Musicians, first and foremost, are music lovers. All of your favorites have favorites of their own—the artists who inspired them to take a crack at songwriting in the first place. It’s all one vast exchange that ultimately boils down to, “I love this song—maybe you will, too.”
There’s arguably no higher form of that give and take than a cover. For a performer, covering a song requires in-depth engagement with it, studying its originator’s choices closely while, ideally, making a few of your own. For a listener, the best covers offer new angles on old favorites, like seeing a good friend in a weird outfit—you’re gladdened by the familiar and intrigued by its new trappings at the same time.
Our 10 favorite covers of 2022 rose to just that challenge, with artists paying tribute to luminaries of their respective genres, reimagining yesterday’s hits for today’s times, and above all, adding their own voices to music’s never-ending conversation.
Amythyst Kiah, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (Joy Division)
A post-punk anthem turns to poignant folk in East Tennessee songwriter Amythyst Kiah’s capable hands. Gone are Ian Curtis’ depressive drone, Peter Hook’s iconic bass line, and Bernard Sumner’s airy synth—in their place are only an acoustic guitar and Kiah’s richly emotive vocal, which probes every heartrending wrinkle of its lyrics. Curtis wrote “Love Will Tear Us Apart” about the dissolution of his marriage, and it wasn’t released until after his death by suicide in 1980. Kiah, whose mother also took her own life, pours that sense of irrevocable loss into her performance, conveying passionate longing where Curtis did numbness. “‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ is the tragedy of knowing that the spark is gone forever,” said Kiah upon her cover’s January release. “The weight of helplessness bearing down, the feeling of being alone in the presence of a partner that is emotionally and mentally miles away and is never coming back. Here’s to taking a sad song and making it sadder.”
Ethel Cain, “Everytime” (Britney Spears)
On International Women’s Day in March, Spotify tapped Ethel Cain as their first openly trans EQUAL Ambassador, and the Preacher’s Daughter breakout covered Britney Spears’ 2004 ballad “Everytime” for the occasion. “I’ve always loved this song and immediately knew I could take Britney’s melodies and make something super dreamy with it,” said Cain. “I think Britney wrote a very lovely song and it was an honor to put my spin on it.” She does so by slowing the tempo and leading with acoustic guitar rather than piano, omitting the original’s bijou music box accents in favor of layered backing vocals, harmonica wheeze, and upbeat tambourine. Cain’s take transforms a fragile apology for fumbled love into an oceanic hymn to vulnerability that gathers strength like a quiet storm.
Georgia Maq, “Samson” (Regina Spektor)
As a member of Camp Cope, Georgia Maq made her name on fiercely cathartic indie rock, while her solo output has skewed more toward electronic pop. Her Live at Sydney Opera House EP is something else entirely, highlighted by an absolutely showstopping rendition of Regina Spektor’s Begin to Hope standout “Samson.” The song reimagines the biblical story of Samson and Delilah from the latter’s perspective, and the strength Samson held in his hair had a special significance to a young Maq: “Being a Greek woman with a mustache and hairy arms, I was always bullied in school about being different, but then I heard ‘Samson’ and it completely changed my perspective of my body,” she said upon her cover’s November release. “I started playing that song when I was 15 and it always brought me back to my power.” You can feel that power in her stirring rendition, which features her stepmother Rebecca Mason on piano, as well as Maq’s “ride-or-die string duo” of Lucy Rash and Lucy Waldron.
The Goon Sax, “Steal My Sunshine” (Len)
For a killer cover, song selection is at least half the battle. Brisbane indie rockers The Goon Sax bore that out in April, picking Len’s enduring summer hit “Steal My Sunshine” to cover for the deluxe edition of their 2021 Matador Records debut Mirror II. Riley Jones, Louis Forster, and James Harrison recreate the song’s iconic “More, More, More”–sampling instrumental via sun-kissed (I know, but it is) indie rock, with Jones and Forster swapping vocal hooks a la Len’s Marc and Sharon Costanzo. The Goon Sax reimagine the track’s blissful radio-pop energy as more moody and complex, finding the rueful lows that the original so blithely de-emphasized in favor of its euphoric highs. The result is a cover that somehow feels more true to the song than the song itself as it gives us one more reason to mourn The Goon Sax’s July breakup.
Ibibio Sound Machine, “Heroes” (David Bowie)
“Heroes” is one of David Bowie’s most beloved songs, which probably puts it on the shortlist of the greatest rock tracks ever recorded. Undaunted by the track’s stature, London Afro-electro-funk act Ibibio Sound Machine shared their rendition in September, following the spring release of their acclaimed new album Electricity. The band wisely recognized that they couldn’t out-anthem the original, instead sending the track in a slinkier, more dance-friendly direction. Eno Williams leans into the song’s starry-eyed romance, crooning over burbling bass, probing electric guitar, and pulsing drum machine, with staccato synth notes and flute flourishes further strengthening the cover’s deceptively propulsive shuffle. Ibibio Sound Machine let the song simmer rather than heating it to a boil, and the result is a fresh, vital new take on a classic.
