Over the years there has been no shortage of terrible cover versions. Of these, which do you consider to be the worst?
For me the answer is easy: Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds as performed by William Shatner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU
William Shatner's covers are notoriously bad, but most of the time they are so cheesy as to be amusing. However with this song he reaches the absolute pinnacle in shittiness. Whose idea was it for him to "sing" the song in the style he does? And more importantly, once the song was recorded, whose idea was it to release it to the public?
Anyway, your opinions?

Quite possibly this emo band covering "Run to the Hills". Shittiest thing I've ever heard.

Been done before but my choice would be:

KSE - Holy Diver
As much as I enjoy KSE (Leach era) in general, that cover was just so wrong! Especially Howard's yeayeahs. Just terrible! This has been spoken about it here umpteen number of times!

Also, songs from Six Feet Under's Graveyard Classics I and II. Ugh.

I really like them, probably the best SFU albums, really.

That's really telling on the band on the whole then But yeah, it's better (relatively) than their original material any day. Their cover of 'Piranha' was kinda tolerable.

haha doomster999, that's the worst thing I ever heard in my entire life.

This fucker right here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fmJwLNBH8V0

His other videos are pretty terrible, and I actually feel bad for him. Because he sucks.

I remember some Metallica tribute album that had a really fucking terrible death metal cover of One with out of place blast beats everywhere. Anyone know what I'm talking about?

I remember HATING this cover when it came out. I still do. There is nothing about it that resembles Run to the Hills beyond the lyrics.

For a split second when the spoiler opened I read the band name as Sigh. Straight after reading the previous sentence of it being an emo band. My heart skipped a beat or seven.

Who the fuck allowed them to realese that piece of crap! Holy Shit was that bad.

The thing about it is that the music itself is honestly not bad. It's the fact that it's called "Run to the Hills" when it has almost literally nothing to suggest that it's a cover of that song.

"Another Brick in the Wall."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzkiJJ_NkD0

Oh, the horror...the horror...

Now even though I was never a diehard Floyd fan, I always did like them. Always a great, timeless classic band.
This is horrible though. An insult to a great band. The band is horrible, the music is horrible, and it leaves such a bad taste in my mouth that I almost never want to hear the original again- and I LIKED the original!

There are a few such instances of nu-metal bands covering classic rock songs, like 5 finger death punch butchering a Bad Company song, Dave Dramen and Disturbed making a mockery of Phil Collins' "Land of Confusion" and a while ago I heard some band, cant remember who it was now but not that it matters- utterly ruining "Holy Diver." In most cases, they are pretty cringe worthy. Korn's Pink Floyd turd is probably the worst of them, though.

Pain. Nothing but that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybDCObQRRM4
this

How come people are not shitting in their own hands and flinging the crap at the singer?

As bad as that is, I think his Bohemian Rhapsody cover is worse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKo4FMzt_hM
I think the fact that for the most part he actually tries to do a reasonable job and do the song justice,
but then he adds his twists and quirks throughout and it's just unsettling, especially with that CG William Shatner face.

For some obscure reason I even own the album... Loudhouse's version of Smoke on the Water.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCXeRJVN3gk

And yes, the album is available for trade.

Impious. You're welcome

Also, I've never understood the extraordinary hate on the "Holy Diver" cover. I get it, the song is an untouchable classic and I will never disagree with that, and KSE sucks (which I can't really say either way since I've heard like one song of theirs) and they added a breakdown and screams in the bridge, which is kinda stupid, yeah, but it's pretty inoffensive. At least they did their own thing with it, I always respect that more than a note-for-note transcription. Howard's voice is fine and the song is played well.

Some classic butcherings:



And some solo instrument covers that are just fascinatingly bad.

Yes! I don't think it'd be right to thank someone for posting that, however...

subrick, that drum cover of dragonforce was awesome.... made my day

There is no end to the amount of worthless covers you can find on the internet by amateur bands. Actual professional musicians, however, have no excuse.

10 Masked Men are a shitty cover band. Every song Cradle of Filth have covered are pretty awful too, but Temptation and Devil Woman stand out for their special shittiness.

