Less famous covers that you knew before the more famous originals

I guess this happens more when yr young.

Like for some time, I only knew "Too busy thinkin 'bout my Baby" by Mardi Gras.

toots & the maytals - country roads

The Bangles' "September Gurls"...pretty sure.

― clemenza, Tuesday, September 1, 2015 4:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is a more famous cover of a less famous original though, surely?

All the covers on Living Colour's Biscuits were this way for me -- Talkin' Loud and Sayin' Nothin, Burning of the Midnight Lamp, Love and Happiness, Memories Can't Wait

Stone Temple Pilots - "Dancing Days"

no wonder I thought that song was so much better than the rest of their output...

That's probably one of my least favorite Zep songs

jawbreaker - pack it up

an embarrassing amount, but one: tracey thorn's get around to it

Minor Threat - Stepping Stone

Phil Collins "You Can't Hurry Love"

Nirvana-The Man Who Sold The World

Oh huh, I always think of that as the more famous version, like it took what was for most people a real obscurity and put it on this mega-selling album and MTV special.

i had the young marble giants on in the stockroom at this one job and one of my coworkers asked me, 'who are this band covering hole'

The Blues Brothers, "Soul Man."

This abomination was played on Chicago radio at least twice an hour in 1979. Hearing the Sam & Dave original five years later was a monumental revelation.

Pretty sure I heard Alexei Sayle's "Play That Funky Music Jewish Boy" first. The original is definitely more famous.

xpost Christ, I'd never seen it until today. friends of a friend used to do this version at karaoke nights, dance choreography and stupid Aykroyd "Soul mahhhhn" vocal. I thought they were just clowning it up but nope. Aykroyd annoys me cos he appears to be making fun of the song with his performance, even though I know he has reverence for it.

Nancy & lee's version of Jackson. Dopn't think I knew it was a cover for several years after it. Still not sure how often I've heard teh Johnny Cash version.

Gun Club Run ThrouGH The Jungle think I heard a couple of years before the CCR.
& I probably picked up on Robert JOhnson after hearing their first lp, which in turn may have been picked up from Son House. Preachin The Blues that is.

THink it toook me years to finally hear Tiny bradshaw's Train Kept A rollin, loved the Johnny BUrnette version for a couple of decades before taht and probably first heard the song in garage punk versions or by the Yardbirds or Led Zeppelin. Garage punk versi8on may have been the Chosen Few.

First came across I'm MOvin On by the Rolling Stones on No Stone Unturned the lp that was supposed to be their bsides and I'm not sure stuck to that model. I later heard it by Ray Charles on a best of him and only after that heard the Hank Snow original.

I only know the Lydia Lunch version of Run Through the Jungle... it was years before I even knew it was a CCR song, which I've still never heard.

Original is on Cosmo's Factory and I think it may be about Vietnam.

Lydia version 8 Eyed Spy?

Yes, 8 Eyed Spy.

This is probably an opposite example, hearing the original after the more famous cover. Anyway, Dawn Penn's version is wonderful, but so is this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsJMfYDUNCE

Joy Division's version of Sister Ray - put the teenage me off wanting to hear the Velvet Underground for ages

I was very familiar with 1992's two rocked-out covers of "Pink Moon" (by Walt Mink and Sebadoh) long before I heard the original -- probably in that VW ad.

fIREHOSE's live totem pole ep introduced me to böc's 'the red and the black', wire's 'mannequin' and the butthole surfers' 'revolution (part 2)'

r.e.m. introduced me to wire's 'strange'

r.e.m. introduced me to wire's 'strange'

Me too - though my guess is the R.E.M. version is more "famous," in that Document has probably sold more copies / been heard by more ppl than Pink Flag?

I never knew about Willie Cobbs' "You Don't Love Me," that's totally amazing!

Carnivore’s “Manic Depression”

Not strictly a cover but I heard Evolution Control Committee's Whipped Cream Mixes before Rebel Without a Pause.

I feel like we may be entering a golden age of people being more familiar with less famous cover versions. Went out to dinner tonight, and the music playing on their stereo was 100% cover versions, with an emphasis on reggae takes of 80s songs. I know people who would tell you their favorite type of music is cover versions.

