under-covers: The Smiths/Quicksand

Perhaps, one of the greatest guilty pleasures in my life: the perverse enjoyment I get listening to musicians covering other artist's songs. The weirder the cover, the better! It doesn't matter how awkward or horrible the quality (shitty cell phone video, I'm looking at you), I'm an absolute sucker for this stuff. Here's the latest installment of "under-covers."

This song was my first exposure to The Smiths via the 1996 film The Craft and initially, I hated it. Keep in mind I was eleven years old and gave no fucks whatsoever about teenage witches and their introspective adolescent jams. I only wanted to watch Schwarzenegger blow shit up in Eraser. Anyways, here's the song:

Of course once I got older I begrudgingly came to like The Smiths. That creepy, ethereal guitar tone and Morrissey's trademark, well you know, eventually won me over.

Here is Quicksand's cover, recorded as a bonus track from their 1993 album Slip.

Quicksand were a rocking post-hardcore band from NYC. I don't know about you guys but I think Walter Schreifels has one of the best voices in rock music, ever. It's so raspy and unique. One second he's heartfelt, the next he sounds ready to knock someone out. Anyways, I love how they turned such a distinctly morose song like this into a punchy, upbeat number that still retains the original melancholy spirit of The Smiths. It's like their streetwise NYC cousins took a stab at it.

I'd say the original version is still the better choice between the two, but Quicksand put a marvelous spin on it. What do you think?