Manic Street Preachers - Theme from M*A*S*H (Suicide Is Painless): Revitalising the theme to a highly successful sitcom is no easy feat, but Wales's greatest asset took the risk in releasing an unconventional cover song, and were repaid thoroughly for their indigenous work.
Ignoring the simple acoustic formula of Johnny Mandel's original in favour ballsy guitar playing and hard hitting rhythms, the Preachers cover is absolutely magnificent.
Starting off with a Guns N' Roses' style cadence and ending with James Dean Bradfield's momentous screaming, the track feels both punchy and melancholy, much like the best of the songs written by the band's primary songwriters Richie Edwards and Nicky Wire.
This interpretation would become additionally poignant years later after Edwards's mysterious disappearance and presumed death in 1995.
Listening to it now, the chorus suicide is painless/ it brings on many changes/ I can take or leave it if I please seem particularly haunting.
Whether that is a case of life imitating art or not is up for debate, but the sheer, gluttonous quality of this track is certainly not for questioning! Peter Gabriel-The Book of Love: Esoteric prog vocalists recording folk ambient acoustic ballads with radical reimbursements of strings.
A disaster in the making? Far from it.
Gabriel's polyphonic re-imaging of The Magnetic Fields' beloved masterpiece is a prime example of one artist re-interpreting the work of another.
Changing the tone of Stephen Merritt's song from ironic to strangely melancholic, Gabriel's low key vocals come across beautifully.
A transcendental orchestration makes this song sweetly romantic.
Baroque and roll, eh? Johnny Cash - Hurt: Trent Reznor, leader of Garage Rock pioneers Nine Inch Nails, was unsurprisingly reluctant to let Johnny Cash, a beloved American music icon, cover his song about drug abuse.
But when he heard Cash's version, he was blown away by the sincerity of the work.
Replacing Reznor's distorted guitars with simplistic strumming, Cash's age served him well on the track.
His husky vocals come across as an old legend facing the end of his life, and come across as a re-appraisal of the highs and lows of his career.
Aided by a mesmerising video showing Cash in his home, it was Cash's musical epitaph, released months before his death in 2003.
This Mortal Coil - Song For The Siren: An eighties revitalisation of Tim Buckley's low key ballad is embellished by Elisabeth Fraser's fabulous vocals.
With distinctive Celtic tones, Fraser turns the song into one of those timeless classics that could have been written at any point in history.
This recording helped to re-introduce audiences to the songs of the vanishing Buckley.
This Mortal Coil has garnered a following in their own right.
Robert Plant has been highly complementary about their version, while comedienne Dawn French stated this song helped her fall in love again.
And with a beautiful ballad sung by one of Scotland's finest singers, how could you not? Jimi Hendrix - All Along The Watchtower: This may come across as a somewhat clichéd choice.
Hendrix's psychedelic re-imaging of Bob Dylan's allegorical ballad has been frequently cited as the greatest cover version of all time.
But it's place in this list was completely unavoidable.
Jimi Hendrix's jangly staccatos are the chords of gods and his acoustic/electric interplay would inspire the vast majority of hard rock/heavy metal bands of the nineteen seventies.
Hendrix's bluesy vocal style oozes with both sex appeal and excitement.
Even Bob Dylan ditched his more subdued arrangement in favour of playing the song in a similar vein to Hendrix.
You can't get a greater compliment than that!