Cover your ears for crappy cover tunes

American woman, stay away from me-e-e-e," Lenny Kravitz mewled, turning the Guess Who into the Guess-Who-Needs-To-Be-Kicked-In-The-Throat-Already.

I heard Kravitz's version of this '70s staple in passing recently, and it was like revisiting the scene of some brutal crime, the grisly death of a classic rock chestnut.

Hearing this miserable song made me think of some of my other least favorite cover tunes of all time. Granted, I like to think as little as possible, but here goes anyway:

Kiss, "God Gave Rock 'n' Roll to You": Like groin pulls and last call, this tune occupies a special realm of crapitude, in that Kiss actually managed to take a truly wretched song and somehow make it worse. A treacly, maudlin stomach-turner where Paul Stanley sounds like a hairy Girl Scout, this is hard-rock heresy of the worst kind. Even the premise of the song is wrong: Everyone knows that rock 'n' roll is the devil's doing.

Ever see Jesus in spandex?

I rest my case.

Jessica Simpson, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin' ": Here is a quick and easy way to reduce a feisty feminist anthem to a pile of smoldering rubble: just get one blond brain fart whose bust is bigger than her vocabulary to sing the song in a bikini while washing a hot rod. Nice. Them women-folk sure have come far, haven't they?

Maybe next time Simpson should just cut to the chase and leave a flaming bag of dog turds on Gloria Steinem's front porch.

Toad the Wet Sprocket, "Rock and Roll All Nite": Um, yeah, when I think of partying hard, Nick Nolte-style, the first thing that comes to mind is this bunch of pasty pantywaists, who pack all the danger of a Nerf hand grenade. These dudes are to rock 'n' roll what Zima is to beer: training wheels.

Maybe if they sang about something closer to home, like wetting the bed or TiVoing "Ugly Betty," I'd be more moved.

Michael Damien, "Rock On": Hearing the death pangs of a loved one is a more welcoming sound than suffering through some soap opera casualty huffing and puffing his way through what might be the worst song of all time. People have been hanged for lesser crimes than this.

Static-X, "Hip-Hop": Hmmm, an incendiary black nationalist anthem sung by some white dillweed who looks like the talking beef stick in one of those Slim Jim commercials. What could possibly suck about that?

Answer: Pretty much everything.

Avril Lavigne, "Fuel": Give me fuel, give me fire, give me that which I desire: namely, Avril Lavigne's larynx on a silver platter, which I shall then put through a meat grinder, throw under the nearest bus and feed to a pack of malnourished ferrets.

Limp Bizkit, "Relax": Fred Durst + Frankie Goes to Hollywood = two tectonic plates of lameness crashing into each other, tearing the earth asunder, plunging cities into oceans, turning the skies black and forever devaluing cochleas. Forget Hollywood, Frankie's going straight to the gas chamber.

Jason Bracelin's "Sounding Off" column appears on Tuesdays. Contact him at 383-0476 or e-mail him at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com.