‘Clouds,’ hole

Kim Gordon must’ve smoked something particularly funny when produced this mind-numbing cover of Joni Mitchell’s delicate ‘Both Sides, Now’ on Hole’s 1991 Pretty on the Inside. Hideous on the outside, the track brims with guitar drones, percussive seizures and Courtney Love’s trademark snarl. The lyrically ethereal ‘Clouds’ made a lovely contrast to the teenage whores, slut-kiss girls and other white trash characters that populate the roadside of this, ahem, confrontational album. And true to form, Courtney had the last laugh: as she howls, ‘I really don’t know life at all,’ she makes you actually understand the stark sadness at the core of the original. Freaky.

Justin Conforti, Muse staff

‘kiss,’ tom jones

Somehow, the hairy-chested crooner was able to score a hit with his 1988 butchering of the Purple One’s funky, syncopated, flirtation classic. Jones wisely opted for some rhythmically challenged synth-percussion garbage that sounds like all the pre-programmed Casio keyboards of 1988 dying at once. You may not have to be rich to be Jones’ girl, but this embarrassing cover proved coolness was clearly not a necessity for ruling his world. Maybe the history books will treat this as a seminal moment of the torch passing from one pair of tight pants to another. On the other hand, maybe ‘What’s New, Pussycat?’ was the ‘Sexy MFer’ of Jones’ day. Or maybe not.

Lauren Pabst, Muse staff

‘American pie,’ madonna

Quicker than a ray of light, Madonna completely butchered Don MacLean’s rock ‘ roll standard about the day the music died. Whenever the original plays on the radio, you are immediately taken back to a hot summer day when your car windows were down, your music was blaring and you were on the way to the beach. Hearing Maddie’s cover forces you to fiddle with the control panel of the radio. Once you are distracted from driving, you’re gonna crash and burn. Which is exactly what Madonna did with this beauty. Thanks, Madonna now we’re one song closer to pop music’s actual death.

Mai-Ann Duess, Muse staff

‘Happiness is a warm gun,’ tori amos

Amos has often straddled the line between ethereal poignance and just plain boneheadedness, and this selection from her 2001 covers album, Strange Little Girls, is an example of the singer diving heedlessly off the deep end. Amos inflates the Beatles’ quick, nasty, inscrutable White Album rocker into a turgid, 10-minute piano-and-electronic dirge. Amos’ histrionic stretching of John Lennon’s lacerating lyrics ‘she’s well acquainted with the tooooooouch of a velvet haaaaaaaand’ would be bad enough. Worse, she hippy-dippifies the song into an anti-gun statement with clips of news reports of famous shootings, including an account of Lennon’s 1980 assassination. Yeccch.

Robert Watson, Muse staff

‘Boys of summer,’ the ataris

There is no reason to pervert a perfectly plastic ’80s pop song, especially when said song is just cheesy enough to achieve brilliance. Courtesy of pseudo-punks the Ataris, Don Henley’s 1984 ‘Boys of Summer’ received an unnecessary makeover that spliced the original’s hot beats and aching electronica. The worst change in the Ataris’ crappy cover? The line ‘I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac’ becomes ‘I saw a Black Flag sticker on a Cadillac.’ Don’t namedrop bands that you wish influenced you, Ataris. Just realize she’s still got those Wayfayers on, speeding away from you not because she’s found a new love, but because you’re lame.

Courtney Hollands, Muse staff

‘My heart will go on,’ New found glory

The only thing worse than hearing Celine Dion, Canada’s favorite chest-beating diva, belt out the tearful chorus of her calling card, ‘My Heart Will Go On,’ is hearing New Found Glory butcher it in a heinous, two-minute pop-punk song. ‘Love can touch us one time / and last for a lifetime,’ vocalist Jordan Pundik whines alongside his crew of sensitive Blink-182 wanna-bes. It’s a good thing Jack wasn’t rocking out to this cover while clutching onto that frozen plank Rose would have been halfway to CVS for a pair of earplugs faster than he could spike his hair and beg her not to ever let go.

Sharon Steel, Muse staff