The BEST COVER SONGS of 2011 (The Year-End Review Awards)

By Chris Moore:

What better way to kick off a Monday at the Laptop Sessions acoustic cover song music video blog than to unveil the Weekend Review’s picks for the top ten cover songs of 2011.  After all, this is kind of our thing.  And this has been a busy year for covers.  Not only were there two – not one, but two! – collections of Buddy Holly covers released as tribute to the legendary singer/songwriter in 2011, but there were also two covers EPs put out by Relient K.  This is not to mention Brian Wilson digging back to his childhood (farther back than the Gershwin brothers this time) for the inspiration to In the Key of Disney.

A regular amount of covers wasn’t enough for 2011.  No, no: 2011 needed more covers!  Now, as you’ll recall from our mission statement, it has always been the goal of this blog to put an end to the proliferation of bad covers on YouTube.  In keeping with that tradition, we will now take the time to recognize these non-YouTube covers that have demonstrated excellence this year, standing out from the pack of mediocre (or worse) ones:

1)  “(You’re So Square) Baby, I Don’t Care” – Cee Lo Green (Cover of Buddy Holly)

2)  “Caroline No” – America (Cover of the Beach Boys)

3)  “Here Comes My Girl” – Relient K (Cover of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers)

4)  “Colors of the Wind” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

5)  “Baby” – Relient K (Cover of Justin Bieber)

6)  “Not Fade Away” – Florence and the Machine (Cover of Buddy Holly)

7)  “Interstate Love Song” – Relient K (Cover of Stone Temple Pilots)

8)  “It’s So Easy” – Paul McCartney (Cover of Buddy Holly)

9)  “Listen to Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of Buddy Holly)

10) “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” – Brian Wilson (Cover of the Disney song)

 

Honorable Mention:

“Surf Wax America” – Relient K (Cover of Weezer)

“All of the Time” by Locksley – Chords, Tabs, & How to Play

“All Of The Time”
Locksley

G                                Em
There’s no one else I know
Em                     G         Em
Who makes me feel so…
Em                   G                 Em
I never want to see that girl go.
Em                 C                      D
Stay all of the time, all of the time…

But she’s not here tonight,
And if she’s out with you, that’s just not right.
I’d really hate to have to start a fight,
But I think that I might; I think that I might…

Bbm   Em
Everywhere she is I want to be,
Bbm   C   D
And when I’m holding her it makes me weak.
Bbm   Em
We’ve got a kind of love that’s hard to see,
C   D
And your lies are tearing her away from me.

So leave and you’ll be fine.
You tell another story, I’m drawing the line.
I end up in the middle all of the time,
All of the time, all of the time…

SOLO (over verse chords)

Everywhere she is I want to be,
And when I’m holding her it makes me weak.
We’ve got a kind of love that’s hard to see,
And your lies are tearing her away from me.

So leave and you’ll be fine.
You tell another story, I’m drawing the line.
I end up in the middle all of the time,
All of the time, all of the time…

G         Em
I really love her…
I can’t stop thinking of her…
You got in the way…
Now, hear what I say…

“Roll Up” (Wiz Khalifa Cover) [Ep 6, Fall 2011]

By Pat Noonan:

Acoustic version of the hip hop song “Roll Up” by Wiz Khalifa, experimented with the picture in picture style that seems to be the trend of the century haha.

[Editor’s Note: As we’ve done in the past, we’re bending the rules for this Pat Noonan performance.  While it doesn’t strictly adhere to the live performance standard set and followed by the hundreds of acoustic cover song music videos on this site, this arrangement of Wiz Khalifa’s “Roll Up” is unique and even startling for its qualities as an interpretation.  And that has always been at the heart of the Laptop Sessions: featuring a performer’s ability to take a song that may be over-produced or lost in layers and break it down to its most basic core.]

“Out of Our Heads” (Sheryl Crow Cover)

For Sheryl Crow Chords and Lyrics, CLICK HERE!

By Jeff Copperthite:

Assistant Editor/site curator note: This post was originally from February 19, 2009.  The post doesn’t mention too many “historically inaccurate” information, but still always good to see where things were.  Enjoy this latest blast from the past!

Welcome to Thumpin’ Thursday for the first time in a couple of weeks.  Here’s a couple of updates for you.  My health is much better now after a shaky four days from Wednesday to Sunday last week.  The vacation is helping tremendously.  Also, i’ve hit 90K views, and I should hit the 6 digit mark in the near near future!

Tonight I have a brand new cover song for you.  It’s a song that I have yet to see anybody cover, or post the chords too.  The song is by Sheryl Crow, and it’s a single off her album “Detours”.  The song “Out of Our Heads” shares the title of a Rolling Stones’ album.  However, the song is drastically different.  It’s also very catchy, and unfortunately it’s hard to capture the catchiness in an acoustic cover.

The hardest part for me is the fact I had to figure this song out on my own.  I’ve never been very good at transcribing guitar chords by ear.  I used to make MIDI files for a couple of Final Fantasy games in my teenage years, and I got good at picking out individual instruments and tracking those for the MIDI.  I also could figure out bass riffs, but i’d use those bass riffs to figure out guitar parts, which worked for a fair amount of the time.

So what you’re watching is my transcription of the song.  I figured out it was a capo’d song from the music video that Sheryl Crow made.  However, the sound I picked up was from a first fretted capo, not a sixth like in the video.  Sure, it worked on sixth when I was messing around with it, but it sounded more accurate on 1st.

Here are the chords I transcribed, relative to 1st fret capo.

Verse: Am, F, C, G

Chorus: Am, C, F, C, G

If you have suggestions or changes, please let me know about them.  I hope, regardless, you enjoy tonight’s video!