4. One Direction - 'One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)'
They're the biggest boyband on the planet and have proved to be a massive and deeply entrenched cultural phenomenon, winning awards and praise alongside vitriolic hate. Quite simply, One Direction are one of the most talked about, discussed and considered bands in the world of pop. Emerging in an era when social media had really kickstarted with Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, One Direction's fame as cute 'X Factor' alumn heartthrobs went global very quickly and in the spring of this year, they unveiled their cover version-cum-mashup of Eighties pop queen Blondie's 'One Way Or Another' and The Undertones' seminal punk hit 'Teenage Kicks', for British charity appeal Comic Relief. Needless to say scores of fans of rock music were enraged by the cover version, but in the end the song rocketed to huge numbers, raising a huge amount of well-deserved money for those in need. In regards to song, there's actually nothing wrong with the version - pop artists have been covering other artists' songs for decades, so all claims to music seem rather petty - and the boys do an admirable job of making the tune their own with a rockier edge to their pop sound and inserting 'Teenage Kicks' as a great middle-eight transformation. Plus if One Direction's version got young eager pop fans looking into the originals, is that such a bad thing? Every artist worth their salt has covered popular and well-loved songs, and so the backlash against 'One Way or Another (Teenage Kicks)' seems rather overblown for what is, in the end, a solid cover of a song performed for a hell of a noble cause. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36mCEZzzQ3o