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We all know the Elvis version of Suspicious Minds but it was originally recorded by Mark James
The very different original version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight.
The Tide Is High was a hit for Blondie but a lot of people don't realise it was a cover of The Paragons.
Blondie also had a hit with a regendered version of Denise!
Another regendered cover was Hey Mickey By Toni Basil which started life as Hey Kitty and was originally recorded by Racey.
More to follow and please post your own!
The Lion Sleeps Tonight one fascinates me, I thought Pete Seeger had the first version of it. I will say I do not like this version of the song very much.
I've heard that version of The Tide Is High probably as much or more often than the Blondie version as a guess.
Is it worth adding songs that Dylan did but others did better? I mean All along the Watchtower by Hendrix is the well known version but most people I know that know the song know Dylan wrote it and did it first.
Dylan wrote a number of songs that were bigger hits for cover artists but he's fairly well known as the originator of most of them AIUI.
This is a gem!
I like that one The Original An Gadaí, but I only knew the George Harrison version which I love.
Since everybody was going on and on about the beauty of "Hallelujah" in the cover thread, I think we should all take a moment to marvel at the original version.
Indeed!
I'm curious about this song, Jeff Buckley's was the version I first knew but was Cohen's original a hit at time of release and well known?Quote:
Originally posted by Peeta Mellark
After Jeff Buckley's version there has been a déluge of covers, it's essentially a standard now.
It wasn't particularly popular in its original version, but John Cale did a cover that was greatly simplified and it's that version that has inspired the sound of all the other covers.
I like the simpler sound of it in the covers quite a bit, but there are a lot of great verses of Cohen's that are usually cut and a difficult to capture power to his voice.
Cool thread, AG! I actually had no idea that that George Harrison song was a cover.
This is more famous yet not universally known, Gloria Jones' original version of Tainted Love which of course was a huge hit for Soft Cell in the 1980s.
The first version of California Dreamin' had the Mamas and the Papas singing backing hence its similarity to their more famous version:
It seems to have been much more common in the '50s and '60s for songs to be translated from another language into English. It still happens occasionally, any see if you can recognise this song. :)
Elvis! You've...gone Italian. :dubious:
I did forget that version and my sisters had the 45.Quote:
Originally posted by The Original An Gadaí
This came up in the last few weeks. And old hit by Argent that people thought was by Kiss as Kiss had a popular 1990's remake used in a move.
I'm not that big an Elvis fan, but I had no idea he did a version of that. Dusty Springfield is the first name that comes to mind for that one.Quote:
Originally posted by Peeta Mellark
It's debatable what counts as an "original recording", as Burt Bacharach wrote the song, and Dionne Warwick recorded it but didn't have a hit with it until later. For most people in my generation, it's a quintessentially 80's song sung by two-hit wonder Naked Eyes. The earliest version to become popular, though was by Lou Johnson. The song - "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me".
One song that's not really a famous cover but is probably only known from what could be called either a heavy sampling or a remix. Freddie Scott's "You Got What I Need":
parzival, thanks so much for posting that. That line came into my head earlier on my bus to work and I thought, "hmm that must be from another song".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsoa1wHJT2E
Covered later by Devo, and others.
This one ^ is popular at work where the words have been changed to "Working On The Glue Line"
Working on the glue line?
The "Glue Line" is part of the assembly process for uPVC door panels :)