I Like The Cover Better: Cars

Are there songs that you love, but you like a cover version better?

For me, one of those songs is "Cars" by Gary Numan.

I love that song. It's a mindworm seared into my life by endless viewings on MTV back in the day, airplay, the song popping up on New Wave compilations, and then later getting way more into Gary Numan.

It's great on the album, and it's great live.

But given a choice between the original and this cover/collaboration, I'll take the collaboration. The Gary Numan / Fear Factory combination really puts some body into this song and it really benefits from that. I've gone as far as to stick this version into my MP3 playlist in place of the original, and it works really well.

Honorable mentions: Gary Numan w/ NIN, live:

And this really unusual take on the song by The Leisure Society:

That's one I won't listen to over and over, but I'm really glad I found it. It's a very different spin on the song without losing its core feeling. Worth seeing if you like the original.

To qualify for one of these posts, I need to love the original, but love the cover better. That eliminates a lot of songs where I only like the cover. It also takes out a bunch of songs where the cover is great, but can't replace the original for me.