Cover Songs: Better than the Original?

Evidently, music producers strongly encourage full-length recordings to include at least one cover, as covers apparently have a strong "sell" factor. Few covers, however, manage to achieve "better than the original" status. I propose five categories, in descending order of quality (followed by my own examples):

1. Better
2. Interesting, but not Great
3. Could/Should Have Been Good
4. Sounds the Same/Pointless
5. Butchery/Hall of Shame

Examples:

1. Coal -- of Motorhead's "Ace of Spades": the jazzy Canadian rockabilly band’s cover of the early thrash “classic,” complete with brush drums and a sweet-voiced female singer; more enjoyable for the wide cross-genre leap
-- Cowboy Junkies -- of Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane": another sweet-voiced female single from another subdued Canadian band brings something new to a familiar track

2. Red Hot Chili Peppers -- of Stevie Wonder's "Higher Ground": funky synth track becomes a funky hard rock track
-- O*** -- of New Order's "Blue Monday": the original is so good, apparently a bad cover is hard to pull off
-- Johnny Cash -- of Nine Inch Nails's "Hurt": people love this cover, somewhat understandably -- but mostly in an honorific sense (i.e., out of respect for the Man in Black)
-- Faith No More -- of the Commodores’s "Easy": amusing cross-genre track, perhaps best appreciated as a tongue-in-cheek exercise

3. Guns n’ Roses -- of Bob Dylan’s "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" -- sounds like a good idea, but the execution left something to be desired; pales to the original; George Harrison mocked it for getting one of the three chords in the song wrong

4. Guns n' Roses -- of Paul McCartney's "Live and Let Die": nothing new here
-- Guns n' Roses -- pretty much all of "The Spaghetti Incident?"

5. Rod Stewart -- of Tom Waits's "Downtown Train" -- musically lame, changes the lyrics from a self-effacing love song into a narcissistic love song; an all-around travesty
-- Ministry -- of Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay": a poor choice even for an album cut, except perhaps for comedic value
-- Guns n' Roses -- of the Rolling Stones's "Sympathy for the Devil" -- if you've heard it, you know

Best cover ever is the Jimi Hendrix version of "All Along The Watchtower." Santana's version of "Black Magic Woman" isn't bad either, but not quite as good as the original.

Definitely first one that came to mind.

Dylan has freely acknowledged that the song cannot be done any better than Hendrix's version.

Hurt

I think Neil Young did a great live version of "All Along the Watchtower". He killed it.

Heart doing stairway to heaven

World Of Confusion--Disturbed

"Sound of Silence"- Disturbed (Originally done by Simon and Garfunkel)

"Hurt"- Johnny Cash (Originally done by NIN)

A guy named Leo Moracchioli has a YouTube channel with lots of videos of him doing metal covers of pop songs...I think most all of them are better than the originals.

Have a listen to Frank Zappa's cover of Stairway to Heaven.

And maybe even- Franks cover of Ravel's Bolero.

Will give them a listen. Thanks I like FZ

Best covers ?

> "Twist and Shout" The Beatles
> "Halleujah" Jeff Buckley
> "Voodoo Child" Steve Winwood and Eric Clapton
> "Why Cant We Live Together" Steve Winwood
>" Sweet Jane" Cowboy Junkies

and many more

How about, Joe Bonamassa covering ZZ Top's, just got paid today,and he leads nicely into a touch of Zeppelin,I think we may have heard it somewhere before.