another "best cover versions ever" list. Attention sundaygal, Joan J's "Crimson & Clover" makes the cut.
http://popdose.com/the-popdose-100-the-greatest-cover-songs-of-all-time/
Thanks for sharing this - half of these songs I had no idea were covers (and I can start with the bookends).
I didn't know the "Alone" story either -- I always assume all those crappy Heart ballads are Diane Warren compos. But "Respect"? Dude, the fact it's an Otis tune is one of the least-obscure pop factoids, like, ever.
Nice analogy here:
20. “Der Kommissar” – After the Fire. Originally performed by Falco
When you’re covering foreign-language pop, you can approach the job in one of two ways. You can be a translator, more-or-less replicating the original track with English vocals, maybe even using the original backing tracks, as if you were putting subtitles on Yojimbo. After the Fire choose instead to make A Fistful of Dollars, using Falco’s skeletal original as a scaffold on which to hang Duran Duran-style sequencers, angular shards of guitar, a clappy folk breakdown, winningly-goofy white rapping and a monstrous gang chorus. Cool formalist black-and-white period piece, blown out into gloriously nutso Cinerama Technicolor epic. Alles klar? — Jack Feerick