People Absolutely Love This Metalcore Cover Of The Cranberries ‘Zombie’ For Some Reason
It's already charting higher than the original song.
In 2015 heavy metal band Disturbed released a cover of Simon & Garfunkel’s classic hit ‘The Sound of Silence’, which left the whole world asking… why?
The cover somehow managed to rack up 350 million views on YouTube demonstrating that there is, inexplicably, an audience for metal bands butchering iconic folk songs. Even if that audience consists of people who write YouTube comments like “God, his voice makes me an erection” (this is the real top comment on video).
Now there’s a new entrant in the genre, and it’s absolutely blasting its way up the charts. A few weeks ago US metalcore band Bad Wolves (don’t worry, no one else has heard of them either) dropped a cover of The Cranberries signature song ‘Zombie’.
According to the band The Cranberries lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan, was set to record vocals for the cover on the same day she passed away. Bad Wolves went ahead and released the track anyway.
The original song was inspired by the 1993 Warrington bombings in England. The bombings were carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army and resulted in the deaths of two young children. The lyrics of ‘Zombie’ also referenced 1916 Easter Rising when Irish republicans launched an armed campaign to end British rule in Ireland.
Bad Wolves cover has stripped all of those references from the song, which significantly detracts from the raw and devastating emotion that came across in The Cranberries’ original version.
“It’s the same old theme / Since nineteen-sixteen” becomes “It’s the same old theme / In two thousand-eighteen” which could be interpreted as a broad anti-war message, but it’s so vague it’s hard to tell.
The cover has dominated iTunes rock and metal charts, taking out the number position on both. It’s currently number four on the overall iTunes single charts and number one on Spotify’s Viral 50.
It debuted on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts at number 54, which doesn’t sound that high until you remember that the original version of ‘Zombie’ never actually charted on the Hot 100, though it did hit number one on the Alternative Songs chart.
So on one metric the Bad Wolves cover is already more popular in the US that the original song ever was.
Anyway, if this cover makes you wince make sure to check the 1995 Eurodance version by Italian group A.D.A.M. It is truly, truly haunting.