Eddie Vedder took to the stage while touring with Pearl Jam this week to play John Lennon's iconic track "Imagine" solo with his acoustic guitar. The vocalist had quoted the track in an open letter explaining his opposition to war and not just military strikes being carried out by Israel.
"I think it is the most powerful song ever written, which is why I have never played it," he said to the crowd before giving his own rendition.
Vedder of course DID play the song a few seconds later, but his first observation on the track still rings true. One would think that a track so perfect from its inception would scare away the rest of the world from trying to reinvent it. History has proven otherwise however. Some have been great (Freddie Mercury's rousing interpretation with Queen comes to mind) but a great deal have also been poor.
So listen to Lennon's original one last time and join us in imagining that there are no covers. Here are some takes that we could have done without:
05) "Imagine" by Avril Lavigne
This rendition is at the top of the list because yes, it's bad, but no, it doesn't deserve the worst-ever comments that trolls automatically associate with anything associated with Nickelback (Lavigne is married to Chad Kroeger). You can tell while listening that the pop vocalist is handling the song with respect, not with the angry-teenager tone that made her famous. The problem is that angry-teenager tone was her whole selling point...she doesn't have Adele-type talent here. Lavigne struggles with the falsetto moments and her inability to sustain the notes at the end of phrases such as "living life in peace," leaving us feeling awkward. Still, much worse examples exist. Such as...
04) "Imagine" by Neil Young
We're sticking our necks out on this one because Rolling Stone-types love this cover because Neil Young did it, damn it! We ourselves are Young fans, but we prefer our godfather of grunge rocking a black Les Paul with tons of static coming from the amps, wearing plaid with a beat-up cowboy hat. Not Young wearing plaid and a beat-up cowboy hat sitting at a grand piano while a string section plays behind him. This was the case at America: A Tribute to Heroes. It was just a few days after 9/11 and again, there's no doubt to Young's sincerity, as this song is right in line with everything he's ever preached. But his vocals are an acquired taste and "Imagine" was written for people with pretty voices. That's not Young.
03) "Imagine" by Diana Ross
Ross has somewhat the exact opposite problem of Young. She's got a pretty voice for sure and she executes it with modesty, also showing respect for the tone of the original. However whereas Young executes the song modestly on the piano as it was meant to be played, the Motown crew who put out Ross's Touch Me In The Morning struggled to keep themselves in check. It sounds like any old approach to the song at first but you'll notice the backing musicians add drum flair and bits of flair to the piano lines, spicing up this number in a way it wasn't meant to be, resulting in a rather cheesy '70's aftertaste. This methodology made hundreds of great jams for Motown over the years, but this shouldn't have been one of them.
02) "Imagine" by Cee Lo Green
Green took the stage during the 2012 New Year's celebration at time square to sing the essential track from the songwriter who lived his final years in the city. He killed it vocally, and we mean that in a good way. So why is he so far down on this list? Because he changed the lyrics. You can mess with the instrumentation and the delivery as much as you want but when you mess with the lyrics, you threaten to change the philosophy of the song itself. When the song in question is as sacred to the music world as "Imagine," you best tread carefully. Green opted to sing "and all religion's true" following "nothing to kill or die for" versus the original "and no religion too." Lennon wasn't a big proponent for the church, and sorry Cee Lo, your own personal beliefs don't trump that. Would you change Slayer's "God Hates Us All" to "God Might Be OK With Us"?
01) "Imagine" by Imatronic
First let us clarify that we know little about this aggressor against Lennon's name. Imatronic could be a laser company, an electronic music festival at the ZKM Museum in Germany, or it could be a short-lived performer who crawled back to wherever he came from after this hit the internet. The only version we could find was e-mailed to us by an in-the-know source via e-mail. It features lo-fi video of teenagers having a pool party while despicably upbeat electro music plays in the background. When you think "Imagine," it's tough to think about a bass synth and 808 drum machines as well. We looked, and it doesn't seem like any big-name EDM performers have attempted to sample the song into a remix yet, so at least the mainstream purveyors of electronic music realize that they belong to a genre that should not be anywhere near "Imagine."
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