How many times can a great song be covered again and again. Too many and not enough.

Some songs just shouldn’t be covered, like pretty much anything from the Beach Boys and the Beatles.

Yet some covers turn out to be in some ways kinda better than the original. Like Phil Collins cover of the Supremes ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’.

Perhaps it was the music clip.

One song that has always fascinated me is the classic party/pub song ‘Louie Louie’. The original by Richard Berry is so-so but some of the covers that followed… oh yes. 

I’ve collected covers of this song for years and have everything from orchestral arrangements, to former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Stooges with Iggy Pop, the Boss Bruce Springsteen and even aussie musical legends – Australian Crawl.

Midnight accuses me of being a music collector rather than a music lover. He may have a point but that’s another post.

The best known version, and if push came to shove and I wasn’t counting Young MC’s odd take, my personal fav’, is by The Kingsmen. This cover was ranked by the Rolling Stone’s Magazines Top 500 songs at number #55.

Must be good? It is.

Despite Louie oh’ing and Phil not wanting to hurry love, some songs are subjected to endless covers again and again when really the first time was more than enough. But there are always exceptions.

Tequila by a Mexican Rapper group called A.T.L. who produced the 1992 version does the impossible. They’ve stamped their own distinct personality on a much loved original – the 1958 recording by The Champs. And still stayed true to the spirit and magic of the song. No mean feat.

Which brings us to the current version of ‘Tequila’ currently being passed around the internet.

This version is performed by a talented German calling Australia home called The Wolfman with pick-the-accent-if-you-can vocals by Jessie G.

What do you think? Have they done something special? Click the player widget thingo below for a listen.

It’s not a Kingsmen or an A.L.T. but it’s okay isn’t it. Is the speed-bump ‘bleeping’ necessary? Perhaps that makes it more hard. Not sure.

We’ll have to standby for the 2011 version… I am secretly hoping it is one of those all girl former stripper groups from the UK. In the meantime…

The A.L.T. website can be found HERE… and yes it is a MySpace site.

The Wolfman aka Hellmut Wolf and his MySpace site can be found HERE.

It seems the musical fraternity are still holding on and resisting the siren calls of Facebook… for no other reason than I think that Facebook is less flexible in customizing landing pages and adding permanent media…

Having said that I’d imagine Mr Murdoch and his brains trust are currently working out madly how to Facebook the hell out of Myspace while the Facebook guys, currently under siege for suspected crimes against privacy,  are musing amongst themselves if they should allow for more Myspace styled functionality.

Perhaps both camps should have a duel – best version of Tequila at 10 shots.

For those that dispute Phil Collins version of ‘You Can’t Hurry Love” – check it.