Iron & Wine feat. Finom, “That’s How You Know” (Lori McKenna)
As Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard once said, “When Sam Beam sings a song, it’s eternally his.” The songwriter best known as Iron & Wine laid claim to four Lori McKenna tracks with September’s LORI, an EP he recorded with his and McKenna’s shared collaborator Matt Ross-Spang, as well as Sima Cunningham and Macie Stewart of Finom (f.k.a. OHMME). The bright piano figure and accordion of McKenna’s Lorraine ballad “That’s How You Know” are nowhere to be found on the LORI version—instead, Beam and company merge their voices over electric guitar and synth hums that sound so muffled and distant, it’s as if they’re buried deep in the ground. McKenna wrote the song about processing the death of her mother (for whom Lorraine was named), and Beam, Cunningham, and Stewart honor that grief by embracing its darkness and dissonance. Hope only occasionally shines through the sparse cover’s cracks, like in the song’s final refrain, where the trio chant, “You’re moving on.”
Japanese Breakfast, “Nobody Sees Me Like You Do” (Yoko Ono)
One of the year’s best cover albums, Ocean Child: Songs of Yoko Ono was curated by Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard and released on its namesake’s 89th birthday in February. The tribute compilation features contributions from David Byrne, Yo La Tengo, Sharon Van Etten, Death Cab, Sudan Archives, Jay Som, and more, but it’s Japanese Breakfast’s take on Season of Glass track “Nobody Sees Me Like You Do” that resonates most. Where the original is jaunty and upbeat, the Ocean Child version is stately and stripped down, with only Michelle Zauner’s voice and resonant piano (sorry, no sax solo) to convey the song’s bittersweet longing for togetherness. Where Ono’s vocal fluttered and multiplied, surrounded by layered keys and sunny, gently psychedelic guitars, Zauner’s is clear as a bell, committing matter-of-factly to the mixed emotions of the lyrics: “Even with your warmth and closeness / These feeling of loneliness hangs over like a curse.” The final piano chord hangs in the air for what feels like forever, but it’s only an all-too-fleeting moment.
Midwife, “Send the Pain Below” (Chevelle)
2022 saw artists breathing new life into nu metal, of all genres, and that resurgence was not lost on San Francisco–based label The Flenser, who in March released Send the Pain Below, “a tribute album to nu metal and adjacent artists performed by Flenser artists and members of The Flenser community,” per Bandcamp. Its six songs culminate in Denver musician Madeline Johnston’s (a.k.a. Midwife) take on the tribute’s title track, in which Chevelle’s early-2000s chart-topper gets the “heaven metal” treatment. Johnston slows her rendition to a crawl, swapping in her distinctively luminous, yet haunting sound for the original’s sludged-out chords and pummeling percussion. Her serene vocal lends an eerie glow to the track’s strangled masochism (“I like having hurt / So send the pain below / Where I need it”), her modulated screams tangling with cymbal crashes as the first chorus puts a fine point on her suffering. Oddly pretty keys cap it off, allowing Johnston’s experimental pop instincts to shine through.
Shalom, “True Love”" (Hovvdy)
Brooklyn-based artist Shalom signed to Saddle Creek over the summer, sharing a Glass Animals cover to celebrate, but we prefer her take on Hovvdy’s True Love title track. The 2021 tune is one of the Texas duo’s most poignant, and Shalom’s version clearly conveys how much it means to her. “The song is so special to me, and that record is so special to me—the first two weeks after I heard it for the first time, it was all I listened to,” she said upon her cover’s September release. “It’s so honest, and so open, and the refrain—‘Do you believe what I said, that I’m the man I say I am’—wrecks me when I hear it and it wrecks me when I sing it. But in the best way.” Produced by her collaborator Ryan Hemsworth, soothing synths and drum machine give the cover a more contemplative bent, while Shalom’s vocals remain steadfast throughout, as if in affirmation of the belief referenced in the song’s lyrics.
Wednesday, “Women Without Whiskey” (Drive-By Truckers)
When Asheville’s Wednesday recorded their 2022 cover album Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling ’em Up, it was to “repay in part the huge debt we are in to the artists who contributed so much to the music we write ourselves,” as frontperson Karly Hartzman wrote. The entire record is worth hearing, especially for fans of the band’s distinctive blend of noise rock and Americana, but the highlight is their rendition of Drive-By Truckers’ 2001 Southern Rock Opera standout “Women Without Whiskey.” MJ Lenderman—who broke out as a solo artist with this year’s widely acclaimed Boat Songs—takes point, with he and Hartzman’s electric guitars crashing and droning as Lenderman’s lead vocal paints a dire picture of alcoholism: “If I make it through this year / I think I'm gonna put this bottle down.” The band stay quite faithful to the Mike Cooley–penned tune, with searing solos and vocal harmonies in all the right places, though Hartzman does add some unexpected flute flourishes, and Xandy Chelmis’ keening lap steel gives the song’s hangdog lamentations an edge. The beauty of a cover like this is that even while playing someone else’s song, Wednesday sound like themselves.
