Although I love Chaka Khan with all my heart, if I never hear her 1984 cover of Prince’s “I Feel for You” ever again, I’m cool. As far as Prince remakes, thirty-one years after it was originally recorded, it remains the most popular. One of the signs of a wonderful song, besides your fans humming and singing it constantly, is when others can’t wait to cover it. Writing eternal material during his ‘80s and ’90s heyday, Prince has since become the equivalent of Cole Porter or Burt Bacharach and Hal David for a new generation that still appreciates perfect pop.

I've heard a lot of Prince covers and I'm almost always disappointed in the sense that I always favor the original.

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That list has some good ones, I particularly cherish La Toya's Private Joy: even though it's basically a carbon copy of the original it managed to be nearly as cool (contrarly to the other 84 cover of it by Cheyne, which is funny but soporific in comparison to those 2).

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I will not go and comment every cover on that list but instead name a few others that I think are really cool not because they manage to emulate the original but because they turn the composition into something else:

- 7hurtz, Peaches and Feist's Sexy Dancer on that 2001 compilation of Prince covers, which totally recreates the song and turns it into a girl's wet dream. The rest of the comp, unfortunaterly, was a major diappointment to me. I'm still waiting for a true electronic music scene homage to P.

- The classic punk cover of Kiss by Age Of Chance, so totally fucked up it's brilliant.

- The Residents did a weird cover of 1999 which is also totally fucked up and pretty funny, they just totally reinvented the song.

- Another pretty fucked up one is Pankow's Girls & Boys, nothing unforgettable but funny enough to be remembered.

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While pretty close to the original and not nearly as cool as it, both Melissa Morgan and Lindy Layton's covers of Do Me are ok. And in 1984, while La Toya was covering Private Joy, Michael's other sister Rebbie released her own cover of i Feel For You. The fact that 2 Jackson sisters covered Prince that same year is pretty funny IMHO.

Cool list. Did not know about Gary Numan. Here are a few more:

Shockadelica by Ween:

and Darling Nikki by Foo Fighters:

How dare Mariah's version of TBO get put on that list lol

Fun article, thanks for posting!

Bluu said:

Gary Numan not only did a cover of "U Got The Look" on his 1992 album Machine + Soul, but also did a cover of "1999" as a bonus track on the 1999 reissue of M+S:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elXlHB1T9YE

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Surprised soulhead.com did not mention Sinead's version of NC2U.

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Very comprehensive list of covers of Prince songs at http://randb.about.com/od...Covers.htm

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I don't think this is on the list but should be mentioned. Around 1995, P.M. Dawn (one of THE best Prince wanna-be's IMO) released the album Jesus Wept, which contained a three-part medley titled "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto: 1999/Once In A Lifetime-Coconut" (0:00-1:54 https://www.youtube.com/w...U4ZQ0fLQ). They do a slowed down, acoustic, piano-heavy version of "1999" (well a portion of it) that's reminiscent of what Prince did when he turned "Little Red Corvette" into a piano ballad (was that in the Sign of The Times Movie?).

10 songs, comprehensive?

I love the PM Dawn cover, too. Hell, I lovge PM Dawn period, they're one of the most underrated bands of the 90's. The next album, Dear Christian..., is from beginning to end a testament of Prince Be's depression and metaphysical doubts, totally depressing but beautiful and DEEP, really damn deep for pop music!

Rush doing Dance On

Cheap Trick doing Peach

now those would be covers

databank said:

Bluu said:

Gary Numan not only did a cover of "U Got The Look" on his 1992 album Machine + Soul, but also did a cover of "1999" as a bonus track on the 1999 reissue of M+S:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elXlHB1T9YE

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Surprised soulhead.com did not mention Sinead's version of NC2U.

.

Very comprehensive list of covers of Prince songs at http://randb.about.com/od...Covers.htm

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I don't think this is on the list but should be mentioned. Around 1995, P.M. Dawn (one of THE best Prince wanna-be's IMO) released the album Jesus Wept, which contained a three-part medley titled "Fantasia's Confidential Ghetto: 1999/Once In A Lifetime-Coconut" (0:00-1:54 https://www.youtube.com/w...U4ZQ0fLQ). They do a slowed down, acoustic, piano-heavy version of "1999" (well a portion of it) that's reminiscent of what Prince did when he turned "Little Red Corvette" into a piano ballad (was that in the Sign of The Times Movie?).

