Less famous covers that you knew before the more famous originals

I guess they qualify more like samples or remixes rather than covers but I knew these hip hop versions from the late 90s before the original ones:

Pras - Ghetto Supastar (interpolation of islands in the stream)
Puff Daddy - I’ll be missing you (The Police)
Pras, Wyclef Jean and Queen - Another Bites the Dust

I guess also every song in the Space Jam soundtrack that was a cover.

Although I think that one is an example of covers being biggest hits than the originals.

People itt hearing Beatles covers before the originals makes me feel either very old or very young depending on what was the cover they heard.

xxxpost
Klaus Nomi was my first exposure to You Don't Own Me

Ditto

Pras - Ghetto Supastar (interpolation of islands in the stream)

Yeah, same for me.
Also, on the same level, I only found out a few months ago that Vampire Weekend's "Step" was based on Souls of Mischief's "Step to My Girl". The first time I heard the latter, by chance through a random Spotify playlist, was a WTF moment !

10,000 Maniacs "Hello In There" and "Everyday is Like Sunday"
Rod Stewart "Tom Traubert's Blues"

INterstellar overdrive and Love's My Little Red Book does nicking a semi remembered part of the main riff count as a cover?
& how does teh Steptoe an Son theme tune feel about taht

Pras - Ghetto Supastar (interpolation of islands in the stream)

Same for me with this one. In fact I think I only knowingly heard Islands In The Stream for the first time a few years ago and had previously thought Pras was interpolating the verse from "It Must Have Been Love" by Roxette

John Martyn Solid Air vs Pharaoh Sanders Astral Travelling (which I think came before Lonnie Liston Smith's own version)

A Certain Ratio's version of "Shack Up" by Banbarra is my example

I don't hear anything other than a similar pace and mood between "Solid Air" and "Astral Travelling"?

this happened to me soo much bc when napster first came out i mainly used it to download stuff i coulnd find in the shops - import-only bonus tracks and b-sides that were often covers, but it wasnt always obvious bc i didnt have the liners with writing credits or anything.

Vanessa Williams - 'Work to Do'. My eyes just about shot out of my head when I stumbled upon the Isley Brothers' AMAZING original a few years back.

Oh, lol, I was having second thoughts about the Isleys' being the more famous one and double checked: Isley Brothers hit 51 on the charts and Vanessa hit 52, so it scans.

One time as a kid I was listening to the Naked Eyes version of "Always Something There", and my dad came by and said, "this was the first song I heard after coming to America in the 60s" and for years it gave me a very mistaken impression of how old the Naked Eyes version was

for all the oldies radio I listened to growing up I never knew this song was a cover until just now, so I don't think the Naked Eyes version is less famous than the original

Ditto "Tainted Love" at about the same time; both were hits and you needed to be informed of their coverness.

Tin Tin Out was the first version of 'Always something there' I heard, and I didn't know it was a cover until years later.

xp i'd bank on the soft cell version being much better known though

(and yeah the tin tin out versh was the first one i heard too)

There's been baffled discussion 'round these parts before re: 'Always Something There to Remind Me'. Partly because the original wasn't that huge a hit and wasn't an oldies radio staple, partly because the Naked Eyes cover, while released by a British band, pretty much turfed out in the UK but became a huge hit in the US and elsewhere.

I first knew "Eight Miles High" from the To the Power of 3 album (the ELP minus Lake album that even the hardcore fans don't seem to know about)

I might have know the Husker Du cover first? Is that possible? *racks brain*

Sandie Shaw's recording of "Always Something There to Remind Me" was #1 in Canada, the UK, and South Africa, acc to Wikipedia. I think I did hear it before the Naked Eyes, although it's tricky with songs I heard very young, tbh.

You can be sure Naked Eyes were very familiar with the Sandie Shaw version, being British and all, it's her signature song.

Ofc hers wasn't the first recording either and I'm not sure the concept of "cover" even works for songs like this.

Yeah, there were a bunch of songs in the mid-'60s (not infrequently written by Bacharach and David) that were insta-standards, for all intents and purposes, recorded and released as singles by multiple artists all within a short period of time.

I wish I'd heard Sandie Shaw's version of "Your Time Is Gonna Come" before Led Zeppelin's original, it's great.

I can't remember which one it was but Aretha Franklin released her version of a Beatles song before the actual Beatles version of the song dropped.

I think I actually heard Sonic Youth's "Superstar" before the Carpenters'.

Oh and Judy Collins released her recording of 'Both Sides, Now' before Joni did.

xpost Yeah, definitely heard SY's version first. Which is also true for about half of the covers on If I Were a Carpenter.

Siouxsie & The Banshees - "Dear Prudence", "Helter Skelter"

I actually heard their version of "All Tomorrow's Parties" before the Velvets'. It's pretty obscure but a local campus radio station played it in the early 90s when I was taping songs off the radio.

Along with 'Dear Prudence', there's probably several songs I first discovered via cover versions on 120 Minutes (literally my only access to non-top 40 music during several teenage years spent in the middle of nowhere). The Bauhaus version of 'Ziggy Stardust' immediately springs to mind.

Oh yeah, on that note, I heard Love & Rockets' "Ball of Confusion" first. Also Springsteen's version of "War".

I mean, not from 120 Minutes but from some 'alternative' program on MuchMusic or possibly album-oriented radio, I think.

The Burds 8 Miles High vs John Coltrane 's India.

Rewriting into what was becoming rock.

Like John Martyn showing his love for Pharaoh while writing about his mate Nick Drake a few years later.

The Aretha Beatles cover was "Let It Be", released a month or so before their version.

Sandie Shaw's recording of "Always Something There to Remind Me" was #1 in Canada, the UK, and South Africa, acc to Wikipedia. I think I did hear it before the Naked Eyes, although it's tricky with songs I heard very young, tbh.

― to party with our demons (Sund4r)

It's weird that in the US even Sandie Shaw's version charted higher than Dionne's. Shaw was not particularly high-profile in America (biggest hit "Girl Don't Come" at #42). Dionne's version was only released in '68 though, four years after Shaw's.

I def. knew Rod Stewart/Jeff Beck's "People Get Ready" before hearing the Curtis Mayfield/Impressions original or even Dylan's covers.

I knew Rod Stewart's "You Are Everything" before the Stylistics. sadly.

same thing with "This Old Heart of Mine".

(before the Isley Brothers)

Basically the entire saggy, cover-laden back half of Rod Stewart's career.

(Only just recently learned that even 'Some Guys Have All the Luck' was a cover, although obviously not a more popular one.)

Some Guys Have All the Lunch

Summer breeze by the isley brothers before Seals & Croft. Maybe by TYpe O Negative before taht though

The Main Ingredient's version of Summer Breeze is the one to beat (but admittedly, I only discovered that one recently)

The doom-goth-metal version of "Summer Breeze" was the titles music for one of the big teen horror revival films in the 90s so I could def see how that had more traction than a crusty old AM gold hit for people of a certain age.

^^^had to look it up, it was I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997).

Dopn't think that was how i knew iti. Not sure why that was teh lp I picked up by them but it was. Bloody Kisses.
Don't know how many of those films I've seen. THink if any its been on tv way later.

fairly sure I heard Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" before I ever became familiar with the SOS Band's "Just Be Good to Me"