Whiff o’ the Week (1/18/15)
“Then no matter where you are, in a crowded restaurant or on some desolate street or even in the comforts of your own home, you’ll watch yourself dismantle every assurance you ever lived by. You’ll stand aside as a great complexity intrudes, tearing apart, piece by piece, all your carefully conceived denials, whether deliberate or unconscious. And for better or worse you’ll turn, unable to resist, though try to resist you still will, fighting with everything you’ve got not to face the thing you most dread, what is now, what will be, what has always come before, the creature you truly are, the creature we all are, buried in the nameless black of a name.
And then the nightmares will begin.”
Sever your structures of normalcy. This is Whiff o’ the Week.
When last we visited Whiffland, I tasked you with judging the most offensive of a list of otherwise good songs marred by one performer. As fate would have it, our pal Kim Jong Un honored Best Korea with his choice of Paul Di’Anno. All glory to his name.
Next week’s category: Worst solo!
Alright, that’s it for the summary. Let’s get to the whiffs. This week’s category: Worst cover of a good song!
W.
Does anyone remember the short-lived MTV series MTV Icon? Originally envisioned as a way to honor musical acts who have made major impacts on the industry, it was cancelled after only four specials. In its third year, MTV decided to honor Metallica by booking Sum 41, Staind, Avril Lavigne, Snoop Dogg, Korn, and Limp Bizkit. The results are about what you’d expect, with only Sum 41’s medley of “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” “Enter Sandman,” and “Master of Puppets” being listenable. I honestly couldn’t pick just one turd from this crap smorgasbord, so I’ve linked to the entire special. Watch it. Then kill yourself.
Papa Joe
Ask yourself, have you ever wondered what a soul classic like “What’s Going On” by Marvin Gaye would sound like when covered by a complete fucking asshole? I know I’ve lost a lot of sleep thinking about it. Thankfully, everyone’s favorite hat rack Fred Durst deigned to give us this nü-metal version of “What’s Going On,” complete with bounce riffs and all.
Kim Jong Un’s Oily Sex Dumplings
Keep your toilets running, heading down the drain pipe! Lookin’ for a 5-flusher, and it’s coming your way!
365 Days of Horror
My Ruin sucks. AC/DC sucks. Put them together and what do you get? A double-decker suck sandwich with extra suck on the side for dipping.
Rusty Shackleford
lol at when Angela Gossow walked into the studio and was like “Ooooo I wanna cover this shitty Kiss song from a shitty Kiss album…” WHO DECIDED THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA?!?!?
Feelthedarkness
I vote for Metallica covering “Free Speech For The Dumb” by Discharge. It’s one thing to cover The Misfits but to go for a Discharge song. Ahhh NO.
Simon Phoenix
I submitted this as a whiff before, and I was almost tempted to submit SFU’s cover of “Confused” by Angel Witch. But this turd is still much worse; to the point that I’m using it a second time.
Fuck you in your right ear Oceano.
Scrimm
I don’t have anything against Testament, or at least I didn’t until they released this steaming turd. Everything but the drums sucks, and is a disgrace to one of the greatest songs of all time. The bass? Try to cover Steve Harris at your own peril. Not saying Skolnick and Peterson aren’t good guitarist but they can’t hold a candle to Murray or Smith, and it shows throughout. And the vocals are just atrocious in every way. I’ll never hear Chuck Billy the same after this. 10/5 flushes.
Guacamole Jim
It’s hard to miss the mark as viciously as In Flames did on their cover of “Land of Confusion” by Genesis. By taking everything that made the original enjoyable out of their version and replacing it with poorly articulated vocals, sloppy drumming, and uninspired guitar riffs, they managed to create a pathetic version of a classic tune, and thoroughly embarrass themselves in the process. Also, if you can’t sing high enough to cover the melody line, don’t sing the harmony like it doesn’t make a difference. It does.
SMOHLG
The Dillinger Escape Plan‘s 2006 EP Plagiarism was a small collection of covers that were meant to remain true to the original songs. The result is one of the worst vocal deliveries I have ever heard. On “Jesus Christ Pose” you will find Puciato trying to mimic Chris Cornell in his prime, and the result lights my backside aflame every time. This song was the first I had ever heard of TDEP and it succeeded only in making me think they must be one of the worst bands around. It wasn’t until 2013’s …Killer that I finally gave them another listen and my opinion began to sway.
