With the spring concert and summer festival seasons just around the corner, now is the best time to get 'cheap' tickets. While looking for tickets, it's hard not to get excited about those impending road trips (nothing is better than a car full of your favorite people sharing gas station snack foods and singing to Top 40 songs until you're hoarse [I have never come out of a concert trip without laryngitis; it's inevitable]), and it is especially difficult to not be reminded of the songs that were played on repeat during your last festival car ride; last summer, that song was "Payphone".
It may not be the best song, but it is a really great song, and I would be remiss if I did not admit that I really loved losing my voice to this song. Of course, every great song gets covered by hundreds of people looking for their shot at fame and, while most of them leave something (or a lot of things) lacking, these are some of the best covers of Maroon 5 and Wiz Khalifa's "Payphone".
Landon Austin does a really great job of changing the composition just enough to make it his own (without losing that original melody) and the addition of female vocals (from Esther Faith) work perfectly into a song like this.
AHMIR's version of the song keeps the same melody as every other cover, but they dress it up a bit and add in their really great vocal harmonies to make this cover stand out. Their quartet will always produce good covers simply because their vocals are so great, but if you're still not sure about the band or their cover of this song, the vocals starting around that 2:50 mark should have you hooked.
Walk off the Earth will be in anything which lists 'the best covers' of any song because they always put together something amazing which is uniquely their own. Their version of "Payphone" is just fun and really good (and Gianni Luminati manages to make ties look cool).
Alex Goot has one of the prettiest voices (even if it does get a little breathy at times), and pairing his soft voice with Eppic's fast paced rap had this version making this list, easily. Anyone can sing nicely and make an okay cover, but it takes an artist to make the song their own, mix up the composition, and add in that extra component that will make your song perfect (Eppic's rap was just so good). Plus, Goot isn't afraid of saying "fucking" and "shit" and that is so refreshing; I can't stand it when people unnecessarily 'clean up' an artist's original work. I may actually like Alex Goot's version more than WOTE's.
Though these guys all do great covers of songs, they are all artists who create even better original songs, so make sure to check them out in the links below and to support them by buying their songs or merchandise if you want them to continue to make music.
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