Just listening to The Project Hate and thinking about whether or not bands like Entombed have been covered a lot. I mean, they've been quite influential in the early 90s wave of Scandinavian death metal, which incidently is pretty underground. You'd expect quite a few bands paying homage to them. A quick search at Encyclopaedia Metallum gave a limited return of Entombed covers:
Aborted - Drowned (The Haematobic EP)
Suicidal Winds - Supposed To Rot (split single with Bestial Mockery)
EvilStorm - Left Hand Path (live track on EvilStorm 1999)
Delve - Revel In Flesh (Sentenced By The Unknown demo)
Repugnant - Carnal Leftovers (Premature Burial EP)
End It - Out of Hand (Meet Your Maker)
Haemorrhage - Premature Autopsy (Loathesongs cover EP)

Absolutely underground! Think I've only heard of Haemorrhage and Aborted before. Would this be another stuck in the middle band? Sure looks like it. Whereas Black Sabbath, Metallica, Kiss, Motorhead, AC/DC and Venom are big enough to be idolised and Bathory and the Misfits cult enough to be associated with, Entombed is another important band within the genre, but not quite out of reach enough. Or maybe their move to metal'n'roll has scared off the death metal underground.

In the past I did mention Megadeth as a largely uncovered big thrash band. Last night I was playing Anthrax's Summer 2003 EP, which came with the limited edition of We've Come For You All and contains a bunch of covers. I realised I didn't hear of a lot of Anthrax covers either, so I looked around a bit.

From the classic Among The Living, I could only find Hatesphere doing Caught In A Mosh as US bonus track on their Ballet of the Brute album (cool title!). No I Am The Law, No Indians! Deceased did Deathrider on Behind The Mourner's Veil. Other than that...not a lot!

And there's more artists that cover more than they get covered, even when they're big themselves. Take Bon Jovi! The band's hardly covered despite years of superstardom. Now I know it's only cool to cover underground bands in some circles, but there seems to be a strange category of bands that are generally avoided. Not small enough for the underground and not big/old enough to idolise, probably.

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest sources. Just heard two people behind me talk about a mrs. Robinson. This obviously trigger coverbrain here to start thinking of the Simon & Garfunkel classic. 37 years old and quite regularly covered. The Lemonheads had quite a hit with it a few years ago and in its early days it was done by diverse greats like Chet Atkins and Frank Sinatra. While looking for who did the song, one band took me by surprise : Bon Jovi! They did it on a bonus disc for These Days, of which I had no idea. Gee, you learn something new every day :)

Yes' Owner of a Lonely Heart. One of those songs that you keep hearing on the radio. However, recently one Max Graham put it back in the charts. Let me make one thing clear. This is not a cover! Cutting and pasting a song into oblivion and throwing in a beat does not consitute a cover. It's kind of ironic that the 'destruct the original' mentality actually shines through in the fact that the artist column in the charts states Max Graham vs Yes.

While going into the remix phenomenon, I ran into Mylo vs Miami Sound Machine - Doctor Pressure. Haven't heard it yet, but apparently it's Mylo's Drop the Pressure and MSM's Doctor Beat thrown into a blender and provided with a beat. It all sounds a bit too easy, too much like making bucks on the back of someone elses creativity.

Scanning the charts for covers also caused me a near heart attack. Jessica Simpson did Nancy Sinatra's These Boots. Now Megadeth's version with the altered lyrics was fun, but in general I find this a rather boring song. And then to have Jessica Simpson, the girl who thought she could (sing)... do it. I don't even want to hear it!