I push my fingers into my ears

Carrie Brownstein muses on the nature of covers on her blog. She remains mostly positive, identifying the times in which a cover can be good. I hope she gets to the world of the terrible, misbegotten cover. I am sad to say that I have found a new cover that I hate even more than Natalie Merchant's brutal slayings of REM and Morrissey songs and the Ataris misuse of Donald Henley.

I speak of metal band Celtic Frost's cover of Wall of Voodoo's Mexican Radio. Aside from the Gwar-like shout of "Hey!" at the beginning, this song just makes me want to die. This raises the question as to whether metal bands are even capable of making a decent cover. Metallica makes Whiskey in the Jar their own, but former bandmate Mustaine's cover of Anarchy in the UK is a real horrorshow (complete with at least one mistaken lyric).

Country on the other hand, and alt country in particular makes for excellent covers in both directions. Social Distortion's cover of Ring of Fire is a treat. And Uncle Tupelo's cover of Now I Want to Be a Dog is fantastic, when played acoustic at least. This live version is fun, but sounds like the Stooges.