cover ups and downs

The pop culture site retroCRUSH has followed up their list of 100 great cover songs with a list of 100 bad cover songs. Most of their choices are dead on. They include several of the usual suspects, some of which have been featured on Golden Throats discs. At least two of the more notorious "American Idol" rejects made the list. Plus they threw in a few conversation starters like Whitney Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You."

As I went through the list, I found some songs that I thought were too good to be called bad. I actually prefer "Boys of Summer" by the Ataris over the original. "Come On Eileen" by Save Ferris was okay. I especially liked "Gone Daddy Gone" by Gnarls Barkley and "I Melt With You" by Bowling for Soup. It may be that I'm partial to Bowling For Soup. I've written before that I very much enjoy their cover of "...Baby One More Time." However it must be said that their version of "London Bridge" is not all that. I would have taken "I Melt With You" off the worst list and replaced it with "London Bridge."

A friend emailed me a link to a cover song that is not on either of retroCRUSH's lists. Not yet anyway. It's an instrumental version of the Gnarls Barkley tune "Crazy" performed on a Theremin.