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" You may have noticed that cover songs are inescapable at the moment.Jimmy Fallon and his celebrity guests are performing them left and right. The Voice is killing in ratings. People still love Glee, somehow. Drake did a karaoke rendition of Kanye, Bruce Springsteen covered Lorde, and everyone \u2014 from The Weeknd to Ed Sheeran to Rita Ora and now John Mayer \u2014 is getting their Beyonc\u00E9 on. Mayer was even catapulted onto the Billboard rock chart for it. In today&amp;#039;s Internet economy, music is more available and accessible than ever before, and cover songs can serve as a powerful launching pad for a musician, or, in Mayer&amp;#039;s case, a re-launching pad.      That&amp;#039;s because cover songs have power, whether we&amp;#039;d like to admit it. Over the years, cover songs have gotten a bad rap. They cause us to cringe at the very opening chords of yet another &amp;quot;Don&amp;#039;t Stop Believin&amp;#039;.&amp;quot; They elicit dark flashbacks to dive-bar lighting, questionable fashion choices, and one-night stands of our youth. Sure, cover songs often exist in the absence of talent and creativity, but other times they exist as inspiration \u2014 and aspiration \u2014 for the people performing them. Not everyone can start off as Elvis and no one else can be Prince, but the cover song can act as tribute. Sometimes the tribute overtakes its origins. Aretha Franklin&amp;#039;s 1967 hit &amp;quot;Respect,&amp;quot; for example, was first recorded by Otis Redding in 1965. The King of Soul&amp;#039;s own 1968 &amp;quot;Try a Little Tenderness&amp;quot; was first recorded by a big-band orchestra in 1932 and then popularized by the ever-tender crooner Bing Crosby in 1933. In 1968, Jimi Hendrix set our ears on fire with his version of &amp;quot;All Along the Watchtower,&amp;quot; which Bob Dylan had released the year before and which Dave Matthews would popularize again some thirty years hence. In 1969, Joe Cocker took The Beatles&amp;#039; hunky-dory &amp;#039;67 &amp;quot;With a Little Help from My Friends&amp;quot; and turned into a mad rock-and-roll anthem, while a number of the Fab Four&amp;#039;s own early songs were actually covers of the blues. Ditto the Rolling Stones. Of course, there&amp;#039;s Leonard Cohen&amp;#039;s omnipresent &amp;quot;Hallelujah,&amp;quot; recorded first in 1984, which was then covered over and over again, with Jeff Buckley outdoing even the original with his rendition in 1994. Before and outside of the Internet, countless bands have gotten their start by booking gigs based on their ability to do a mean live cover. They might start off on peanuts in some tiny backroom bar, but from there they might book more shows, and bigger ones. More money might mean they&amp;#039;ll finally take that gig in the city, in Baltimore or Denver or Detroit, where the lights burn hot and the beer runs cold. Maybe they&amp;#039;ll be playing their version of &amp;quot;Atlantic City&amp;quot; one night and there&amp;#039;ll be a label head in the crowd and, man, he loves this song. Then maybe the band will play one of their own, and maybe it&amp;#039;ll make that record man stop and listen. After all, Nirvana&amp;#039;s Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic used to be in a cover band that played Creedence Clearwater Revival. New musicians get this. They know that the game has changed and that it&amp;#039;s harder than ever to make their mark. They&amp;#039;re swallowing their pride, squashing their cover snobbery, and embracing the tribute, and putting out some damn good songs at that. They&amp;#039;re getting noticed by fans, who are sharing their work all over the world: M\u00D8&amp;#039;s Spice Girls cover or Banks&amp;#039;s Aaliyah or Bastille&amp;#039;s TLC. They&amp;#039;re taking advantage of what the cover song can do and the suckers that we are for a good sing-along. We have to admit, we&amp;#039;re listening. Maybe some day bands will be covering their songs, too.  THE 12 BEST RECENT COVER SONGS (2013-2014)  John Mayer, &amp;quot;XO&amp;quot; (Beyonc\u00E9 cover)      M\u00D8, &amp;quot;Say You&amp;#039;ll Be There&amp;quot; (Spice Girls cover)      Capital Cities, &amp;quot;Nothing Compares 2 U&amp;quot; (Prince cover)      CHVRCHES, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s Not Right but It&amp;#039;s Okay&amp;quot; (Whitney Houston cover)      Lorde, &amp;quot;Retrograde&amp;quot; (James Blake cover)      MS MR, &amp;quot;Dance Yrself Clean&amp;quot; (LCD Soundsystem cover)      Arctic Monkeys, &amp;quot;Feel Like We Only Go Backwards&amp;quot; (Tame Impala cover)      Holy Ghost!, &amp;quot;Hold On, We&amp;#039;re Going Home&amp;quot; (Drake cover)      Banks, &amp;quot;Are You That Somebody?&amp;quot; (Aaliyah cover)      Mr Little Jeans, &amp;quot;The Suburbs&amp;quot; (Arcade Fire cover)      Hurray for the Riff Raff, &amp;quot;My Sweet Lord&amp;quot; (George Harrison cover)      Django Django, &amp;quot;Porpoise Song&amp;quot; (The Monkees cover)      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a29001/cover-songs-john-mayer-beyonce/>