, even if your mojo amounts to unnecessary beats, terrible rapping, and gratuitous scratching.

 

BRITNEY SPEARS

Picking on Britney Spears is kind of like shooting Cheetos-eating fish in a barrel, but her cover of the made-famous-by Joan Jett song “I Love Rock ’N Roll” does exactly what it should: adds gratuitous scratching, unnecessary beats, kewpie-doll vocals, and the least rock arrangement ever. Britney, c’mon, you don’t love rock ’n’ roll — you probably don’t even know how to spell it! Bonus fact: Britney thought it was Pat Benatar who made the song famous. Classic!

DURAN DURAN

Oh, Duran Duran, you get an A+ for chutzpah. Unfortunately, you get an F- for execution. The band best known in the ’80s for their awesome videos and complicated hair covered Public Enemy’s social firebomb “911 Is A Joke” on their wide-ranging 1995 covers album, Thank You. Problem is, they did it as a kind of bluesy boogie and let singer Simon Le Bon “rap” through a heavily distorted mike, which was about as funky as . . . Simon Le Bon trying to rap a Public Enemy song. They did a much better job on their redo of Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines.” Seriously.


 


P. DIDDY

Back when he was still called Puff Daddy, Sean “P. Diddy” Combs somehow persuaded Jimmy Page to perform on a cover of Led Zeppelin’s classic “Kashmir,” retitled “Come With Me,” which was featured on the 1998 Godzilla soundtrack. OK, technically it’s not a straight cover, but it’s every bit as bad as you imagine.

 

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