The 25 worst cover songs of all time, ranked

One of the leading British reggae bands of the 1980s, UB40 broke into the mainstream through a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine.” Fate brought that 1983 cover back to the American charts in 1988, where it topped the Billboard charts, creating a market for a sequel. Hence, Labour Of Love II, a generally amiable record marked by a cheerful rendition of the Temptations’ “The Way You Do The Things You Do” that sounded as if it was designed for a cruise ship. It was the first flowering of an unfortunate slick side of UB40 that brought them straight to the middle of the road.

At the height of his fame, MC Hammer revived “Have You Seen Her,” a gorgeous early 1970s smooth soul ballad by the Chi-Lites. That original single is a gossamer wonder, and Hammer fumbles it mightily. His heavier beat does the song no favors, but the true grievous injury is Hammer’s half sung, half rapped delivery. Vacillating between nostalgia and contemporary boasts, he never misses an opportunity to lay on the cheese, resulting in a cover that’s diametrically opposed to the emotion of the original.

Depending on your perspective, William Shatner’s dramatic reading of the Beatles’ “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” is either a travesty or a work of gonzo genius. Pairing his interpretation of the psychedelic masterwork with a poem called “Spleen,” Shatner dives headfirst into a go-go arrangement of “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds,” investing every word—even “the”—with meaning. Shatner’s emphasis can be puzzling—witness how he growls “girl” on “a girl with kaleidoscope eyes.” Equally baffling is the overheated orchestral arrangement, a square’s idea of what constituted hip in 1968.

In their first flush of fame, Limp Bizkit gained some notoriety by stripping George Michael’s “Faith” of its Bo Diddley beat so Fred Durst could bellow the chorus. It was a terrible cover, but they were saving their worst for later, when they cut the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” for their 2003 album Results May Vary. A hodgepodge of sincerity and smirking irony, Limp Bizkit’s “Behind Blue Eyes” plays it straight for a while, then inexplicably cuts out the cathartic bridge—the one place where the band could let loose—so the group could let a Speak N Spell literally spell out their name. That means the cover rises and falls on Durst’s ability to convey nuance, a skill that is not in his wheelhouse, as his flat affect here makes plain.

Added as a bonus track to their 1991 compilation Decade Of Decadence 81-91, Mötley Crüe’s version of the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy In The U.K.” suffers from a crippling case of literalism. Save Mick Mars, who juices the song with entirely too many busy lead lines, the Crüe take no liberties with the arrangement: Vince Neil even replicates every one of Johnny Rotten’s vocal ad libs. The main difference between the versions is how the Crüe takes a sledgehammer to each element of the song, playing it as an arena rocker, not an insurrectionist rallying call, making it significantly dumber in the process.

The original hit version of “Last Kiss” by J. Frank Wilson and the Cavaliers was part of a wave of “teen tragedy” songs of the early 1960s—a fad comprised entirely of melodramatic pop songs about adolescents grappling with the aftermath of dead lovers. Every one of these hits had more than a little schmaltz in their DNA, a trait Pearl Jam chose to ignore when they revived the song in 1999 for a benefit album. Playing the track absolutely straight, Pearl Jam sounds entirely too earnest for a song this corny.

Having achieved his crossover dreams with Let’s Dance, David Bowie found himself exhausted when it came time to deliver a sequel in 1984. Relying heavily on songs he co-wrote years earlier with Iggy Pop, Bowie threw on two very good originals—”Loving The Alien” and the sassy hit “Blue Jean”—then rounded it out with two covers, including this interpretation of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows.” Discarding the delicate nature of the original, Bowie builds to an overpowering crescendo that he can’t manage to wrangle. Treating it as a showstopper instead of a hymn, Bowie relies on vocal tics and mannerisms, a sign that he was at a creative low during this period.

Forget the fact that Britney Spears’ revision of the Joan Jett smash doesn’t have a thundering backbeat or roaring guitars: the joke is this version of “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” doesn’t rock. Darkchild tosses off the rhythmic loop, dresses it in facsimiles of guitars and lets Britney flounder through a performance that amounts to competent karaoke. With a different producer, a dance-pop “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” might’ve worked, but this version just feels tired.

The cardinal sin of Alien Ant Farm’s cover of Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” is that the band thinks they’re better than their source material. Revving up the original’s metallic riff so it sounds slicker and heavier, the band proceeds to mug their way through Jackson’s paranoid rocker, convinced that their audience will be in on the joke. If you don’t share their sense of humor, this cover is absolutely exhausting.

