Best Metal Cover Songs of All Time

Close, but no Cigar, Part 1

Cover songs are an important part of music. Most (metal) bands started out covering songs—in their garage, in the local gig/bar circuit—in order to improve their playing. Later, as bands become successful with their own material, they may do the odd cover to show their influences, or just for the fun of it. On top of that, in the past few decades, there’s a veritable explosion of tribute bands that play covers of one particular band only—quite a few of these make a living of this—let’s call this the ‘nostalgia circuit’.

Rules:

In this countdown, ‘metal covers’ mean both covers from hard rock & heavy metal bands themselves, or covers of non-hard rock & heavy metal bands who cover a hard rock & heavy metal song.

Important factors for rating the cover song:

• Does it improve on the original;

• Has the band made it their own (changed it in such a way that it fits in the band’s œuvre);

• Is it sufficiently different from the original;

Caveat: I don’t pretend this coverage is complete, as there are way too many covers to keep track of. So if you think a particular cover is missing (or is overrated), do feel free to mention this in the comments.

I’ve compiled a Top 15 of Best Metal Cover Songs¹, but before we get to that, the following preludes²:

• Close, but no Cigar (2 x 4 covers);

• Honourable Mentions of the Foreshadowing Kind (2 x 3 covers);

• Honourable Mentions of the Metallica kind (4 covers);

• Honourable Mentions (3 x 4 covers);

All in all, eight warming up posts until we get to the main menu.

So here we go with the first four ‘Close, but no Cigar’ mentions:

No Quarter—Tool (original = Led Zeppelin);

Make no mistake: I love me some Tool. Yet sometimes they have more syncopation than sense, more chops than feeling. This one sounds like a clockwork angel looking for quantum uncertainty, while the original embodied myth. They try to capture Led Zeppelin’s lightning in their Klein bottle, but halfway through they just give up and turn it into a Tool-ish render that actually misses the point. Let’s call it an interesting failure.

Cars—Fear Factory (original = Gary Numan);

Despite the 2001, A Space Odyssey/Blade Runner/The Matrix homages in the video, and despite Gary Numan being involved, the actual song doesn’t really add much to the original. Yes, it fits right in Fear Factory’s sensibility, but they’ve done that already with “Dog Day Sunrise”, a Head of David cover on their brilliant “Demanufacture” album. And that was the weakest song of that album. Both covers are interesting, fit within Fear Factory’s aesthetic, yet neither are a match for their originals nor Fear Factory’s original songs³.

Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting—Flotsam and Jetsam (original = Elton John);

An example that making a song heavier does not always improve it. Maybe in this case because this particular song was already quite aggressive—don’t underestimate the power of forte played piano—and also because Flotsam and Jetsam didn’t really make that cover their own—it’s a carbon copy of the original with the piano parts (mostly) replaced with guitars. Yeah, it sounded good back in the days (says the old fart), but does it add anything at all to the original except heavy guitars?

The Spirit of Radio—Kobra and the Lotus (original = Rush);

This is a nice effort, but if there is one band that cannot be covered, then it’s Rush⁴ (which hasn’t stopped many from trying, of course). I like Kobra and the Lotus’s “Evolution” album, and while they worked hard to make this cover work (a woman and five working men), it misses Neil Peart’s rhythmic complexity, Alex Lifeson’s effortless fluency and Geddy Lee’s plucky bass and soulful diction.

Author’s note: a new metal countdown! You know you want it…;-)

1. I had to change the original “Best Metal Covers” title into “Best Metal Cover Songs” in order to make it clear I’m not discussing the LP/CD front page artwork;

2. Or warming up exercises;

3. Well, at least on “Demanufacture”. Let’s say that they may have been repeating themselves a bit after that;

4. Who are—if their “Feedback” album is any indication, also not very good in doing covers (to the best of my knowledge they didn’t play covers live before “Feedback” was released);