As it quickly becomes the festival anthem of the summer, Billie Eilish’s ‘bad guy’ has been receiving the cover treatment in just about every style under the sun. Ever wanted to hear ‘bad guy’ if it was appearing on ‘Take Off Your Pants And Jacket’? What about ‘American Idiot’? Or, uh, as the basis for Peep Show memes? Oh boy you’re in luck. Here are the funniest, stupidest and most ridiculous ‘bad guy’ covers out there.
Billie, Joe
We like to imagine that a young Billie Joe Armstrong was into similar things to his namesake Eilish, mainly singing about his angst. Maybe that’s how YouTube user NateWantsToBattle has made his cover of ‘bad guy’ in the style of Green Day sound so damn convincing. From the ‘Longview’-like introduction to the “oooh”s in the pre-chorus and the chanted “duh!”, it’s already the best song Green Day never wrote, and if they don’t bring it into the set for future tours then they’re letting all of us down. As one YouTube commenter said, it’s “the musical equivalent of shitposting”, and it’s bloody wonderful.
Blink and you’ll miss it
Blink-182 don’t really sound like Blink-182 anymore. With Tom DeLonge off chasing UFOs and Alkaline Trio’s singer drafted in, it’s not quite ‘All The Small Things’ these days. Good job that the internet is here then, providing us with the most Blink-182 song we’ve heard in a decade.
Personal Trainor
Another re-working of ‘bad guy’ comes from YouTube’s Ali Spagnola, who takes famous songs and picks them apart before putting them back together in the style of another superstar. In this instance, she’s turned the dark, foreboding ‘bad guy’ into a jingle-jangle monstrosity, using Meghan Trainor as her inspiration. The most outlandish Billie cover we’ve stumbled upon, it’s less ‘All About That Bass’, more all about that horrific, overly sunny rom-com soundtrack.
You’ve been Tangoed
Almost certainly the least obnoxious ‘bad guy’ cover out there, Ariana Savalas and band have turned ‘bad guy’ into a sensual, slick tango. With lashings of accordion, violin, double bass and piano, the track’s immediately transported back about 60 years and into a Broadway show.
Roll the credits
One very lucky internet user found themselves with what must be an astonishing amount of free time in order to put together the next cover. Set over the instrumental of the original track, the lyrics are replaced with quotes from around 100 films and tv shows, from Game of Thrones to The Simpsons, Kill Bill and more. Like all efforts to voiceover something to such an extent, it’s a pretty horrendous listen, but the effort alone is worth applauding.
It’s also a meme
As ‘Hotline Bling’ did a few years back, ‘bad guy’ is now the de facto soundtrack to every next new meme. Maybe the best yet sees the iconic scene from Love Actually where Hugh Grant dances to ‘Jump’ by the Pointer Sisters given a 2019 twist. We’ve no concrete evidence of this yet, but we bet Grant is a Billie Eilish stan and would very much approve.
https://twitter.com/lewiswake/status/1154896109216706560
After being given the ‘Simpsons’ treatment, Peep Show – so often the go-to example for self-deprecating British comedy – has now inevitably also been caught in the ‘bad guy’ storm.
Part 2
Posted by Dobby Club on Monday, May 13, 2019