10 Cover Versions That Are Absolute Masterpieces

The cover version has had a varied reputation over the years. Depending on your outlook it can be considered as either an exercise to interpret another's work in your own way, or merely an admission that you do not have enough original material of your own to record.

Once the staple of any upcoming wanna be pop singer in the 1950s and 60s, today a cover version is treated, at best, as a tribute to a revered artist from the past rather than an original interpretation of another person's music. At worst, a cover can sound like a pastiche and an acceptance of a contemporary artist's limitations.

But, put in the right hands a cover version can become a great piece of work. It can highlight both the strengths of the original song and those of the artist performing the piece.

Then there are the rare occasions when a solo artist, or group, takes a piece of music and then transform it into something far greater than the original composer could ever achieve or imagine. In fact their versions are so good that they become the definitive version themselves, the ones most known in popular culture.

Aretha Franklin never intended to record Bacharach and David’s hit. The song was just one that she would sing with her backing singers, The Sweet Inspirations, for fun. Whilst in the studio rehearsing tracks for her forthcoming album Aretha Now, it became apparent that they were singing the song that well they had to record it.

Backed by Clayton Ivey on piano, Franklin set about rearranging the Dionne Warwick original. Changing how she delivered the lyrics and letting The Sweet Inspirations sing the majority of the chorus the result was a more soulful rendition far superior to Bacharach’s rather kitsch production. Released in July 1968 the song - like a few others on this list - was only intended to be a B side to the single The House That Jack Built. After significant airplay by DJs the song was released as a single properly in October reaching number ten in the Billboard Hot One Hundred.

It was one of the few cover versions that Bacharach preferred to his own version. He was never really happy with how Dionne Warwick had sung it, feeling that the whole production had been rushed. In fact he did not want the song released. Yet, if it had not been for Warwick’s imperfect original then there would not been any possibility for Franklin to improve on it.