10 Rock Covers That Improved Classic Songs

If we're talking about the stone age of hard rock though, all roads tend to lead back to the Kinks. Before The Beatles started to dip their toes into heavy music and when Led Zeppelin were still a pipe dream, the Davies' brothers served up something a little more piercing for rock and roll, with a riff that had just the right amount of grit to be heard over the other British Invasion acts of the day. Hard rock had a lot more experience under its belt by '78 though, and it was time for all of us to be reminded of this song when Van Halen got ahold of it.

Coming right after Eddie Van Halen melts your face on Eruption off of the band's debut record, the excitement behind You Really Got Me is contagious from that first classic lick, bringing that two chord riff into the arena for the first time. And with no disrespect to Ray Davies, David Lee Roth was made for a song like this, playing up his loverman schtick and having a lot more swagger in his step than most other rockers could dream of.

Even with the countless original songs that Van Halen would spit out over the years, there's a reason why this song was always a staple of their setlists. You could call it just a cheap cover they made for the hell of it, but it goes a lot deeper than that. You Really Got Me was already heavy for its time, and Van Halen's version made a whole new generation of rock fans believers by warping the song inside out.