To hate washy covers of songs

[powershowerforanhour]

Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild" in the Volvo ad
Proclaimers' (I'm Gonna Be) 500 miles -Viagra ad
On the radio- some shit version of Toploader's Dancing in the Moonlight

All sung in a wishy washy breathy pathetic style. Probably by the same person. Who sounds like they could barely blow out a candle.

Born to be Wild is associated with one of the most famous counterculture films ever.
500 miles should be sung near the end of a concert with a horde of drunk fans roaring the "Ba dah bah" line back
Even Dancing in the Moonlight was a nice bouncy summer tune till she got her pallid hands on it.

I'm not against covers- and some slow covers can be decent occasionally- but this stuff has all the power of the tepid urine of an anaemic gnat.

YANBU it's awful and shouldn't be allowed

I cringe every time I hear Ellie Goulding's version of your song.

Not a breathy cover but one I always thought was a mistake - Westlife covering Bonnie Tyler's total eclipse of the heart. They could all sing and their voices are quite pleasant but some songs shouldn't be covered and that is one of them.

@Piffle11 I'd forgotton about Diana Vickers on X factor. I think she tried too hard to be "unique" and just sounded like a cat being strangled.

YANBU. Breathy pathetic singers give me the rage.

Particularly Whewhever You May Go.

Why sing a song involving a significant R pronunciation when you have a speech impediment? And then compound your error by doing the breathy thing. Gah.

Some more songs that benefit from rock treatment:
Sia's Titanium covered by Within Temptation

Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence covered by Lacuna Coil

I knew before I opened this thread that it was going to be about the Toploader cover! Yanbu.

If it hasn't already been mentioned yet, I did not enjoy* the Scissor Sisters cover of Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb. I also once heard a song on the radio by a talent show winner. Was half listening and thought "oh actually these lyrics are pretty good". Listened a bit more and then realised, "holy shit, that is Bob Dylan, Forever Young". The bastards. Is nothing sacred?

*understatement.

I'm with you op. Hate them with a vengeance, the mute button on the TV remote comes in very handy as does fast forward! Most of the adverts seem to contain these wishy washy singers slowly murdering greathe songs...

Don't get me started on Adele, Bon Dylan, Make You Feel My Love. Oh also what Goulding did to Your Song was reprehensible.

Bob*, obviously at autocorrect

The worse for me is Mad World.

Ah yeah thanks @sobersides for clearing up who covered that!

OH and I have had a thing about this for ages. It became the way to make a song 'your own' on X Factor. One of many reasons we stopped watching it! Take a decent song and totally ruin it by singing it as slow as you possibly can. The slower it is, the better.

I can't stand the current 'folk' version of Manic Monday. Absolutely nothing 'manic' about it at all!!

OMG I forgot about Scissor Sisters version of Comfortably Numb. Awful. It was a good album too but had to skip that song.

Hate, hate, hate all the breathy ads and tv intros.

@Pet8

I am so, SO sorry I reminded you. I also liked the rest of that album. Just leave Pink Floyd alone!

In fairness to Scissor Sisters, they were possibly, gently, mocking the sombre tone of Comfortably Numb by making it deliberately OTT fun and poppy...? Still didn't enjoy it though and I do love the original.

Uh, hate them.
After Ellie Goulding's Your song cover the next John Lewis had Slow Moving Millie's cover of The Smith's, Please let me get what I want. In fact she did a whole album of breathy covers with big pauses as if she had forgotten the words sung in her "sweet liddle voice." My friend had it and I had to leave the room. Covers included Head over heels (Tears for fears), Don't Go (Yazoo), The Smiths song, Wonderful Life and The Power of Love. This is what Millie said about 80's songs she covered:
"I'm randomly drawn to songs from that era because I think they often get a really bad rep. A lot are really beautiful songs but because they were written in the '80s when the production was lairy, shiny and synthetic. A lot of great ballads suffered from overeager producers". Ha, take that Trevor Horn, Vince Clarke, Chris Hughes and others.

I love both versions of comfortably numb! I know that's an unusual view though

The scissor sisters didn't flog it recently to an ad though did they this recent spate of shit covers of 80s tracks all at once is a different phenomena.

Haven't RTFT so apologies if this has been er covered but there's a godawful version of Manic Monday hanging around radio 2 at the moment. Unbearable.

Yeah the Manic Moanday drives me mad

Even worse are the covers where they just do two lines over and over. Ad just now used Everybody's got to learn sometime. I keep going to sing the next line but they only use that one and "I need your loving " over and over

Just saw the viagra one. Christ!

On the other hand, I find this very effective:

High Rise

@LadyPrigsbottom, yes I did not include Scissor Sisters Comfortably Numb in my comment, as it's the opposite to slow and breathy... but as my name will testify, when it dawned on me what I was hearing on my car radio I nearly crashed, I was so distraught. I remember where I bloody was and everything; A12 near that long right-hand bend with the exit to Mountnessing.

CBA to go back and look but is the viagra one we're talking about 'Come up and see me'? I have to turn over when that ad comes on; ruddy hideous in every way.

@EugenesAxe there’s a new one with a slowed down cover of the Proclaimers’ 500 miles. They’ve gone for more of a ‘viagra helps intimacy’ vibe rather than the previous ‘man dancing around with joy because he has a boner’

[quote jcyclops]Some more songs that benefit from rock treatment:
Sia's Titanium covered by Within Temptation

Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence covered by Lacuna Coil [/quote] What about Depeche Mode's Stripped covered by Rammstein?

(I'm gonna be) 500 Miles as covered by Sleeping At Last.

It was used in an advert aired during the Superbowl in 2015.

Sorry - and is now used in the new Viagra ad.

The Fujees version of Killing Me Softly was No 1 when ds2 was born.. I hated it. Still do. I associate Forever Love by Gary Barlow with ds2 now and not TF....

I definitely remember this starting in the mid 00's with Nouvelle Vague. Every 'tasteful' gastropub would be playing their album - slowed down, inoffensive, 'easy listening' covers of classics sung by a woman with a soft little voice. Their cover of Joy Division's 'Love will tear us apart' always got me particularly ragey.