The original version of Disarm is rather epic - a painful autobiography, gritty and deliberate.  It would be hard to replicate Billy Corgan’s intensity in any cover of this, as the feeling is so specific: to be successful, you’ve gotta change it up.

Billie Jean, of course, is originally meant for ass shaking - Michael tells a great story and DARES you not to git on up and dance.  The best part about this song to me is that you can’t help, as the audience (and don’t ACT like you don’t sing this every time it comes on - Wedding/ Bar Mitzvah/ Bar/ Shower don’t lie) to make that story your own.  ”Bitch is try’na tell me I’m the daddy!  I aint the daddy!!!!” **wagging that finger around and trying to moonwalk**.  I know this isn’t just me.

There’s no doubt about it: The Civil Wars have a style. They approach both of these covers the same way - they deconstruct the song and put it back together softly, carefully, and with a lethal dose of sex appeal.  These two break my damn heart (mostly because THEY’RE NOT MAKING BABIES, REALLY?!) - the chemistry is off the hook.  I can’t really say enough nice things about this band, so instead, I’ll let you do that.  Come celebrate Movember with John Paul White.

I don’t really need to go into dissecting the original, we all know it very well:  It’s a true-to-the-Decade, tinny, synthy, playful ditty that would loan itself well to a cheesy 80’s montage of shiny happy people dancing arms up to the sky, smiling while crying, and/or walking down a crowded street.  Don’t believe me?  Listen to the original and close your eyes… Thank God for the 80’s.

James throws the reality treatment on the song, strips it down to just his voice and the piano, slows it down, and relieves it of it’s relentless giddiness.  Luckily, in doing so, he doesn’t totally kill the happy.  He’s just searching, and it’s SO damn pretty.  This reminds me of Gary Jules’ cover of “Mad World” by Tears for Fears… minus the sweeping desperation, that is.  If you like this, check out his version of Chris Isaak’s Wicked Game.

“So tell me you love me / only for tonight / even though you don’t love me / I’ll give you all of me / even though you don’t love me”

The original version of this song and the cover version are almost the same age, unleashed to the internet merely months from each other.  The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” pulls not only at the heart, but at the loins – that is, unless you’re dead inside.  Throughout the song he battles his visceral craving for her with the painful knowledge that she doesn’t love him back.  Listening to the original like getting drunk from cocktail carefully concocted from two parts pure sex, one part devastation, shaken over heartache and sprinkled with drug lust.  You will always want one more.

Even while the Weeknd was still fresh in our ears and the internet blogosphere, out of nowhere comes Beatrice with her version of “Wicked Games”.  Still relatively unknown outside this cover, this version lingers still.  Rather than exuding sex, the tinny piano sets an eerie tone from the start.  But the way her voice delicately hovers the piano, brings an almost a whimsical quality to this song, as if she doesn’t care that her heart is on the line.  But don’t think this version lacks intimacy, though – at some points she sings so close to the mic you can hear her lips and tongue move within her mouth just so slightly, beckoning you to listen closer.  Do it.

Guest review by: Hoolz

This song is ridiculous.  The original, by comparison, has a tameness - all the while competing with the song’s undoubted haunt-factor.   His voice is smooth and perfect, he doesn’t lose control, meanwhile he’s speaking to helplessness and obsession.  I think he was going for that juxtaposition when he recorded it, personally.

Fiona tears the thing apart.  I love that this is on video - her posture, her hands, her face.  Chick is insane.  Brilliant, but insane.  She brings this song to its darkest place - there’s an implicit slow-build in the track, where Elvis may have let it lay dormant, Fiona milks it for all its worth.  This is literally hypnotizing, I can’t take myself away from it once it gets going.  And Elvis being there and falling so easily into what she’s doing makes it all the better. This is why covers exist.

Busta reminds us that he’s still alive, and very much so.  His verse is crazy, I’ll say that.  But the song on the whole?… the chorus is sleepy, the verses are mostly uninspired and dead - the song just kinda sucks.  I’m just bored to tears and hoping that new school hip hop figures itself out already…

THEN KARMIN HAPPENED TO IT and shit got real.  I want to be this girl.  Is she serious? That is all. Even if rap isn’t your thing, stick around for the third verse.

Again, one of my favorites.  Kate’s original and Maxwell’s cover are so very different - Kate’s is hopeful and delicate.  She doesn’t let her phrase endings linger, there’s a defensiveness about the original.  This is such a strong song.

Maxwell fucking KILLS IT.  Where there was so much soul before, he introduces a darker, desperate, new breed of soul and lets it do what it wants with what is already there.  The gender difference also does a lot to round this out.  So into it.

I remember when I first heard the original by Gnarls Barkley, I was blown away.  Cee-Lo and Dangermouse seemed to have concocted the most intoxicating mixture of frenetic energy, sincerity, innovation, and melody - nothing about the song felt unintentional, yet it remained wild and silly.  Similar to when Outkast put out Hey-Ya, I felt reassured that mainstream music could still transcend.  

Ray LaMontagne’s version of this song is one of my favorite covers, probably ever.  He takes this animate, know-it-all, stubborn, punchy stepchild of a pop song and finds the longing in it - his version is simple and confident and brutal, in true Ray form.