...also, "A Child's Introduction to the Beatles" by a group called the Wild Honey Singers with several of the best known Beatles songs before I'd ever heard the Beatles.
And Status Quo's Roadhouse Blues before the Doors'.

Sebadoh's "Pink Moon" and REM's "Strange" for me too. Nick Drake and (early) Wire seemed impossibly obscure when I were a lad, pre-internet.

One 'original' I only just heard last night was Elton's John's "Step into Christmas". I made of point of finally looking it up after seeing a snippet of Gavin & Stacey characters singing it. I've known it was a John/Taupin thing since shortly after the Wedding Present covered in 1992, but the latter was somehow the only rendition I'd ever knowingly been exposed to.

Heard Joe Cocker's version of "With A Little Help From My Friends" before the Beatles version when I watched The Wonder Years as a kid. Bet that one goes for a lot of people.

― musically, samedi 12 septembre 2009 03:49 (ten years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, I think I only "discovered" the Beatles original years later as a teenager !

Does that count as being less famous than the original though?

There's a lot of these on the Residents' "Third Reich and Roll" but the Rascals' "Good Lovin'" is the one that springs most readily to mind.

... was always great to hear the original songs because they were uniformly so good.

Ah, I just thought of 2 pretty embarrassing ones :
Harold Melvin & The Bluenotes's "If You Don't Know Me By Now" and Simply Red's 89 cover version (surely Harold Melvin's is considered the classic version, right !?)
And again, H. Melvin's "Don't Leave Me This Way" and The Communards' 86 cover version.

The Communards version was more a cover of Thelma Houston’s m/l contemporary discofied cover version of HM&BN’s Philly soul original.

The Psychedelic Furs' version of 'How Soon is Now' that was the theme from Charmed (or some other show?)

I don't think I'd heard any Smiths stuff outside of 'the Queen is Dead', I knew one of their major songs was called 'How Soon is Now' and I knew the song from that cover version but had no idea that's what it was.

There was a band called Dark Star who had a single out 'I am the Sun' around that same time, so I figured it was that.

Not that I've familiarized myself with the Smiths' discography all that much since...

that was on The Craft soundtrack too.

I was really into Motley Crue as a kid. When I first heard U2's cover of "Helter Skelter," my first thought was, "Hey, it's a Motley Crue song!" Shortly after that, I got a hold of the <i>White Album</i>.

One time my high school girlfriend referenced 'Dear Prudence' and I was all like '(smirks knowingly, buffs nails on shirt front) o you mean the Siouxsie and the Banshees song? yes, I'm that cool'. And I was.

I knew the Beach Boys’ version of The Times They Are A-Changin’ years before I heard a note of Dylan.

All the cover songs (mostly? all? by Los Lobos) on the La Bamba soundtrack.

Is Camper Van Beethoven’s version of Pictures of Matchstick Men more or less famous than the Status Quo’s? I’ve heard CVB’s version in the wild, but the only reason I’ve ever heard the original is because I sought it out when Napster became a thing. This might be a North America vs UK thing?

The first version of “You Don’t Own Me” I remember hearing is the Blow Monkeys’.

Alan Jackson's "Summertime Blues"

Is Camper Van Beethoven’s version of Pictures of Matchstick Men more or less famous than the Status Quo’s? I’ve heard CVB’s version in the wild, but the only reason I’ve ever heard the original is because I sought it out when Napster became a thing. This might be a North America vs UK thing?

The original got to number 7 in the uk charts and was just one of their 50 (!!) top 40 hits.

sorry, 57 top 40 hits, the search was cutting off after 50 results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D53v84sXluw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVrELhxOFnM

^ The Naked Eyes version was actually a much bigger hit in the US

I definitely knew The Go-Go's "Cool Jerk" (not a US single) before ever hearing The Capitols' hit version from 1966

I heard Bauhaus's Ziggy Stardust before I heard Bowie's

The first version of “You Don’t Own Me” I remember hearing is the Blow Monkeys’.

First version I heard was Joan Jett. Is the Lesley Gore original pretty well known? I really only knew her for "It's My Party" at that time.