Classic Metal Class Session 12 — Classic Metal and Cover Songs
what makes for a great metal cover of a non-metal song
For session twelve of Classic Metal Class, we decided to focus in on a topic we had been kicking around for quite some time: cover songs in classic heavy metal. There are a lot of them by metal bands, and we thought it would we worthwhile to dig into a few of them. In fact, ten of them in particular. We came up with a list together of some of the best covers by heavy metal bands of non-metal songs, and we discussed each of them at length. If you’d like to watch or listen, here’s the videorecording of the class session.
Here’s that list of metal covers:
- Judas Priest — Diamonds and Rust
- Tank — Chain of Fools
- Megadeth — These Boots Were Made for Walking
- Judas Priest — The Green Manalishi (with the Three Pronged Crown)
- Van Halen — You Really Got Me
- Wasp — The Real Me
- Whitesnake — Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
- Aerosmith — Train Kept A Rollin
- Def Leppard — Action
- Saxon — Ride Like The Wind
You’ll notice that some of these are covers of metal-adjacent hard rock or blues bands. Van Halen covers a Kinks song (as their first single). Wasp does a great version of a song originally by The Who. Sweet’s Action is covered by Def Leppard, and a number of other bands (including Raven, Black and Blue, and the Scorpions. . . kinda). There’s a lot of covers of the Train Kept A Rollin, originally by Tiny Bradshaw, but Aerosmith’s is one of the finest. Fleetwood Mac’s original Green Manalishi is kind of a hot mess, but is plausibly rock of some sort.
When we look at the other songs, derived from other genres, we see the adaptability involved in heavy metal, particularly in the hands of some of its most skilled musicians, who transform soft rock, R&B, folk, and country into hard and heavy anthems. And correspondingly, listening to those covers reveals some of the untapped potentials of those songs.
If you’re a metalhead, you’ve doubtless already heard Judas Priest’s reworking of Joan Baez’s Diamonds and Rust and Megadeth’s jazzy thrash version of Nancy Sinatra’s standard. But give a listen to Saxon’s metal version of Cristopher Cross’ Ride Like The Wind, or Tank’s cover of Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools, and you’ll hear what we’re talking about!
The conversation about covers ranged pretty far into a number of other related topics. For instance, there are a number of original songs that exert a seemingly irresistible temptation for later metal bands to cover, making it metal, but not as good as the original. Steppenwolf’s Born To Be Wild is a prime example. You can find versions by Raven (with Udo signing), Riot, Slayer, Ozzy (with Ms. Piggy), Blue Oyster Cult, and Krokus. Most of these are decent, but it’s really hard to top the original.
There are also some so-so to awful metal cover songs, about which you can at best say that the coverer band really must have liked the original song and band. Judas Priest’s Johny B. Goode is one of those. Blue Oyster Cult’s Kick Out The Jams and the Scorpions Can’t Explain — at least for me and Scott — also fit into that category.
We discussed a number of other related topics. These included.
- What makes a cover song a good or bad one?
- The transformations involved in taking non-metal music and making it metal
- What the song is as an entity or in its essence
- Whether some genres or styles of music more easy for metal bands to cover
- Cover songs that wound up being bigger than the originals
- Bands that rose up through doing covers
We also delved a bit into the difference between tribute albums and cover albums. The later designation applies to a whole host of bands and albums. You can often tell because the word “cover” is included in the title, like Overkill’s Coverkill, Queensrÿche’s Take Cover, Motörhead’s Under Cöver, Ozzy Osborne’s Under Cover. There’s also Fozzy’s 2000, Raven’s Party Animals, Helloween’s Metal Jukebox, and Saxon’s Inspirations.
Then there are a few whose status might be debatable. Twisted Sister’s A Twisted Christmas covers old chestnuts in a heavy metal style. It’s arguably a cover album.
Iron Maiden’s Best of the ‘B’ Sides contains more covers than originals, so can you consider it mostly a cover album? Whitesnake’s Purple Album consists in covers of Deep Purple songs, all of which are from the Mark III and Mark IV lineups. Coverdale was in Deep Purple in both of those, so are they really covers, or just remakes of his own previous band’s songs?
It’s a deep and rich set of topics, so we’ll likely return to it. One aspect we’ll definitely need to explore are the many later metal bands’ cover versions of classic metal bands’ songs — there’s literally hundreds of them.
I’m Greg Sadler, the Heavy Metal Philosopher. You can join me and my co-host Scott Tarulli each month for a new session of Classic Metal Class).
I’m also the president of ReasonIO, a speaker, writer, and a producer of highly popular YouTube videos on classic and contemporary philosophy. I teach at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and offer classes to the wider public in my Study With Sadler online academy. I also produce the Sadler’s Lectures podcast and co-host the Wisdom for Life radio show
