Judge a Song by its cover

I love Dolly, but Whitney’s version of “I Will Always Love You” is in a class unto itself.

Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn”

 

The Sound of Silence by Disturbed is a pretty strong contender in this category.

 

As mentioned, Beatles “Twist n Shout” is hard to beat.

Personal favorites are Mellencamp’s “Wild Night” and Cash’s “Hurt” and “Personal Jesus.”

Hell, all of Cash’s covers on American IV are outstanding.

 

Cowboy Junkies “Sweet Jane”
Bob Marley “I shot the sheriff”

 

I concur.
Not a big Disturbed fan by any stretch, but this one is damn good.

 

I have the older Joan Jett image in my head, so I never found her attractive. I Googled Joan Jett, Crimson and Clover and found a YouTube clip of her doing this song from 1983. Cute.

 

Pearl Jam's Crazy Mary makes the grade, and it's a helluva song live. They have a few that fit in the better-than-the original category (Last Kiss, Sonic Reducer, Masters of War, I Am a Patriot, arguably Rockin' in the Free World), but a lot of those are covers they've done live and not studio releases.

 

There's a ton of Dylan covers out there but this is one of the great ones. They do a great version of "19th Nervous Breakdown" too.

Some others I have heard lately in no particular order:
"Oh! Sweet Nothin'" - Rich Robinson/Black Crowes
"Little Wing" - Derek and the Dominos
"Suspicious Minds" - Dwight Yoakum
"Mercury Blues" - David Lindley
"Highway 61 Revisited" - Johnny Winter
"When You Were Mine" - Mitch Ryder
"Hard Luck Woman" - Garth Brooks
"It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry" - Leon Russell (speaking of a guy who did great Dylan covers)

 

This is pretty darn good. Almost had me thinking Billie Eilish did the cover:

 

I always confuse Jason & the Scorchers with Jason (Boland) & the Stragglers, a popular Red Dirt act.

 

They started out as Jason and the Nashville Scorchers in 1980 or 81, playing a cross between alt-country and punk. Critics at the time dubbed it Cow Punk.