This cover of Madonna’s “Music” has been shown quite frequently on Hungarian MTV, (as in Hungarian Music Television, not Magyar Televizió), and I was just left to wonder: did anyone out there really think that this is what was missing in the world? I’ve not really heard anything else from Roy and Ádám, so I can’t say what their other stuff is like, but it’s not like “Music” was even a good song to begin with. The words “boogie-woogie” don’t work when you’re trying to sing them soulfully.

I can’t say I’m much of a Madonna fan, since I only think Ray of Light was a good album, and maybe half of Music, but even then, I think it was one of the more annoying songs that she put out in the previous decade, or at least among those I’ve heard.

Another thing is how these days, so many “new” songs are just a dance rework of some older song that was actually good. I think one of the worst examples of this was the travesty Mark Ronson committed with his destruction of the Smith’s “Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before.” Ronson renamed it “Stop Me.” Someone should have before it was released.

I suppose I’m much more inclined to like covers by actual bands, who don’t just remix a song and slap their name on it, but actually have to learn the parts. I’d have to say one of the best covers I’ve come across over the past few years was Lacuna Coil’s version of “Enjoy the Silence.” But that’s an example of a great song with a great cover.

Dance remixes with rare exception tend to be awful, more often than not because they strip the point of the original song and just add a dance beat. A friend sent me a link a couple years back to one of the worst covers I’ve ever come across. Here’s the original version of “Beds are Burning” by Midnight Oil, and here’s the dance cover.

My guess is whoever did this cover had no idea of just how shocking of a political statement the original song was, nor the shitstorm the band landed in after performing it during the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympics with the word “sorry” written on their clothes. I’m sure the knowledge that over a billion people would see this played a part in Midnight Oil’s choice of wardrobe.

Sometimes, the cover song will be even better than the original, such as when Jeff Buckley took Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” and made it his own, or when Johnny Cash covered “Hurt” and made it superior to the original by Nine Inch Nails, something Trent Reznor himself said. But at the start, you need a great song in order to do a great cover, as the video above more than attests to.

Lastly, I’d just like to state what some of my friends and I already know, that the best Madonna cover is Bigod 20’s version of “Like a Prayer,” which you can hear in the video below. And no, Bigod 20 did not make a video for their cover. Someone else made this: