Ironic Covers are Lame, but...

One of the lamest things that a band can do is to smirk through a cover version of a generally detested song. The whole 'but it's supposed to be bad' shtick is just a safe thing to say when your music sucks, and almost every instance of an 'artist' bringing some terrible song back into the spotlight is pretty unbearable.



Thankfully, ironic covers often come back to bite the perpetrators in the ass. I'm sure that the band that had a hit version of 'Boys of Summer' a few years back are kicking themselves over the fact that their career all came down to one abysmally bad cover. Those guys who covered 'Smooth Criminal' are hopefully doing the same thing, as well as that band that folkified 'Boyz n the Hood.'

However, there are some extremely rare cases in which ironic covers can rock. Here are three of them.

'Seasons in the Sun' is an incessantly annoying tune that's been covered by far too many people (most famously Terry Jacks), and as far as I can tell, it's only been remotely tolerable once. Nirvana recorded a demo version which never saw the light of day until the release of their box set, and it's an intimate glimpse of the band that pokes fun of their reputation of being angsty and humorless. It also gave Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic, and Dave Grohl a chance to all switch instruments. Listen closely--Kurt forgets the words, makes up his own and starts chuckling.
Frank Black once derided Nirvana for not being 'goofy' enough--apparently he never saw this video...



The Anti-Nowhere League's nihilistic, 2-chord punk song 'So What' was briefly given some relevance when British obscenity laws caused it to be banned for its lyrical content. Forgotten for about ten years, 'So What' was then dusted off by Metallica, who didn't care that it was musically and lyrically far below anything else that they'd previously recorded. Like Nirvana, Metallica displayed a willingness to destroy their über-serious reputation. Watch as an obscure punk novelty becomes a raging metal anthem.
Taking the stage at Woodstock '99, Metallica addressed the abundance of corporate sponsors, the violence-prone audience, and the mostly-terrible bill by launching into this song...



At 21 years old, Sid Vicious was already a heroin addict, a murderer, and kind of a moron, but such a perfect meld of bad boy/lost puppy that he was destined to become iconic despite his utter lack of talent. His definitive musical statement (his musical contribution to the Sex Pistols was almost nothing) remains his take on 'My Way,' which is off-key, accompanied by a really contrived video, and somehow almost perfect. Few would have the nerve to argue that 'My Way' is anything more than a really lame song, but even fewer could sing it and really make it work. Witness.



The fact that almost every other ironic cover in recorded history is so bad makes these few all the more incredible. Well done, guys.