I'm sure you can guess what irks me... anyone singing Greg, but Greg..

- France's version of Elvis.. Johnny Halliday doing C'est la Vie..

- Keith Emerson's guitarist singing "Lucky Man" on stage....

-the worst.... Toyah Wilcox's version of "Father Christmas"

My other current worst... The Scissor Sisters version of Comfortably NUmb

Stanely Snail's (Mike Keneally and Kevin Gilbert, among others) do an awesome cover of Siberian Khatru on the Yes tribute. They throw in a little bit of Bruford's Sahara of Snow into the mix. It's one of my favs.

This is rather simplistic, but Jeffery Gaines acoustic live cover of In Your Eyes from Peter Gabriel is very powerful. Sometimes you don't have to be complex to be good.

Sid's version of My Way was utterly classic, IMHO!

I haven't heard many prog covers except Marillion's version of "I Know What I Like" (only available on bootleg, and it's OK, but not wonderful) and arguably "Grendel" . I wasn't keen on Genesis' cover of "I Know What I Like" on the album "Seconds Out" - but that's another story. Steve Hillage covered "Hurdy Gurdy Man" in his own inimitable style on "L" - but it wasn't a prog track until he got his hands on it. Don't talk to me about the Scissor Sisters

There have been some cracking rock covers, though - Gillan's cover of "New Orleans", Motorhead's "Louie Louie", Tygers of Pan Tang's "Love Potion #9", David Lee Roth's "Just a Gigolo" - and Marilyn Manson's "Tainted Love" to name but a few. I haven't heard Manson's version of "Come Together", but I expect I would like it - Manson's OTT Goth style has me in hysterics.

I wouldn't buy anything Manson released, however - I just like seeing the videos on Kerrang...

Vinnie Moore's cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" had me weeping hysterically - but for the wrong reasons. Dr and the Medics did a cover of "Spirit in the Sky" that was so similar to the original that I wondered why they'd bothered, and Neil (the hippy out of "The Young Ones") did faintly humourous covers of "Hole in My Shoe" and "My White Bicycle". The Young Ones' collective cover of "Living Doll" (together with the maestro Cliff himself) was much funnier.

Metallica did some incredible covers, particularly of Diamond Head and Budgie (I wasn't keen on their Queen or Motorhead covers tho'); Their rendition of "Am I Evil" (DH) and "Breadfan" (Budgie) have to be heard by any Prog Metal fan. I thought Dream Theater's cover of "Sanitarium" was lame, OTOH.

Did I ever mention that I used to be in a band that did Metallica covers back in the late 1980's....

Certif1ed,

How many times do i have to tell you, "Grendel" is not a cover of "Supper's ready"!

I'm racking my brains for covers of prog track, but I can't get beyond that awful Scissors Sisters butchering of "Comfortably numb".

Others covers are:

• The Orchestral Tubular Bells,
• Uriah Heep - Hold your head up (Argent)
• Sky - Vivaldi (Curved Air)
• I have a tribute to Pink Floyd album by Rosebud/Discoballs, and yes it is as bad as it sounds
• Then there's the Yes and ELP remix albums, they're covers really, there's not much of the original music there!

I'm totally with Threefates on Yes' cover of "America". Brilliant, although I thought we were looking for prog tunes covered by nonprog bands, not vice versa.

May I proffer "Have a Cigar", The Foo Fighters (with Brian May)?

Travis do a rather impressive version of Queen's "Killer Queen", but I realise Queen are a bone of contention re prog status.

I'll try and think of some more later......

"I haven't heard many prog covers except Marillion's version of "I Know What I Like" (only available on bootleg, and it's OK, but not wonderful) and arguably "Grendel" ." 

Chokecoughsplutter.....Steady on Certif1ed old boy........

One of the best things about prog is that it generally resists being covered...but I did get a laugh from the ska version of PF's "Eclipse".

What is the difference between good covers, just-for-fun covers and annoying covers?

The usual cover theory is that if you do a song that has already been popular, you're that much closer to popularity yourself (due to the 'audience recognition' factor). That's a pretty nasty concession for anyone claiming to have something original to offer, and I tend to judge covers very harshly because of that. MM's "Sweet Dreams" did grow on me after a while, though...

Donna Summer's version of Jon and Vangelis' "State of Independence" was quite good actually, emphasizaing the tropical-exotic ambience in order to make it sound a bit sexier, yet keeping the original song's spiritual enthusiasm. Anyway, Summer is a damn good singer.  

