10 Greatest Rock Music Cover Songs Of The 2000s
2. The Boys Of Summer - The Ataris
For his second solo album, Building the Perfect Beast, ex-Eagles man Don Henley recruited Mike Campbell of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to write a slinky pop-rock number about the passing of youth. The end result was The Boys of Summer, a song that mourned the loss of warmer, happier days, and was a big success for the Donster.
Then, in 2003, a little-known band called The Ataris took the song and strapped a rocket to it.
From the opening chord, complete with tasty cymbal fill, you can tell this is a very different song. This version of The Boys of Summer is as pop punk as it gets. It is played at breakneck speed, with singer Kristopher Roe’s all-American voice perfectly encapsulating Henley’s original mission statement.
The Boys of Summer’s themes are eternal, as every generation goes through those same motions of desperately clinging onto being young. The Ataris took this core idea and parcelled it perfectly for Millennials, to the point where it’s nearly impossible to tell that this was once a synth pop track by a guy from that lame band your parents like.