Angelina The straight-up covers are among some of my most hated songs to be honest. There are some good ones,but a lot of them are just removing all complexity from a song to turn it into a dance mix. Madonna's take on American Pie for instance is something I viscerally dislike, whereas Home Free's version is a fairly faithful rendition of the original. I would probably guess that the more a cover is made for broadcast radio (instead of CD/record/streaming releases), the more likely it is to be terrible.
But yeah, some unoriginal songs with original names, like David Guetta's I'm Good, just leave me wanting the original. Or originals, in case of Elton John / Dua Lipa with Cold Heart.
I think a lot of it depends on how the original is incorporated. Eminem's Sing for the Moment incorporates Aerosmith's Dream On nicely while deriving lots of its merit from the original bits, same with Stan and Dido's Thank You.