A contender for least serious band in rock history, Ugly Kid Joe decided to ditch the snottiness and play it straight for one song on their second album. That song? A cover of Harry Chapin’s maudlin life lesson “Cats In The Cradle,” a number one hit from 1974. Ugly Kid Joe replicated a good chunk of the original record, including its electric sitar hook, choosing to make everything bigger and bolder—a maxim that even applies to the acoustic guitars. The overblown arrangement isn’t as off-putting as Whitfield Crane’s mewling vocal delivery: he sounds like the kid in the song play-acting as the dad.

Warner Bros. Records celebrated its 50th Anniversary by having several of their current stars cover songs released by Warner artists of the past. Punk-popsters the Used chose “Burning Down The House” by Talking Heads, then proceeded to piss all over it. Rejecting the lithe funk that provides the original with its uncrackable foundation, the Used go into hyperactive goblin mode, offering an onslaught of arena drums, processed vocals and compressed guitars—all aural hallmarks that tie it to its very month of release back in 2009.

Self-serious covers of classic 20th Century pop tunes became commonplace in the 21st Century, providing the soundtrack to countless movie trailers over the years. For some reason, Disturbed’s version of Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound Of Silence” became a sensation in 2015, maybe because it underlines every emotion in the song with a thick marker. It begins with spare, spooky guitars that get enveloped by thick gobs of strings, which force vocalist David Draiman to bellow the concluding verse. Draiman’s melodramatic delivery saps any sense of nuance from the tune, but it suits a cover whose main point seems to be the band telling the audience that they get the “hidden” meaning of the song, when Paul Simon made no attempt to disguise his intentions at all.

Will to Power’s late 1980s hit “Baby I Love Your Way/Freebird” pairs two album rock perennials of the 1970s and mashes them into cheery mush. All synthesized vibes—the emotions feel as processed as the electronics—this nonsensical medley disregards the emotional intentions of either original song, opting for sunny lifestyle music that’s designed to be heard on a constant loop at a doctor’s office.

Forget the glitter-ball beat: the reason why Rod Stewart’s original 1978 version of “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” works is that it’s a story told in the third person, not a self-aggrandizing boast. Paris Hilton’s 2006 cover forgets this essential truth. Instead, it’s positioned as if Hilton herself is asking the audience if she’s sexy, a question that would seemingly need to go unanswered if it weren’t for the fact that this disco throwback is stiff and staid, easily the clumsiest song on her 2006 album. She not only doesn’t sound sexy, she seems like the opposite of hot.

One of a clutch of covers cut during the Achtung Baby sessions and parceled out as B-sides, “Fortunate Son” amounts to a monumental misfire from U2. Abandoning the fiery anger and rampaging rhythms of the Creedence Clearwater Revival original, U2 recasts it as an after-hours dance-rocker where Bono and the band seem indifferent to both the song’s melody and intent. It’s not so much a reinterpretation as a backing track mistagged as a cover.

Former hard rocker Michael Bolton reinvented himself as an adult contemporary crooner in the late 1980s, becoming a star on the back of his version of Otis Redding’s “(Sittin’ On) The Dock Of The Bay” in 1987. Four years later, he was at the peak of his popular powers, which meant there was nothing stopping him from oversinging—which is precisely what he did on this 1991 version of Percy Sledge’s 1966 classic “When A Man Loves A Woman.” The arrangement doesn’t quite depart from the original—it’s been synthesized and glossed, but it’s essentially the same—which means that it’s easy to compare Sledge’s passionate testifying with Bolton’s barrel-chested hamminess: he enters the song at a level of 11 and attempts to ramp up the intensity from there. He succeeds, but at the expense of the song.

With one cult hit under his belt, Marilyn Manson realized that the best way to bring his industrial-strength goth to the masses was through a cover version: it would serve as a Trojan Horse for his creepiness. He chose “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This),” an unsettling synth-pop classic by the Eurythmics. Where the eeriness was an undercurrent in the original, Manson pushed it to the forefront by slowing the tempo and relying on a guttural growl, elements that are superficially spooky but seem sillier with each passing year.

