10 Hard Rock Cover Songs That Are Better Than The Original
8. Summertime Blues - The Who
By the time the Who had come off of Tommy, they had almost single handedly reinvented rock and roll. While the accompanying album was far from being the first double album, this odyssey following a deaf dumb and blind boy turned the entire concept of the rock lyric inside out, as each song seemed tied to the same general narrative. That kind of ambition can weigh on even the sharpest minds, so the best course was to cut loose on a live album.
On the surface, Live at Leeds is one of the greatest hard rock records ever made, and yet the killing blow of the record didn't even come from the pen of Pete Townshend. Though songs like Substitute and Tattoo go over pretty well, the real centerpiece is Summertime Blues, which was originally meant to just be a care-free song by rock and roll legend Eddie Cochran.
Rather than just play this song straight, never before has the perils of summer sounded more like the coming Apocalypse, with Keith Moon assaulting his drums and Pete Townshend squeezing every last bit of emotion as he can out of his guitar. The Who had always been disciples of the early days of rock and roll, but this punched a hole in rock's legacy to pave the way for something entirely new.