Cover songs that are better than the originals
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What are the five “Mount Rushmore” cover songs that define the episode?
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This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from NPR Music, the NPR Music Podcast, your home for the best new albums, best new songs and conversations about whatever else is happening in the world of music. NPR Music also home to Lars Gottrich. That's damn right. You just live here now. This is your home. Right. I have been here twenty years. I've often thought you could just live here in this building and nobody would know. There's a shower, you know, there's showers. There's showers, there's there are couches.
There are two whole floors in this building that aren't being used. Nobody
even knows what's up there. And Dora Levitt.
I also live here. Do you also live here? Uh yeah. I live here too. It's
hard when you're starting now.
Thank God I got a job here. Yeah.
Yeah. I don't know where else to do it. Yeah, or else it would have been weird. DC is very expensive. Very expensive.
It's nice and quiet, especially in this booth where I sleep.
Lars, a few weeks back you and I did a show where I played a cover of Mitsuki. Well it was a cover Mitskey did of the One Direction song Fireproof. Right, yeah. Yeah, and I think we both agreed that Mitskey's version was infinitely better.
I don't think I've even heard the original. Yeah, I I Yeah, I I have.
have and uh trust me, much better than the original. But we so we decided that we should just do a whole show about cover songs that we think are better than the originals, and that's what we're gonna do this week on the show. I know we all brought some stuff and we can kinda just go around, you know, the room here and share some of our picks and make a case for each of them. But I think one thing that became very clear as we were each putting our list together and we don't know what we're we're playing. I mean, we don't know what each other's playing. But I think we all realize pretty quickly that there are some covers that are so universally regarded as better than the original and better known, like definitive, that we kind of don't need to spend a whole lot of time talking about them.
Yeah. We have called them the um Mount Rushmore plus one.
Mount
Rushmore
plus
one. The top five.
Yeah.
I feel like these are also the ones where it's like if you look up covers that are better than the original, there's already four articles and a podcast about these five as well. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Yeah. So we don't need to spend a lot of time on these, but we should mention them because otherwise we'll get so many dear idiots letters. How could you not mention? These songs and I rank these on my own. You may disagree with the ranking here, but and you can tell me. But I'll I'll put it number five. I'm gonna say Sinead O'Connor doing Princes, nothing compares to you. I mean, it's her song.
Absolutely. She also
put that at number five. Number four, I'm gonna say Johnny Cash doing hurt by nine-inch nails.
I agree with this one. I do love the original a lot. But what Johnny Cash brings to that version of Hurt in his old weathered voice, in his American series era with Rick Rubin, is just he brings so much gravitas and sadness and devastation.
That's it. Sadness. So I put that at number four. Number three, I'm gonna say Jeff Buckley doing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. I mean, this is a song that everybody's covered. Right. I mean, that's I think people know the basically any cover more than they know
Leonard Cohen's version of the song. And you know, if you're a Shrekhead, you know the version by Rufus Rainwhite. Yeah, right. Right.
I forgot about that until yesterday. Yeah, I mean that's I think
that may be the one in m pop culture that people think of the most, but I think Jeff Buckley's is the most iconic. But Jeff Buckley, number three, doing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What are the five “Mount Rushmore” cover songs that define the episode?
0:00–6:09
2
How does Al Green’s version of “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” transform the original?
6:09–14:33
3
Why is Björk’s take on “It’s Oh So Quiet” considered a superior cover?
14:33–24:12
4
What makes Aretha Franklin’s rendition of “Respect” stand out from Otis Redding’s original?
24:12–32:19
5
How does Low’s “Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me” re‑imagine the song structure?
32:19–39:51
6
Why is Andrew Paul Woodworth’s acoustic version of “Fight For Your Right To Party” praised as a hidden gem?
39:51–48:07
7
What does Yaeji bring to Drake’s “Passionfruit” that makes the cover feel fresh?
48:07–54:28
Speakers
7 identifiedMore from NPR Music
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