After hearing Kathleen Edwards' brilliant version of AC/DC's Money Talks, I decided to seek out other songs in my collection in the same vein of 'soft' versions of hard rock songs. My preference was to find especially those in the same acoustic female singer-songwriter style, but the scope of my search broadened somewhat as I went on. I also wan't 100% strict on what I considered 'hard rock'. Thes... [+]

After hearing Kathleen Edwards' brilliant version of AC/DC's Money Talks, I decided to seek out other songs in my collection in the same vein of 'soft' versions of hard rock songs. My preference was to find especially those in the same acoustic female singer-songwriter style, but the scope of my search broadened somewhat as I went on. I also wan't 100% strict on what I considered 'hard rock'. These are not all heavy metal covers, but include punk (Dead Kennedys, The Clash), grunge (Nirvana, Soundgarden), classic rock (Rolling Stones, Kinks) and, well, rock rock (Tragically Hip). One thing is certain, the originals all RAWK, and the covers... are something else. Some brilliant, sweet, sad, soulful. And some clawing (Tracy Bonham's violin version of Black Dog... oh, that's what happened to Tracy Bonham). I've also tried to avoid the 'novelty lounge covers' like Mike Flowers and Richard Cheese, though I made room for Pat Boone and Paul Anka.

For the completists looking to find the more obscure of the covers from my collection, Mollies Revenge is a Vancouver indie band from the 90s (lesbian lead singer doing an interesting gender bender on the already bent 'Lola'), while Sarah Polley is a Canadian actress who sang the song Courage in the film The Sweet Hereafter. Trio Toykeat and Elakelaiset are Finnish jazz and 'humppa' bands, respectively. Happy hunting, and let me know of any other similar 'soft covers hard' tracks to add to my playlist. [-]