Otis Redding performs at Monterey Pop Festival, in Monterey, Calif., in June 1967. Photo by Bruce Fleming/Getty Images.

It has once again been a long week, so I am once again defaulting to comfort music, and you once again get to hear it, too. You’re welcome.

Like I said back when the pandemic began about Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, I love a good cross-genre cover. I like a good cover in general—when done well it really lets an artist’s style shine in comparison to the original. But even more than that, I like a cover in a totally different genre than the original song.

To be honest, this column was inspired by my inclusion of Exit Eden’s cover of Journey’s “Separate Ways” in my power metal column a couple weeks back, so unfortunately I can’t include them again, even if I strongly recommend you listen again. After that, listen to four of these five.

The Staple Singers — “For What It’s Worth”

I’m an avowed Staple Singers fan, both “Song” and Mavis Staples as a solo act. (See her if you get the chance, good lord.) I also love “For What It’s Worth,” which I consider the second-best protest song of all time behind Rage Against the Machine’s “Take the Power Back.” So it would be hard to miss when you combine them. And this doesn’t!

This is a decidedly funky take on the song, which is a little jarring until you let yourself enjoy it, then it clicks and it’s amazing. I would expect nothing less.

Daughter — “Get Lucky”

If you’re a regular reader, you may have noticed a pattern in these covers: The song is way more important than the artist. I often love covers of songs I like by artists I’m not familiar with, but if I don’t know the song, I don’t really get as hooked.

That’s not to say I dislike Daughter, or that I’ve never heard of the band, it’s just not in my regular rotation because my folk tastes are pretty focused on the 1970s. But covering a Daft Punk song? That shouldn’t make sense and it’s a testament to their talent that it works as well as it does. Just awesome.

Otis Redding — “Day Tripper”

Covers used to be way more common in the ’60s and prior. Standards were a thing, popular songs that every band did, and 60 years later everyone’s shocked the most famous version wasn’t the original. All that changed around the time The Beatles came out with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; suddenly bands didn’t want to use standards as filler tracks between their one or two singles. They wanted to make a statement with the whole album.

Fortunately, “Day Tripper” came out a couple years before that, and even if it was after, Otis Redding really shouldn’t care what anyone else is doing because they should be following his lead. Somehow the guitar riff works exactly as well on horns.

Auckland Symphony Orchesta — “Sandstorm”

Funk cover of Buffalo Springfield; fine. It’s a little off but it works. Soul cover of The Beatles? Great. The original song was soul-inspired. A folk cover of Daft Punk is a little farther into left field. But I can top them all: A symphony doing ’90s techno.

If you don’t watch any other video in this column, I insist you watch this one. It’s the Auckland Symphony Orchestra pulling off a dead-on version of Darude’s classic proto-EDM hit “Sandstorm.” There are lasers and pyrotechnics. The crowd goes nuts. If it doesn’t put a smile on your face, I don’t even know.

It’s from a 2019 show the symphony put on called Synthony, and if anyone knows anybody at the San Francisco Symphony, please convince them to do this. I will buy tickets on the first day they go on sale.

Pat Boone — “Enter Sandman”

I said you should listen to four of these five, right? This is the fifth.

I’m on record as absolutely hating Pat Boone for making his entire career by making agonizingly white versions of legendary Black rock pioneers. But did you know that in his old age he branched out in his appropriation? That’s right: He did a metal album.

In 1997 Pat Boone released In A Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy, on which he covered, obviously, Metallica, as well as Ozzy, AC/DC, and oh so many more. It’s deeply cursed and showing you this YouTube video is like sending you the tape from “The Ring.” But rather than a creepy girl crawling out of your TV in seven days, you’re already insane.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and send column ideas to him at @bayareadata.press on BlueSky.