Post-1960 Songs of Which There Are At Least Three 5-star, All-Time, Stone-Cold Classic Recorded Versions

"If I Were a Carpenter"

Tim Hardin
Four Tops
Bobby Darin
Johnny Cash & June Carter

(and a half dozen other contenders)

Tim Hardin also did a stone-cold classic rendition of "Moonshiner", a song mentioned upthread.

david hasselhoff, apply directly to the forehead

This thread premise but written post-1980, when the notion of a unified pop songbook really breaks down? I can think of lots of great covers but not a lot of third versions, especially when singing contest hackery makes “Hallelujah” harder to stomach in any interpretation.

― bendy

you know what music has sort of a unified songbook, video game music, pretty much all of which is post-1980. a lot of people grew up with this music and there's a pretty solid "canon" of songs that people remember as being exceptional, from songs everybody knows (koji kondo) to songs that were mainly done for shitty video games but are all-time bangers (tim follin). this does straddle the line i guess between "cover" and "remix" but a lot of them are flat-out covers. and a lot of them are shitty "metal" versions but there are some _really_ good people working in the field and so you can hear some pretty fantastic versions of songs from games as recent as, say, fez or shovel knight - disasterpeace and jake kaufman being particularly well-loved game composers.

‘Different Drum’, Stone Poneys, Lemonheads, Susanna Hoffs & Matthew Sweet.

Fascinating point rushomancy! I know very little about video game music, never having put in the time to acquire the ear worms.

Also complicating this is the rise of hip hop and dancehall and dance music, where a beat or a feel is providing the familiar point for the reinterpretation but the point is to create unique top line words or melody. It reverses the old notion of a cover where the rhythm and genre conventions provide the shift.

Umbrella: the Rihanna original, the Seamus Haji remix (huge hit in its own right & doesn’t share anything with the original), and the cover by The Baseballs (also a big hit).

Bring The Noise had three hit covers with the same vocals: the Public Enemy original, the remake with Anthrax, and the Grammy-winning Benny Benassi remix.

Xpost

I don’t think the Cat Power version is quite 5 stars but Rihanna’s original of ‘Stay’ and Low’s cover definitely are.

xps Pastels version of "Different Drum" is 5 star for me

"Diamonds and Rust": Joan Baez, Judas Priest, Ritchie Blackmore's Night

(cheating with the last, which is good but not 5 star good)

James Carr too!

Wow, NO idea why I’ve never heard this version before. And now I have a new favorite recording of “To Love Somebody.”

"Human Fly"
The Cramps
Nouvelle Vague
The Horse Flies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQQfTE2FHY

How to describe...bluegrass meets Steve Reich?

Halo of Flies did it too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uxii5GbQQ_o

bob hund did a pretty good version of human fly live too! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilfm8xQl3mg

"Landslide"

Fleetwood Mac
Smashing Pumpkins
The Dixie Chicks

“You’re No Good” (1961)

Dee Dee Warwick
Betty Everett
Linda Ronstadt

^^Also: Van Halen

“Cry to Me” (1962)

Solomon Burke
Betty Harris
Freddie Scott