10 Bizarre Metal Covers Of Classic Songs

There are a lot of genres that are close enough to rock and roll that they can get a metal makeover. Rockabilly could certainly work as a metal song in the right context, and blues has that kind of down and out spirit that all good heavy music is built on. So how the hell did we end up at the well of soft light rock to draw from with Def Leppard?

After being known to cover songs from the glam rock era on albums like Yeah!, hearing one of the giants of hair metal cover the schmaltzy sounds of Release Me can still blow your mind. This isn't just a joke cover either. From the sounds of it, you can tell that Leppard wanted to at least do something unique with the arrangement, especially when you have the layers upon layers of vocals going on at the same time.

You can at least say that there's a little bit more attitude in this version of the song, trading in some of the cornier moments for some guitar action every now and again. This just isn't the first thing you think of when you talk about some of the greatest metal of all time. Going from Alice Cooper to Def Leppard to easy listening territory practically reads like a evolution chart in reverse.