10 songs, comprehensive?

I love the PM Dawn cover, too. Hell, I lovge PM Dawn period, they're one of the most underrated bands of the 90's. The next album, Dear Christian..., is from beginning to end a testament of Prince Be's depression and metaphysical doubts, totally depressing but beautiful and DEEP, really damn deep for pop music!

.

Oh my bad! That was the wrong link. I meant to paste THIS one: http://www.whosampled.com/Prince/covered/. Here you'll find six pages listing 185 (!) covers of Prince songs. Bon appetit!

I have all of P.M. Dawn's albums. Two decades haven't tarnished those works in the least. Each and every albums is strong: the transcendant lyrics, the distinctive harmonies, outstanding songwriting and just really great music all around. Underrated is right--possibly a casualty of being labeled as 'Hip Hop' after "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss". They certainly set the bar high on 1990's pop.

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And huge Prince fans, to boot. They coopted soooo many of his styles but at least they do it better than just about anyone else (except the man himself). Know how you were analyzing silent tracks by Prince and Judith Hill about a month or so back? (Btw that was a great post. I get plagued by those kinds of details with every protege album I listen to.) P.M. Dawn has their own silent track, an approximately seven-second long recording called "Hope", on their unreleased fifth album F**ked Music, from 2000. Recorded at Dr. King's grave IIRC.

[Edited 8/31/15 22:47pm]

[Edited 8/31/15 22:50pm]

Bluu said:

databank said:

10 songs, comprehensive?

I love the PM Dawn cover, too. Hell, I lovge PM Dawn period, they're one of the most underrated bands of the 90's. The next album, Dear Christian..., is from beginning to end a testament of Prince Be's depression and metaphysical doubts, totally depressing but beautiful and DEEP, really damn deep for pop music!

.

Oh my bad! That was the wrong link. I meant to paste THIS one: http://www.whosampled.com/Prince/covered/. Here you'll find six pages listing 185 (!) covers of Prince songs. Bon appetit!

I have all of P.M. Dawn's albums. Two decades haven't tarnished those works in the least. Each and every albums is strong: the transcendant lyrics, the distinctive harmonies, outstanding songwriting and just really great music all around. Underrated is right--possibly a casualty of being labeled as 'Hip Hop' after "Set Adrift On Memory Bliss". They certainly set the bar high on 1990's pop.

.

And huge Prince fans, to boot. They coopted soooo many of his styles but at least they do it better than just about anyone else (except the man himself). Know how you were analyzing silent tracks by Prince and Judith Hill about a month or so back? (Btw that was a great post. I get plagued by those kinds of details with every protege album I listen to.) P.M. Dawn has their own silent track, an approximately seven-second long recording called "Hope", on their unreleased fifth album F**ked Music, from 2000. Recorded at Dr. King's grave IIRC.

[Edited 8/31/15 22:47pm]

[Edited 8/31/15 22:50pm]

Glad u share my enthusiasme for PM Dawn, it's a band that needs to be remembered and yeah, they suffereded a lot from being labeled hip-hop at first when they were so much more than that, and way to intellectual for the hip-hop scene.

The silent tracks thread was really a big but glad u liked it I have f**ked Music but don't remember the silent track. It's not unreleased BTW, they just released it themselves without a label back in 2000.

Bluu said:

databank said:

10 songs, comprehensive?

I love the PM Dawn cover, too. Hell, I lovge PM Dawn period, they're one of the most underrated bands of the 90's. The next album, Dear Christian..., is from beginning to end a testament of Prince Be's depression and metaphysical doubts, totally depressing but beautiful and DEEP, really damn deep for pop music!

.

Oh my bad! That was the wrong link. I meant to paste THIS one: http://www.whosampled.com/Prince/covered/. Here you'll find six pages listing 185 (!) covers of Prince songs. Bon appetit!

Cool thx