Duran Duran’s lambasted 1995 covers album Thank You isn’t quite as bad as its reputation—there’s an excellent version of the Doors’ “Crystal Ship” buried within—but it remains a pop culture punchline because of its cover of Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke.” Perhaps it was the height of hubris to have these recovering new romantics cover the hardest hip-hop act, but the end product is genuinely strange. To their credit, Duran Duran doesn’t attempt to mimic the original. Instead they create a funky rhythm built upon a bluesy acoustic guitar loop—not a bad beginning, but Simon Le Bon’s mannered delivery turns this into a bizarre act of interpretation that seems to miss the boat entirely.

A revivalist by nature, Lenny Kravitz would seem like the ideal choice to supercharge the Guess Who’s barbed fuzz-rocker “American Woman.” But he committed a cardinal mistake: by taking the riffs too seriously, he missed the spite at the song’s heart. Instead of wrapping his rocker in paisleys or other period affectations, he flattened the riff with a steam roller and sang from the depths of his gut, turning this hard rocker into a celebration of the very things the original condemns.

The pinnacle of smirking alterna-pop, Dynamite Hack’s version of “Boyz N The Hood” goes for laughs by recasting Eazy-E’s groundbreaking gangsta rap anthem as a collegiate sing-along. Strumming acoustic guitars and smiling through the verses, Dynamite Hack are besotted with their own cleverness, a self-satisfaction that plays as profoundly icky to anybody who isn’t a member of the band.

As Elton John’s hardest rocker, “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting” has proven to be an irresistible song for generations of rockers, and almost all of them fail to get within spitting distance of the original. The worst offender is Nickelback’s lead-footed cover. Leaning hard into a thudding backbeat, Nickelback removes any sense of swing from the rhythm, then doubles down on processed effects; as the riff moves from chord to chord there’s a small but perceptible rush of quiet that removes any sense of momentum from their interpretation. The version currently available on streaming services strips the initially released track of a verse by Kid Rock. That duet originally appeared on the soundtrack to Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle and constitutes the Alien Vs. Predator of Y2K rock: no matter who wins, we lose.

A pop culture sensation of the late 2000s, Susan Boyle’s show-stopping appearance on Britain’s Got Talent catapulted the singer to international fame in 2009. In a sense, Boyle was a star out of time, a throwback to the middlebrow crooners that littered the charts in the 1960s and early 1970s before easy listening truly had the chance to absorb the language of rock and roll. Boyle certainly had no affinity for rock and roll, as her version of the Rolling Stones’ “Wild Horses” makes plain. A bruised country-rock ballad in its original incarnation, “Wild Horses” becomes a turgid orchestral slog in Boyle’s interpretation, one that plays to her vocal strengths at the expense of the song’s meaning.

Madonna was in an artistic renaissance during the Y2K era, so the existence of her electro-pop cover of Don McLean’s “American Pie” is all the more baffling. The problem isn’t that Madonna’s synthesized revision—and systemic edit—of McLean’s boomer allegory is sacrilegious. Quite the opposite, actually. Madonna may shift around the lyrics and dress the melody in electronic pulses, yet she retains a sense of pervasive nostalgia—maybe not for the day the music died but rather the time when McLean’s eight-minute ramble could still be heard on a regular basis spilling out of AM radios from coast to coast.

When Jessica Simpson landed the role of Daisy Duke in the silver screen adaptation of the TV series The Dukes Of Hazzard, she also got the opportunity to give the movie its theme song. Hence, her revision of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin.” Turning Lee Hazlewood’s splashy Hollywood strut into stiff robotic country-funk wasn’t enough for Simpson. Writing new words to match the film—”These double D initials work to run”—Simpson also adds a hoe-down breakdown on a newly constructed bridge. These inventions are attempts to align the song with the country—a misguided move that’s nearly as embarrassing as Simpson’s overheated vocals, which mistake breathiness for sexiness.

One of a handful of songs that’s impossible to hear without picturing the video, Mick Jagger and David Bowie’s version of Martha & the Vandellas’ 1964 Motown classic “Dancing In The Street” is a misfire on a number of levels. Knocked out in half a day while Bowie was recording material for the Absolute Beginners soundtrack, this version of “Dancing In The Street” was tacked onto the broadcast of Live Aid because neither singer could share the same stage at the same time that July day in 1985. What they wound up with was an excursion in high camp that outlasted Live Aid, existing on its own astral plane, where two of the greatest rock stars mug and mince as they play-act nostalgia for a past neither would choose to revisit. On its own, it’s a monumental exercise in bad taste, but it seems especially tacky when considering its origins.