Cover Love

So, it's no lie that The Lumineers, Mumford & Sons, Fun., and a little nostalgic 90's pop have been blowing up my iPod these days. Seriously. That seems to be 95% of what I play these days in the car when I'm driving to work or home or to yoga or wherever the wind might take me. The other 5% is taken up by audiobooks. Because I am a nerd. Deal with it. 

And it's no lie that I love each and every one of those bands. 

But, I've been also spending some free time here and there perusing YouTube for some amazing covers of some of the most amazing songs on my playlists. Do you guys ever listen to covers of your favorite songs? My love for covers probably started a while ago with NSync covering Sailing, which was my favorite NSync song for a good, long time. I loved it even more when I realized it was a cover and that they were able to do something unique and beautiful to a song like that. Exhibit A:

Then it progressed to Courtney in her "I love punk music phase (but really only pop-punk like Simple Plan and Good Charlotte, really, thanks)." I mean this was probably a sub-phase of some overarching pop-music love phase or whatever. But I still have a little piece inside me that loves that sort of music. Basically I love all music, and 'phases' are really just times that I discover new music and artists and genres to love. Really. I am that open minded with my musical selections. 

And I really am this ADD when writing blog posts. Wow. However, at this point in this post all you really need to know is: A few years ago I discovered these gems called "Punk Goes ____" (80's, 90's, Pop, etc). These covers are (for the most part) amazing (minus the screamy, real hard-core punk covers; those I have a hard time with in general, but some I love; go figure) and so worth the listen. Exhibit B:

[note: I LOVE this cover better than the original. For real.]

But these are all famous people covering other famous songs. It's easy to be someone that's already known and cover another person's songs. People already love you. So, you cover a song and your fan base really doesn't care who sand it before you. They'll love it as if its your own. Heck, these days when you talk to a kid about how a song on the radio was originally written and sung by someone else they will never, ever believe you (which is weird to me, when pre-teen & teenaged Courtney realized a song by my favorite artist was a cover I immediately went and looked up the original and proceeded to [most of the time] love both songs). Kids these days (ha! I'm not that old, really. I promise. I just work with obnoxious, but lovable, middle schoolers)! 

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post: the bands I love today and those who provide us with amazing covers posted on YouTube. These people are recording covers of songs we know and love simply to get their voice out there. There's something even more special about these to me. Something so raw and pure and invested in the song for what it's worth. People giving of themselves with so much hope that maybe their cover will get heard by the right person out there and someday someone else will be covering their song. 

So you take a song I love and make it your own? Love it. I absolutley LOVE it. 

So, here you have Exhibit C. Songs that you know and (hopefully) love these days, sounding not quite like you've heard them before.

Do you have any other covers you know of out there that I should keep my eyes out for? There are so many out there, so it's always lovely to get some direction from others!


Ps. Here's an Awesome Bonus cover. Fun. covering Lady Antebellum. I just can't get over the awesome that is this cover: