Daughter as Daft Punk
A guaranteed way to have a successful cover is to slow it down and make it more depressing. Daughter does this beautifully with their cover of Daft Punk’s ubiquitous and completely overdone “Get Lucky”. Here, the song is given new life as less of a party anthem, and more of a unanswered prayer for a good evening.

Bon Iver as Bonnie Raite

This cover of “Can’t Make You Love Me” is on such heavy repeat here that I’m sure we are on several government watch lists. Bon Iver takes Bonnie Raitt’s already depressing ode to unrequited love, and transforms it through his haunting voice. At the hands of Bon, it feels less like love lost than a hopelessly unrequited love.

School of Seven Bells as Joey Ramone

If you’re going to cover Joey Ramone, you damn well better do it with style. His is not the kind of material to be taken lightly – lest his ghost rise up just to kick your ass. School of Seven Bells decided to exorcise that particular phantom by turning “I Got Knocked Down” into a dancy end-of-night anthem for all the tweaking boys and girls of the club scene. Joey is pleased.

Joe Cocker as The Beatles

A total classic. If you grew up during a certain time, this song is enough to improve your whole day. As the lead-in song for The Wonder Years, Cocker’s “With A Little Help From My Friends” defines the word nostalgia. Sit back, crank it up, and delve into your childhood…

Chet Faker as Blackstreet

Time to get funky with the classic “No Diggity” reimagined by the hipster beard of Chet Faker. Suddenly, you can imagine this playing in an office or grocery store, totally innocent and mom-friendly. That doesn’t make it weak though. Far from it. Chet brings the white boy soul to this track, helped by a generous serving of base guitar.

Mumford and Sons as The National

Take an song about England written by an American band, and have an English band cover it. Result? A fantastically patriotic tune. When Mumford sing’s “England”, it is with not better or worse gusto than The National, but certainly a different flavor of gusto. The spicy version maybe.

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Sounding like a breakfast tea-party between the Black Keys and the Shins, Bahamas is the perfect zone out tune smith to let you forget your worries and stresses. All the Time is their latest single, and it is getting heavy rotation on indie stations around the country:

Next up we have The Rosebuds, stepping it up a notch over their previous albums. With the help of Justin Vernon of Bon Iver fame, The Rosebuds are bringing the noise that drives and pulses. This album is already 8 months old but is just now getting picked up and shared around. And deservedly so.

If Elliott Smith had received 4 and half more hugs during his formative years, you’d likely be left with something sounding similar to Any Shauf. His harmonic melodies and skeletal arrangements bring an intimacy to his music and keep you glued to your headphones. Sing on you sad bastard.

For the southern rockers out there, this one is for you. Alabama Shakes are back with a little dirt under their fingernails and it is better than ever. They must have spent their time between albums doing nothing but listening to James Brown and eating okra. This is the realness.

I’ll just let this YouTube comment sum up our last entry in today’s list – “Good n heavy. You can stay in this piece of shit prison planet, being lied to by a bunch of sissies, but as for me, im following Jesus. Its personal. And it sounds like youre just another slave to the dragon. Good luck with that. C-ya on the flip side sillies”

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