We're A Happy Family

This warrants a track by track breakdown.

Havana Affair - Red Hot Chili Peppers There are two approaches to doing covers: carbon copy it or make it sound like your own. RHCP make it their own, and it's probably their best song in years.

Blitzkreig Bop - Rob Zombie Solid rocking out with minimal fluff. This is what the Ramones are all about. I thought there was a strong possiblity that he would drown it in layers of mood, but he went raw and it works.

I Believe In Miracles - Eddie Vedder & Zeke I've never been a fan of Vedder, but he just has such passion and strength on this that I can't help but like it. Zeke is a strong supporting band, as well. Great tone, and tight as hell.

53rd & 3rd - Metallica Metallica definitely make this song their own, and that's such a shame. This is too painful to actually listen to.

Beat On The Brat - U2 Bono has a style on this reminiscent of Billy Idol on White Wedding, which makes it kind of creepy. If you like U2 you'll probably like it. I don't.

Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio - Kiss Kiss have never been an overly-orchestrated group, which makes them perfect to do a Ramones song in spite of the horn section on this. They do this one justice, but it's not inspiring. Fortunately, it doesn't sound like Kiss either.

The KKK Took My Baby Away - Marilyn Manson As we all know, MM isn't capable of NOT making any song his own. If you dig his shtick (and I do) this is a pretty cool dirge-y take on the song.

I Just Wanna Have Something To Do - Garbage They don't really take any risks, which is disappointing, but give a strong band a strong song and it's still going to be worth listening to.

Outsider - Green Day This is an older track from a soundtrack of some sort I believe. It's not a bad cover, it's not a great cover, it's really just pretty average.

Something To Believe In - The Pretenders A mellow and ethereal very Pretenders-y take. See above.

Sheena Is A Punk Rocker - Rancid Pedestrian.

I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend - Pete Yorn This is really great. There is a desperate tone to his voice that is just astounding.

I Wanna Be Sedated - The Offspring You could be forgiven for thinking this was the Ramones playing. I've never heard a cover played THAT close to the original. Makes covering it kind of pointless...

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow - Rooney A fairly strong alt-rock almost Cure approach, interesting, worth listening to.

Return of Jackie & Judy - Tom Waits This is simply brilliant. Tom takes this and makes it into a 50's dirty honky tonk banger.

Daytime Dilemma (Dangers Of Love) - Eddie Vedder & Zeke This isn't nearly as well done as Miracles. It would've been more interesting to hear another artist contribute rather than have Vedder and Zeke do two tracks.

I don't really see the point of doing covers that sound just like the original. I'd much rather hear a different interpretation of a song than just hear someone mimic it. This also means that having a genre band do a cover can be tricky if they have a similar style to the original artist (e.g. Offspring or Rancid covering Ramones). They end up sounding like they're doing an exact copy of the song when they're really just being themselves. It's much more interesting to hear something like Tom Waits or Pete Yorn doing something really different with the song.