The Worst Cover of an MIA Track.

Is it really possible to poorly cover a song originally by a marginally-talented artist who only enjoys success because she married into high production values?  Duh.  An acoustic cover of MIA would be bad enough, but when you break out the ukele, everything starts going south of “suck.”  And fast.

I love the three comments of encouragement.  They were obviously written by family members or the guy on the other end of the suicide hotline.  Because nobody could honestly enjoy this shit.

I’m all for exploring creative talents.  We wouldn’t have some of the great music we have had artists not taken chances and mixed things up a bit.  And it is possible to successfully cover a rap song with just an acoustic guitar on hand.  The best example of this, of course, being Mat Weddle of  Obadiah Parker’s cover of Outkast’s “Hey Ya.”

Now see?  That was a good cover.  That was a great cover.  It took chances, but it still came out sounding good.  You might think that such a successful cover is an anomaly, but there are other examples.  Check out The Fray’s cover of Kanye West’s “Heartless.”

Or I Call Shotgun’s cover of Nelly’s “Ride With Me.”

Hell, Nina fucking Gordon managed to cover NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton”

And Nina Gordon, if you don’t know, played Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  You know, the bratty-ass girl who ended up turning into a blueberry?

Don’t make her act a mothafuckin’ fool.

You’ll notice that, with the examples provided, there are a few key staples to making a successful cover:

1. Rhythm. There has to be some sort of rhythm to the cover.  You are effectively altering the rhythm of the original track in order to suit your own interpretation.  So the rhythm of your vocals has to go along with your instrumentation.  As you see in the MIA cover, the vocals and ukele are clearly not on the same page.

2. Vocal Talent. Even if underplayed, you have to have some sort of singing ability.  It doesn’t even have to be great, it just has to be serviceable.  The MIA cover sounds like the chick is straight-up singing in the shower.  That usually does not make for a good cover.

3. Incorporation. You have to incorporate all the elements of your cover into a unified sound.  These girls clearly had no game plan.  One girl just randomly started playing the ukele, the other started belting out shower-tunes and the third girl sits creepily in the background, between them.  Probably wanting to be the “good friend” and tell them how horrible they are, but not wanting them to reveal to all of her Facebook friends that she totally fingered another girl last summer.

This cover is simply wretched, and as a result, has to be featured at TTATWT.

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