Covering: Bringing on the Heartbreak

Some songs are covered repeatedly because they're brilliant enough that they...well, bear repeating. Others are covered over and over because they're bad enough that goofing on them is way fun. I'm thinking of the dichotomy between the two songs mentioned in yesterday's post: Radiohead's Creep definitely falls into the first category--I'd argue it's among the top 50 rock songs ever, and probably very near No. 1. Britney Spears' Womanizer, catchy though it may be, falls firmly into the crapalicious category.

Then, there's songs that don't fall into either--songs that, when covered, leave me scratching my huge head. Def Leppard's Bringin' on the Heartbreak falls into this category. It's sucky, but painfully so. It's not campy fun, it's not catchy--it's just best left in the dustbin. Yet, Mariah Carey decides to have a go at it:

The person that posted this on YouTube refers to the clip as "the American megastar's beautifully melancholic and understated cover of this classic song" which is even funnier than Mariah's melodramatic trudge through the tune.

This enthusiastic cover comes from REDaCHE (there's an umlaut over the lowercase A, but I don't know how to do that on Blogger--sorry), a Brazilian band with more hair than talent (although the lead singer doesn't suck):

I'm seriously distracted by the hairtossing guitarist and the stick-twirling drummer. Seriously, maybe you should learn the tricks AFTER you acquire musical skills, amigos.

Now a band called Tannerfozz, who seem to be playing in a high school gymnasium:

Notable: all the people in the folding chairs visible in the bottom of the screen walk out very early in the performance, save for the one guy in the right-hand corner of your screen. He must have lost a bet.

Best in this group is two Chilean kids, Boro and Pink Spider:

Just a dude and his cute little girlfriend, jamming in the living room. Simple and pretty, their no-bullshit performance and her rich, clear voice elevate a shitacular song from something you can actually listen to. Go figure.