The Man Who Sold The World - covers you didn't know were covers

[VampireTheBuffetSlayer]

I love this. It's my favourite Bowie song. Or so I thought.

It was on the radio yesterday and I was only half listening when they were talking about whether Nirvana's version was better than the original. I didn't really pay too much attention. But on Pointless Celebrities tonight they had The Man Who Sold The World as an answer as a Lulu/David Bowie collaboration. I've just googled it and it turns out that I love The Man Who Sold The World by Nirvana! My mind is blown!

Any covers that you love that you didn't know were covers?

[quote LittleLottieChaos]@AllThatFancyPaintsAsFair

Being someone that prefers older music to contemporary, I think it is a bit of shame when new artists don’t state clearly that their song is a heavily sampled one or a cover. It actually does irritate me when people pass off someone else’s talent as their own...[/quote]
Being someone that prefers older music to contemporary, I think it is a bit of shame when new artists don’t state clearly that their song is a heavily sampled one or a cover.

Agreed.

The music sampling reminds me of my nieces who thought that Gary Numan pinched the Freak like me backing music by the Sugababes....😀😀

I had to explain very gently to them that the backing music belonged to Tubeway Army on Are ‘Friends’ Electric, bless ‘em.

They didn’t believe me until I played it, and showed them the album it came from, in 1979.

I didn’t show them in 1979, I meant that the song came out in 1979,

d’oh ....🤦‍♀️

@LittleLottieChaos

I didn’t know Breakfast in America was in fact by Supertramp until yesterday...

That Nirvana cover is so good.

I presume you mean the Nirvana cover of The Man Who Sold the World? As far as I know they never covered a Supertramp song.

[quote AlecTrevelyan006]Step on you by The Happy Mondays is a cover

This is the original from 1971
m.youtube.com/watch?v=4N2Ul7ll-FM[/quote]
Actually then I think I did know this, I have a vinyl 12” of it and I'm pretty sure that John Kongas is mentioned on it.

Step By Step Whitney Houston song from The Preacher's Wife film was written and originally recorded by Annie Lennox. It was a b-side to a single in the early 90s. Whitney Houston rerecorded it and Lennox did backing vocals on her version.

Proud Mary (Tina Turner) was originally recorded by Creedance Clearwater Revival in the 60s I think

And while we're on Prince -- his cover of Joan Osborne's One Of Us is terrific, and well worth seeking out.

I never knew Mott the Hooples all the young dudes was a David Bowie song until recently
As for covers as opposed to originals i much prefer the Bangles version of Hazy shade of winter to the Simon and Garfunkel version

Marilyn Manson did an ace cover of Tainted Love with an awesome video of his crew crashing a Jack's house party & starring the lovely Jaime Pressly (probably not allowed to like it now though ).

And the Sisters of Mercy did some very improbable covers in their live shows that you can hear on bootlegs: Joanne, Dolly Parton & Gimme Gimme a Man after Midnight, Abba

It Must Be Love was a Madness cover of a Labi Siffre song and much better.

I never knew for ages that Mya's Ghetto Superstar was taken from Dolly's Islands in the Stream

Also had no idea that Ice Ice Baby was sampled from Under Pressure until maybe 10 years ago (had never heard a lot of Bowie growing up and I was so confused when it started playing once and was thinking... but this is Vanilla Ice??)

@FleshLiabilities having googled it to heck, I can, disappointedly, confirm that Nirvana never covered Breakfast in America.

I totally misunderstood that post, too

Oh I’m all over the place with this thread. I can’t work out which of you believed what and until when.

Love this thread

I never knew for ages that Mya's Ghetto Superstar was taken from Dolly's Islands in the Stream
I knew that, but did you know it was written by the BeeGees

Also had no idea that Ice Ice Baby was sampled from Under Pressure until maybe 10 years ago (had never heard a lot of Bowie growing up and I was so confused when it started playing once and was thinking... but this is Vanilla Ice??)

That was Queen featuring David Bowie, not a Bowie song.

Oooops! Still learning then...

[quote IAcceptCookies]@FleshLiabilities having googled it to heck, I can, disappointedly, confirm that Nirvana never covered Breakfast in America.

I totally misunderstood that post, too [/quote]
I obviously did too, who has covered Breakfast in America then?

Waiting for the poster who says tragedy isn't a song by steps....

😂😂😂

I feel old too.

Sorry OP, I don’t understand how you thought Kurt Cobain singing was David Bowie. I just... how?!

When Alexander Bourke won X Factor with Hallelujah my daughter said 'It's nothing like as good as the original' I said that I didn't know she like Leonard Cohen but that I thought that was much better too. She looked very confused and said 'No - the original, original Jeff Buckley' She took some convincing that LC had actually written and recorded it years earlier. She still won't admit the Cohen has the best version

Oh and Jose Gonzalez - Heartbeats. Much prefer the original after I'd heard it

@MrsTerryPratchett

No showboating, no vocal gymnastics, just incredible singing and lyrics. Dolly is very underrated. And an all round wonderful, funny, kind, good person.

I m old, i first that song at the cinema when Dolly Parton sang it to Burt Reynolds in Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. It was a really beautiful moment

She looked very confused and said 'No - the original, original Jeff Buckley'

To be fair the Jeff Buckley version is very good. However, don't get me started on the abomination that is Calum Scott's cover of Dancing On My Own.

To be fair to the ' pointless' quiz , the categories were songs with ' who, where or what' in them and you needed the artist who had sung a song with one of those words in the title and Lulu had sung a song with one of those key words in it.
You could have said ' David Bowie' or ' Nirvana' with the the same song I suppose?
I actually got a pointless answer as I said ' Carly Simon ' for ' WHY does you love hurt so much ?'an old 80s hit of hers.
I prefer the categories that are the song rather than name the artist as I often can't remember who sung them! Hence the reason my pop master scores on the radio two morning quiz have been terrible lately. I know I would bomb if I went on there..

Our niece thought 'One Way Or Another / Teenage Kicks' was a One Direction original.

I'm often shocked when I discover that many songs are covers. In the 60s there were many ' one hit wonders' and picked up 20 years later by other groups to remaster ( so to speak)
It was funny that someone did a cover of a song ' let's talk about sex' a few years ago and I was humming along to it. My son said ' you know this?' Yeah, remember I it from the first time around. A sign of old age I guess.