When he’s not embodying the ugly side of star excess, Queens frontman Josh Homme is a pretty solid rock practitioner. SONG REFERENCED: Georgia Satellite’s “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” (1986) NEW SONG: Queens of the Stone Age’s “Un-Reborn Again” Over squelching synths and a practically invisible beat, the duo discover a sensuality in the chorus almost totally unsuggested by its most famous version, particularly on the soft-spoken “ I found the greatest love of all inside of me.“Ĥ3. Iconic enough that it should be virtually uncoverable - even though the song itself was first a George Benson original - signature Whitney anthem “Greatest Love of All” was essentially turned inside out for northwest indie-poppers The Blow’s warped rendition. SONG COVERED: Whitney Houston’s “Greatest Love of All” (1985) NEW SONG: The Blow’s “Greatest Love of All” Didn’t quite work as hoped - “Club” stalled outside the top 40 - but if one part of the song still sticks with listeners at year’s end, it was probably this lift.Ĥ4. SONG REFERENCED: Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle” (1999)Ĭamila hoped to borrow a little of that TRL-era breakout hit magic for her proper solo bow, “Crying in the Club,” dipping into the pre-chorus melody to Xtina’s first Hot 100-topper on her own refrain. NEW SONG: Camila Cabello’s “Crying in the Club” No Grammy or VMA love followed this year, but hey, at least you nearly took home the Should Be Bigger Bracket championship, Vince.Ĥ5. “Where the fuck is my VMA? Where the fuck is my Grammy?” asks perpetually underrecognized rapper (and newfound Detroit techno enthusiast) Vince Staples on this Big Fish Theory cut, enlisting the most insistent hook of Rick Ross’ career for extra borrowed indomitability. SONG REFERENCED: Rick Ross’ “Hold Me Back” (2012) Modern-day disciples Beach Slang remember, however - and though (like most of the band’s covers) this version of his late-’80s gem is too in love with the original to add much of its own to the discussion, in Keene’s case, that level of reverence is affecting enough. Power-pop cult favorite Tommy Keene passed this year at age 59, without ever really getting the widespread critical or commercial attention his immaculate college-rock confections deserved.
SONG COVERED: Tommy Keene’s “Nothing Can Change You” (1989) NEW SONG: Beach Slang’s “Nothing Can Change You”
It comes off as a fond, decades-old, memory of the original, an affection long ingrained rather than casually recalled.Ĥ7. Snoop Dogg’s signature G-funk anthem is hardly the most creative sample source for a West Coast rapper to draw from, but RJ doesn’t lift the production wholesale - instead, he only takes elements from it, stripping the most recognizable synth hooks and whistles and leaving it as only a ghostly echo of the original beat.
SONG SAMPLED: Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” (1993) Rather, he pulls back on the original’s intensity for a more contemplative groove, accenting the song’s lyrical indecision and melodic twistiness. SONG COVERED: Teenage Fanclub’s “I Don’t Know” (1991)Ĭan’t out-jangle Teenage Fanclub, and to his credit, on this highlight from his LP-length cover of the band’s 1991 crit favorite Bandwagonesque, Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard doesn’t try. NEW SONG: Benjamin Gibbard’s “I Don’t Know” The 1975 were one of several artists to take on Sade’s perennial in 2017, and befitting a band of their widescreen pop influences, they pretty much nailed it - retooling the ballad more than rebooting it, with a slightly soupier, dubbier feel that maintains the original’s entrancing sway, and could’ve fit in somewhere in the middle of last year’s I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It.Ĥ9. SONG COVERED: Sade’s “By Your Side” (2001) Read on below, and check out our Spotify playlist featuring both the old and the new songs at the very end.