Both Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” and Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” secured a spot on my Top Tunes of 2008. While I didn’t rank the 100 songs that made the list, these two inescapable singles would definitely have duked it out near the top.
Both have recently received the cover treatment via online videos—testaments to the pair’s continuing popularity—but neither new take is a carbon-copy.
Recorded for Pepsi Smash on Yahoo! Music, The All-American Rejects turn Britney’s electro-wonder “Womanizer” into a minor-key acoustic jam with little more than a six-string guitar, an accordion, a couple of tambourines, and two beer bottles.
Rejects’ frontman/singer Tyson Ritter wisely plays the song’s gender game as originally written, while tossing in a jab at K-Fed and prenups. Though he mangles my favorite lyric (You think I’m crazy? I got your crazy), Ritter swiftly wins me back by nicking a bit from The Turtles’ “Happy Together” for the bridge. Genius.
Believing they “could do it better than Britney,” these enterprising fellas demonstrate how a monster pop song like “Womanizer” should be covered, ladies and gentlemen:
I didn’t expect that “Single Ladies” would work when stripped of the original production, but Broussard delivers a intimate rendition that loses none of the song’s independent-women punch. She even redeems its bridge, which sounds mismatched to me in Beyoncé’s version, fighting as it does against the backing track. But in Broussard’s hands, it becomes a smooth, seamless part of the very same song:
Unfortunately, neither of these fantastic covers is currently available for purchase, so we’ll just have enjoy them as Interweb-only, visual treats.