Try an album called "The River of Constant Changes", an outstanding Genesis Tribute by mostly unknown Italian bands, simply the best cover album I ever listened.

Despite Threefates opinion about ELP covers (Which are terrible in most of the cases as she says) I consider Encores, Legends and Paradox a very good album.

I wrote a review for another Web Page a few months ago but I'll add it here (because the album is not in ProgArchives) in case is useful for anybody:

Encores, Legends & Paradox  A Tribute to ELP I don’t have a definitive opinion about the so-called tribute albums because most of them are only  an excuse for old or unknown artists to get some bucks without having to create music. Some of the tribute albums are only a copy of the original songs without any contribution from the copyist (can’t say artist in some cases),  and others are so changed that sound as a failed experiment, but there are a few in which the new musicians add interesting things to the already good music without changing the spirit of the song, and because of this they release an album worth to buy. Encores, Legends & Paradox is one of the last kind of Tribute albums, very good interpretations of ELP classics with interesting changes and a  band is full excellent artists that really make an effort to release a different version of the original song respecting the author’s creation. This is my opinion about some songs in the album:   Karn Evil 9 (Robert Berry/Simon Phillips/Jordan Rudess/Mark Wood): Apparently sounds very similar to the original version, but the arrangement is totally different, even though is clearly progressive, the music has a classical Rock orientation. Emerson’s keyboard interpretation are mostly inspired in the firm sound of early modern composers (mainly Russians), but in this album Jordan Rudess seems more baroque, almost like  Rick Wakeman. The mixture is very good.   Toccata (Trent Gardner/Pat Mastelotto/Peter Banks/Matt Guillory/Wayne Gardner): This song is absolutely different to the original version, probably faster (if this is possible) with a touch of Jazz Fusion. Mastelotto's drums are not as strong as Palmer’s but perfect to the Fusion atmosphere.   Knife Edge (Robert Berry/ Simon Phillips/ Marc Bonilla/ Erik Norlander/ Glenn Hughes): The only song with Glenn Hughes as a vocalist, and of course has a Metal orientation. Hughes voice is not as powerful as Lake's, and IMO is not the correct election for this song, Listen to the short guitar solo by Marc Bonilla, it’s very good. different to Greg's style but outstanding   Hoedown ( Robert Berry / Simon Phillips / Jerry Goodman / Jordan Rudees / Marc Bonilla): Great version, with a mixture of folk and Jazz, Jerry Goodman’s violin plays a basic role in the song  specially in the first part, when  bass and guitar are added, the song gets  that classic fusion sound, somehow similar to Mahavishnu.   The Sheriff (Trent Gardner / Mike Portnoy / John Wetton / Peter Banks / Mark Robertson / Wayne Gardner): Except for a few chords in the beginning of the song and Wetton’s voice (very similar to Lake’s), The Sheriff sounds as a different song, probably one of the weakest in the album because of Wetton’s poppy singing in some parts of the track, as if he tried to sound like  Greg Lake singing Invisible Touch instead of an ELP song, weak but still not totally bad.   The Barbarian (Robert Berry / Simon Phillips / Igor Koroshev): In this song, Igor Koroshev’s contribution is very important, even though he respects the cold and firm style of Keith Emerson, he adds extra speed, some baroque chords and a little bit of life to the dark mood of the original version.   I really enjoy this album, and believe it’s one of the few tribute’s worth to buy.

Iván

Ed Macan (author of one the best if flawed theses on prog rock Rocking The Classics) as leader of Hermetic Sciences, has released a couple of albums, with ELP and Rush covers. Workman like - although his version of Tarkus transmoogified for solo grande piano, is worth a good listen  (recorded live, - it even has cicadas chirrupping in the background).

We got round to a Frank Sinatra cover - however, on a slightly more serious note check out Robert Wyatt's 1 minute mini-masterpiece based on Strangers In The Night on Morgan Fisher's Miniatures album'

BTW thanks for all the recommendations now sorely tempted to put a 80min burn together, trying to keep things as varied as possible and know that the following might be included:

La Villa Striangiata - Steve Morse/Billy Sheehan

Red: Wood

Dedicated To You But You weren't Listening: Caveman Hughscore

Endless Enigma: Mastermind

Astromony Domine: Gary Lucas

Guerillas In The Midst (aka King Kong): Gary Lucas

Siberian Khatru: Stanley Snail

Jeff Buckley: Back In NYC

Niacin: Blue Wind