Cover Songs – The Sound of Silence

The AWESOME! page has random music stuff that I think is cool. You never know what you will find here!

I love finding songs where the cover version makes you go WOW!. My favorite cover is Johnny Cash’s cover of the Nine Inch Nails song Hurt – go see my Awesome! post from May 10, the video of Cash’s version is as good as you will ever see.

Last summer, with the help of my good friend Jeanne, I discovered Disturbed’s cover of the classic Simon & Garfunkel song The Sound of Silence. S&G’s version was originally titled The Sounds of Silence – with the ‘s’ at the end of the word “Sound.” Their version was on their debut album Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M., which initially was a commercial failure and led to the breakup of Simon & Garfunkel. Six months after the release of the album, the song started to be played on radio stations, and the decision was made by the record producer (without Simon & Garfunkel’s permission) to remix the song. The remixed single was released 11 months after the album version was released. By the beginning of 1966, it hit #1, and the duo reunited to make another album, titled Sounds of Silence. The song and album were added to the National Recording Registry in the Library of Congress in 2013.

Disturbed is a heavy metal band formed in 1996. Their version of the song was released in December 2015. It peaked at #1 on the U.S. Mainstream Rock chart, and at #42 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Paul Simon endorsed their version. Check out the videos of both versions.