6. "Love Will Tear Us Apart"
Cover songs make a statement about the band playing them, and this one says, "We like Joy Division, so we're cool, right?" Yes and no: Released just a month before Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis killed himself, it has become his band's defining song. As such, countless bands have unwittingly pissed on Curtis' grave—which actually has "love will tear us apart" as an inscription—by massacring his song. Fall Out Boy's bladders must be pretty empty.
7. "Respect"
Another seeming case in favor of covers, "Respect" was originally released by Otis Redding in 1965, though Aretha Franklin owned it from 1967 on. Bold for its time, the song addresses racial and gender issues with a forceful, no-bullshit refrain. Nearly half a century later, American Idol contestants use it to show their "soulfulness" and "spunk." (It figured prominently in the repertoire of inaugural winner Kelly Clarkson.) Its reinterpretations by the likes of Dexy's Midnight Runners don't fare much better.
8. "Come On Eileen"
Speaking of Dexy's Midnight Runners, the group's 1982 hit "Come On Eileen" desperately needs to find eternal rest, along with the pointless '80s nostalgia it embodies. And what was it about shitty '90s ska bands and hits from the '80s? Because Save Ferris was all over this back in '97. "Eileen" was played out even then, when it was a mere 15 years old.
9. "Crazy"
No other voice in country music—or, perhaps, any kind of music—could convey gut-wrenching vulnerability and loneliness like Patsy Cline's. Granted, her entire catalogue basically boils down to "Why you treat me so bad?", but no one asked that better. That voice makes "Crazy"—written by a young Willie Nelson—especially haunting. Not so haunting are the versions by mid-'90s emo band Mineral, or crappy industrial band Kidneythieves, which put it on the Child's Play 4 soundtrack.
10. "What The World Needs Now Is Love"
How do you know definitively that a song should be retired? How about when 10 second-season finalists from American Idol join together to release it as a single? You can find the CD—one song with all the finalists, another version with just Clay Aiken, Ruben Studdard, and Rickey Smith—for $.01 on Amazon.
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