The Worst Cover Songs Of All Time

Robyn's 2010 club hit "Dancing On My Own" is the definition of a banger, to the point where looking that word up online should probably just redirect you to the original video. It pulls off the trick of combining an upbeat, driving dance beat and soaring pop vocals with the perfectly captured feeling of abject misery that comes from seeing an ex-lover effortlessly replace you while you're alone. It is, in short, about as perfect as a pop song can be.

So why not ruin everything about it by slowing it down into an achingly sour dirge and wrapping it up in an affected, insincere attempt at sounding sad? That seems to be the thought that entered Calum Scott's head in 2016 when he dropped his version, which removes the beautiful contrast of the original by matching up the sad lyrics to sad music. Oh, and in case you didn't get it from the brutal lack of subtlety in the audio, the official video for the song also includes washed-out footage of a bunch of other people standing around silently sporting huge frowns. That actually might be the single most frustrating thing about this cover, actually: In the video, Scott is seen standing in a crowd, which is the literal exact opposite of dancing on one's own.

With this song, which managed to reach No. 2 on the U.K. singles charts, Scott joins the illustrious ranks of plenty of other dudes who have found varying degrees of success by offering up tiresome "serious" covers of female-fronted pop songs — like Travis' faux-soulful version of "...Baby One More Time." He can take solace in the fact that he's not alone in this particular mistake, though. A year after his version, Pentatonix released a similarly pitiful version of their own that's almost as bad.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7qL7Up56eZpOkunB9kmpwbXBfqbWmedaoqaysXZi8t7HRZqqoppeoerCyjJqjpWWknrqmew%3D%3D