Favourite covers

Well its Friday afternoon, and I thought what better way to ease into the weekend than with some great tunes. Without further ado, here are the top 10 covers I've been listening to recently.

10. I Fought the Law: Originally released by the Crickets in their first post-Buddy Holly album. It seems every man and his dog has produced a cover of this song, but the one I've been listening to is The Clash's version. The song was very suited to their energetic punk style.

9. Mrs Robinson: The Simon and Garfunkel hit covered by Memphis R'n'B group Booker T & the MG's. A feature of their cover was the bass work by Donald 'Duck' Dunn and the metronomic drumming of Al Jackson Jr.

 8. Jealous Guy: Surprisingly, ended up being Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music's biggest hit. Their version was released just months after the death of John Lennon. No disrespect to John, but I prefer the more broody Roxy Music cover.

7. Ring of Fire: Few people would know that it wasn't Johnny Cash who first recorded this song, it was his sister-in-law Anita Carter. Of course all covers (and there are plenty) are based on Cash's recording, and of those Dwight Yoakam's has to be one of the best.

6. The Loved One: The debut single from Melbourne based rock group The Loved One's. They only released two albums, but had a massive impact on Australian music. They are members of the ARIA hall of fame, and The Loved One was voted in at No.6 in the greatest Australian songs of all time. INXS payed homage to the group with their cover in 1981.

5. Stomp the Tumbarumba: The recorded version of the cover by the Hoodoo Gurus is superior to the live version. However, both are better in my opinion than the original by New Zealander Johnny Devlin (who holds the dubious honour of winning NZ's Biggest One Hit Wonder of the Century Award).

4. Louie Louie: First recorded by Richard Berry, Louie Louie is a staple song for almost any band performing a pub gig. Unintelligible at the best of times, the cover by reggae group Toots and the Maytals (best known as part of the soundtrack for film This is England) does nothing to aid deciphering the lyrics.

3. Take Me to the River: The Talking Heads took the risk of covering a classic song, and came up with a part R'n'B, part new-wave distinctly Talking Heads song. It's hard to separate between the Al Green original and the cover, both great in their own ways.

2. Fire: Two versions of this song by The Boss came out shortly after it was written. Unfortunately for Robert Gordon, the Pointer Sisters version received much more attention than his own. Interestingly, Springsteen didn't release his own version until nearly ten years later.

1. I Heard It Through the Grapevine: As was often the case at Motown, once a song was written many of the artists recorded their own versions. Smokey Robinson and the Miracles got their version out in 1967, but it became the signature song of Marvin Gaye following the release of his version a year later. Just a great song, not much more you can say.