Forums » Smalltalk » Favourite Tribute Bands & Song Covers

Thought I’d start a new music thread. This one is for sharing your favourite song covers and Tribute Bands.
A cover is a band or artist performing another artist’s usually famous song.
A Tribute Band is a band who solely replicates a famous band.

Here is a list of song covers I like:

• Led Zeppelin’s Dazed and Confused by Larkin Poe
• Led Zeppelin’s Battle of Evermore by Heart
• Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain by Tusk (Tusk is a Fleetwood Mac tribute band)
• Led Zeppelin’s When the Levee Breaks by Zepperela (Anna Kristina nails the harmonica and vocals here)
• Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter by Pretty Enemy

Love the stones covering "just my imagination running away with me" by the temptations.

irony - English cover by Lizzie Robinett

God's Gonna Cut You Down covered by Shawn James & The Shapeshifters
Mad World covered by Postmodern Jukebox
Blue Monday covered by HEALTH
Mr Sandman covered by SYML

Different tones for sure.

• I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight - Hidden Citizens (Epic Pop Vocals)
• Crazy In Love - Sofia Karlberg (GREAT inspiration for writing them steamier scenes ;^) )

Off the top of my head.

here's some oBsCuRE metal music from ya girl. it doesn't matter that nobody asked or has heard of half of these bands. that's okay. let me enrich you.

Vader - Raining Blood (Slayer) how to take a Slayer song and make it even more hardcore: listen and learn, kiddos. i don't like these guys' original stuff, but their covers are great. they've done a couple Metallica ones too.
Ceremonial Castings - Gravitational Constant (Type O Negative) one of my favorite bands covering one of my favorite songs from my favorite band. 'nuff said.
As I Lay Dying - War Ensemble (Slayer) see the first song's explanation.
Type O Negative - Paranoid (Black Sabbath) literally the best one on here. takes an already great song and turns it into a completely different tone. i might be biased because they're my favorite band, but...whatever.

i could go on and on, but i'll stop here lmao.

also: not a cover, but another great obscure band anyways. Cro Mags - Age of Quarrel. izgreat.

Yes hi hello Petro here, ready to make everyone mildly disquieted with mostly unacceptable musical juxtapositions that nobody asked for-

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Laibach is one of my favorite groups out there. Not a cover band overall, but they do have a bunch of industrial-neoclassical-techno covers that border on parodies. Their goal is to take your favorite songs, tear them to shreds, then rebuild them from the ground up as grotesque, nightmarish homunculi stitched together from the pieces. Milan Fras has the voice of a GOD and anyone that disagrees is fundamentally incorrect.

The Final Countdown (Europe)
See That My Grave is Kept Clean (Bob Dylan)
Dogs of War (Pink Floyd)
Geburt Einer Nation (Queen)
Jesus Christ Superstar (Tim Rice)
The Cross (Prince)
The Sound of Music (Howard Lindsay/Russel Crouse)
War (Edwin Starr)
They did several remixes of Sympathy for the Devil (Rolling Stones)
In an interview they said that people were telling them that doing these covers was fine, as long as they didn’t touch the Beatles. So they did an album of entirely Beatles covers, my favorite of which are Two of Us and Get Back

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On the exact opposite of the spectrum:

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Gregorian branched out into original works but started out as a cover band. Like it says on the box, they cover songs in the form of Gregorian monk chants.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)
Nothing Else Matters (Metallica)
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
Lady D’Arbanville (Cat Stevens)
Engel (Rammstein)
Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin)
Silent Lucidity (Queensryche)

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And speaking of Queensryche…

Scarborough Fair (Simon and Garfunkel)
Welcome to the Machine (Pink Floyd)
Heaven on their Minds (Tim Rice)

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And a few miscellaneous ones to continue making everyone uncomfortable:

Electric Hellfire Club: Sunday Bloody Sunday (U2)
Nevermore: Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel)
Dope: You Spin Me Round (Dead or Alive)
Disturbed: Sound of Silence (Simon and Garfunkel)
Johnny Cash: Hurt (Nine Inch Nails)
Universal Hall Pass: Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash)


Iron Horse Black Sabbath, Bluegrass Style

FITE ME

My favorite waste of time by Paul Owen.

Don't take my sunshine away by Alone, originally with Johnny Cash. This never fails to give me goosebumps. Definitely use headphones for best experience.

Kiss the Girl by Ryan O'Neil. We all know where the original comes from.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Violet Orlandi.

Paint it black by Hidden Citizens.


... I listen to depressing music, don't I.

Love this cover!


A beautiful cover of Deep Purple's Soldier of Fortune by Daria Zaritskaya and Sergey Sershen!

An excellent cover of the Rolling Stones 2000 Light Years from Home by The Danse Society!

In the tribute corner.... and how can I leave off Randy Hansen who has made a career out of channeling Jimi Hendrix!

And now a lovely cover of Stevie Nicks song Landslide by Jess Greenberg

77's - Nobodys Fault But Mine

A beautiful cover of Nick Drake’s song ‘Clothes of Sand’ done by the band Solas...

Bastille isn't a tribute band, but they do a mad amount of covers and mashups and I love them all:
We Can't Stop
This is What You Came For / Bang Bang / I Knew You Were Trouble
Earth Song / Common People
These are my favorites that you can't find on their cover albums (Other Peoples' Heartache Parts 1-4). I just love the lead singer's vocals.

Then Hozier's tease of a Toxic cover gives me chills, but that's more on the musician than Hozier himself:
Toxic

But most music I just prefer the originals.

Just came across this excellent cover of AC/DC’s ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’ by Joan Jett...

Halestorm's cover of Bad Romance is incredible (Original: Lady Gaga)
Zombie cover from Bad Wolves (Original: The Cranberries)
And the Uprising cover by Quietdrive (Original: Muse)
Also Muse's cover of Feeling Good (Original: Michael Bublé
Oh! And the Thunder Rolls cover by All That Remains

Here are some of my favourite song covers!
NSPs cover of Subdivisions (originaly by Rush.)
Five Finger Death Punch's cover of Gone Away (I believe the original is by The Offspring?)
An acoustic cover of Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun, done by Dan Avidan and Super Guitar Bros.
This cover of Hey There Delilah, performed by someone who calls themself Egg.

Yeah, The Offspring did the original Gone Away

Love this live cover of Fleetwood Mac's 'Oh Well'!

One of my favourite bands, the German techno-industrial metal band Rammstein, recorded a cover of "Stripped" by Depeche Mode, and they did it in English. It's quite good, and Depeche Mode themselves praised it for being unique:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/10JDA8SvwX8

They also did a cover of Kraftwerk's "Das Moddell", paying tribute to another iconic German band:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvUzqn5FaI

And because they are fans of The Ramones, they paid tribute to Joey Ramone's passing by performing "Pet Semetary" during The Mutter Tour. This was notable for a few reasons:
1. Keyboardist Christian "Flake" Lorenz would take the lead vocals for a change.
2. They would sometimes be joined by guest stars. In the video seen below, they were joined by CJ Ramone, Mark Ramone, and Jerry Only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzWzNVcL5Xo

The Scottish Pirate Metal band Alestorm has done some...interesting...cover versions as well:

Hangover (Originally by Taio Cruz)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5P5Tz3VH94

In The Navy (Originally by the Village People)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMwKDk4mW3c

You Are A Pirate (yes, that song from "Lazy Town")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRKAL-i-UbE