Metal Covers POP and Kills It!

There has been forays into Metal covers of POP tunes before that have failed miserably, but this is not a list of those. Instead I have decided to focus on some Metal Artists that have proven that they can take a radio POP standard and make it even better by cranking up the distortion.

I would be remiss if I did not begin this with the amazing cover of Diamonds by AnyGivenDay. These German Metalheads did what I never thought anybody could do; they made a Rihanna song worth listening to. Their cover is 200% better than the original arrangement.

The contrast of singing and growling works perfectly along with the excellent guitar work and pounding drums. It makes you want to yell out at the top of your lungs  "Shine bright like a diamond."

Next up is the master musician Andy Rehfeldt. This Los Angeles multi-talented artist's hobby is making covers of songs that range from Metal to smooth Jazz. For this article I will be concentrating on his forays into Metal.

Rehfeldt has made too many great covers for me to mention all of them here.  Apart from his Death Metal covers he manages to link the original artists vocals to the songs. Most of them are quite humorous: how could you not get a chuckle out of Mary Poppins singing a Death Metal version of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?" 

He manages to make singers like Kesha, Nicki Minaj, and Katy Perry sound damn cool. Considering how much better he makes several artists sound it is a wonder one of them has not snatched him up to produce an album for them. 

Deniz Sayman is a talented guitarist to say the least. He works with the beautifully sounding singer İzgi Gültekin in producing Metal covers of POP songs.  We are talking everything from the song from Frozen to Lady Ga Ga.

His youtube videos of their Metal covers are quite popular, thanks to the excellent quality of the arrangements and İzgi Gültekin's great voice.   

Check out Sayman's web site and you will see that he keeps himself very busy balancing several music productions at once.  If you really like what you find you can download his songs from his Patreon site.  Hell, you can even get him to play on your band's CD.  

I have always loved to check out Metal covers of other genres of music.  Sure there are quite a few doozies out there but I have always been able to find some that prove that the song sounds better Metal. As I find out more I will keep you informed.  

My fingers are crossed that Weird Al Yankovic will make a Metal album one day. In the meantime check out the musicians I mentioned above.

Thank you for reading.

Kevin Sweeney