Heroes v Villains

Covers that worked... and the ones that didn’t

PETER GABRIEL, 2010

A quiet masterclass. Gabriel slows “Heroes” down and flips it inside out, turning its swagger to aching sorrow.

MICHAEL C HALL, 2016

When it comes to timbre, nobody does Bowie better than the man who starred in his incomprehensible musical, Lazarus.

AMANDA PALMER, 2016

One of the better moments in the patchy Bowie Prom at the Albert Hall last year. Robert Fripp’s guitar part went to a violin; Palmer, keeping her voice low, gave it some subtle welly.

DAVID GUETTA, 2003

Billed as ‘David Guetta vs David Bowie’. Guetta ditched every line bar ‘We can be heroes, just for one day’ and reduced the backing track to bog-standard house.

THE X FACTOR FINALISTS, 2010

They couldn’t sing like Bowie so they decided to sing like U2 – then they had the gall to go to No.1.

GLEE CAST, 2012

In this boring facsimile the cast, who are whitewashing a wall of graffiti, exchange high-fives and put dabs of paint on each other’s noses.