The Best And Worst of BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge Covers

Over the years BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge has held home to some irreplaceable one-off masterpieces from the likes of Kate Nash and Kings of Leon.

Some of my personal favourites include the surprisingly admirable cover from Kings of Leon of Robyn’s ‘Dancing On My Own’. The family four-piece made up of three brothers and a cousin did themselves proud when they conjured this idea up and after a slow paced start it more than paid off.

Another beauty which stemmed from the Live Lounge is Arctic Monkeys cover of Drakes ‘Hold On We’re Going Home’. Smoothly, they turned a distinctly average song into a pretty intense three and a half minutes of music whilst truly making it their own showcasing their flexibility.

Catfish and the Bottlemen incredibly managed to take three alternative songs and merge them into one whilst sounding remarkably impressive. Surely nobody anticipated the exotic combination of Kanye’s ‘Black Skinhead’, The Black Keys' ‘Howling For You’ and Kasabian’s ‘Shoot the Runner’ would result in a fresh combination of multiple genres, highlighting the success of the Live Lounge when conducted correctly.

Ultimately the Live Lounge can depict the truly talented artists in the industry that are able to explore various musical avenues but when done poorly, it can expose some unpleasant covers. Alt-J’s distinctly below average recreation of Disclosure’s ‘Latch’ failed to spice up the essence of the already polished original version.

Despite the few less successful attempts in the Live Lounge the creation of multiple gems cannot be unforgotten and remain highly ranked in terms of covers. The overall beauty of the Live Lounge is its ability to allow a band to turn an already famous song into something really special by themselves.