“Thunderstruck”
by Ministry, 2Cellos, Steve’n’Seagulls,  (originally by AC/DC)
from all over the goddamned place
Buy the original album on Amazon

I was thinking about picking an AC/DC tune for a #karaoketuesday post, but I’m sober enough right now to realize I could never pull off an AC/DC tune unless it was a swing number or something.  Which got me thinking about covers that are done in a different genre than the original version.  So, ladies and gentlemen, I present “Thunderstruck” as performed by three, radically different groups.  But first, let’s take a listen to the original and still bad-ass AC/DC original.

The video is silly, but that hook cannot be denied and it’s got one of my favorite openings in rock music. Not drifting too from from this hard rock version, Ministry tried an industrial cover which was fair, but nothing to write home about.  Feel free to skip through it at your leisure.

But, what if you take “Thunderstruck” out of a rock category completely.  Maybe take it to Finland and plop it down in a field with some guys that play hardcore bluegrass.  Does it still rock?  And anvil is involved…

Or maybe you drop the vocals and the percussion completely and let two gentlemen with cellos perform the song.  Does the lryic “The sound of the drums” still resonate when it’s performed solely with strings?

Apparently the answer is fuck yeah it does.  A song that starts out rocking will continue to do so, no matter what genre you translate it to, as long as you do it with passion.  Rock on mother fuckers.  Rock on.