Also, Death's Painkiller cover is pretty dreadful, though I wouldn't call it the 'worst of all time'.

Hey you! I think Death's version of Painkiller is pretty damn good.

Also, Cradle did a fine version of Bestial Lust about 9 years ago on Nymphetamine. That and their version of Hallowed Be Thy Name is fairly awesome IMO. Temptation, however, does indeed suck numerous dicks. It was right about the time that song's video came out that you could tell the band was falling to pieces. Thankfully they rebounded with Godspeed and Marthus joining the fray.

Death's "Painkiller" is probably my favorite cover of all time.

Slayer's cover of "Born to Be Wild" is pretty wretched. It's the same shitty, uninspired riff banging on for 3 minutes while Tom yells out the words like he's reading from cue cards. It's not even good Slayer, since it's from their God Hates Us All years.

Yeah honestly their "Hallowed..." cover is okay, and I do somewhat like their Celtic Frost and "Mr. Crowley" covers. It's just Temptation and Devil Woman that drive me over the edge.

Also, I actually really liked Dimmu Borgir's cover of "Perfect Strangers". That's one I would have thought would belong into the word's worst category until I heard it.

Dimmu's Perfect Strangers is great. Snowy Shaw really makes that tune special with his helium vocals and they put their own spin on it without completely straying from what the original tune is like. Unlike, ya know, Sign and Run to the Hills.

I've seen a lot of hate for their Black Metal cover. I'm fairly certain a good amount of said hate is solely because Cradle did something involving the words "black" and "metal".

I remembered another one. Cradle of Filth's "No Time to Cry" Sisters of Mercy cover was dog shit. Don't get me wrong, since CoF introduced me to extreme metal I have a special place in my heart for them...but some of their stuff really sucks.

As much of a Thornography apologist as I am, there's no denying that it was around that album that the band was really suffering creatively. They were stale and strapped for ideas, making stuff that went from alright to mediocre to flat out crap, especially when compared to their golden years in the 90s. As mentioned though, they thankfully got Marthus after Adrian quit and they made their "return to form" with Godspeed, which might I add featured a pretty banging cover of Into the Crypts of Rays.

I've seen a Mudvayne cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit, I was not impressed.

No one should be impressed by Mudvayne in the first place. They have exactly ONE song that's in any way remotely entertaining, and that's Determined.

Only Metallica could take a Discharge song and do a techno remix of it.

Oh please. Most of the covers on Garage Inc. are good. The Mercyful Fate medley, Turn the Page (the one Metallica song I got my dad hooked on), and Die Die My Darling are the best from the first disc, and practically all of the 2nd disc except the Motorhead covers are great as well. The Motorhead covers I don't think suck, but it's just James and Lars dicking around for the most part so they can't really be judged in the same light that one would judge Garage Days Re-Revisited.

Yeah but there is no denying that they did a fuck job on covering that Discharge song.

That's got to be Fall out boys cover of Gorilla biscuits "start today". And Metallica's "last caress" Misfits cover was pretty bad too

Garage Inc. has some terrible stuff on it. Remember this?



Metallica simply do not know how to groove.

Yeah. But I don't think you should judge them so harshly. They're just a bunch of dumb kids having fun. It's not like it's an official release. I do like the audience's nonplussed reaction though.

Like it or not, it introduced a whole new generation of listeners to Budgie. I for one think that can only be a good thing.

Speaking of Metallica, reminded me of this cover. I don't think I'd even call it a cover. But a friend of mine PM me this shit a couple of months back. Never laughed so hard.

That reminds me. One time a few years ago I caught a taxi. The taxi driver was Indian (big surprise). He said "let me put on my taxi driving music". I said fine. So he puts on this CD. It was basically Bollywood style music with no sense of rhythm or tune. It soon became apparent that this was a CD he recorded himself. It was by far one of the worst things I'd ever heard. Every couple of years or so I hear of a friend or a friend of a friend meeting the same taxi driver. He makes the guy in that video sound like Pavarotti. Thanks for reminding me of that incident.