Maik Beninton
I found this cover on a clickbait video called “Mudvayne & Slipknot & Static-X – Smells Like Teen Spirit (cover Nirvana).”
Janitor Jim
This cover of “Masters Of War” by Bob Dylan is so bad I could not finish it. It is garbage in the highest degree and I feel a need to cleanse myself after hearing it. It takes the power of Bob Dylan and murders it with mechanical precision. Fuck this band with the biggest cacti on Earth.
Akercocke Ov Steele
I hate this cover; I love Destruction, and I love Maiden (as if none figured that out). I don’t know why they thought playing it another key would make it sound better, but they did. Flush this cover, Flush it hard.
Stanley Laurel
Where do you start with Graveyard Classics? It’s chockfull of contenders for Whiff of the Week. The obvious choice would be go straight for “T.N.T.” which is LOLBUTTZ right from the get go, but the song was never “great” in the first place and so doesn’t quite meet this weeks criteria. Instead, I’m going for the Dead Kennedy’s classic picked off the legendary Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables LP. Playing a song note for note (albeit with down-tuned guitars) while gurgling like a tone deaf toad with strep throat does not a good cover make. All the menace and vitriol of the original are lost in this flat, redundant money grab.
Coolstorybro
Five Finger Death Punch, covering the Animals‘ cover of “House of the Rising Sun.” Where do I begin? There’s the lyric change from “New Orleans” to “Sin City,” for some fucking reason. There’s the fact that it’s just awful in every expressible way. Also, they chose to do away with dat organ riff. No matter the reason, here’s your worst cover song ever.
Ellipsis
Who are Rx Bandits? I don’t know, but they covered Megadeth’s “Holy Wars… The Punishment Due” for the hotbed of lolbuttz that is the Punk Goes… series, in this case the inaugural album, Punk Goes Metal. If you’ve ever wondered what Megadeth would sound like played by a Ska band, skip to 2:34.
Nordling Rites ov Karhu
There are four kind of covers. Tribute: Playing the song exactly the same. Cover: Playing it with a twist, often fits with neither’s style and is most likely bad. Bastardization: Barely recognisable if at all. The new artist has made his/her vision the dominant. And four: The kind that both sucks AND blows. Gues to which does Paul Di’Anno‘s version of “Kashmir” fit into.
ChuggaChuggaDeedleyDoo
This isn’t a metal song, but this abortion of a cover will inevitably be played at a supermarket or in the waiting room of a dentist’s office at least once every few hours. The movie Office Space hit the nail on the head in referring to Michael Bolton as a “no talent ass clown,” and I don’t think that there’s a song out there that irritates me more. It’s just that awful.
MoshOff
As unkvlt as it may be, I really dig Suicide Silence. I’m sure you’ll agree with me though when I say that this is the most bastardizingly foul attempt at an Alice in Chains cover ever.
Esusmoose
Worst cover could mean a few things, but choosing a song from a group who’s only aspect worth knowing is that they’re pretend lesbians and then adding in some terribly flushable auto-tuned vocals and garbage-level metalcore instrumentation, and you’ve got yourself this mess.
Elite Extremophile
I never had much of a problem with August Burns Red, because while they were mostly metalcore, they never resorted to autotuned whines like most bands of their ilk. I thought it was their choice. I realize now that they don’t sing because Jake Luhrs sounds absolutely fucking atrocious doing anything but a monotone growl.
Ted Nü-Djent
When Dubya informed me that my original submission of Celine Dion and Anastacia covering AC/DC’s “You Shook Me All Night Long” wasn’t playable in the God damn US of A, it sent me into a blind panic. How was I ever going to find such another cringe inducing bad cover with so little time to spare? (You should have seen Celine air guitaring at the beginning; it was magnificently bad). In desperation I turned to the Punk Goes… series and found this. It may not be a “great” song but Tay Tay has been covered on this very blog before and that’s enough of a loop hole for me.
Well, there you have it. Now it’s your turn to decide which of these covers is the worst.
Feel free to defend any of these choices in the comments section and tell me what a turd I am for my opinion. Also, if you hate something I love, send it to me for the next Whiff o’ the Week! All opinions here are strictly those of the writer in question, although most of them are correct.
(Photo VIA)
