Britney Spears ruined a song by Cher

Sonny & Cher’s “The Beat Goes On” is arguably one of Cher’s few contributions to the classic 1960s rock canon. Britney Spears had a chance to make the song seem cool to a new generation and failed miserably. In fact, Spears struggled to produce decent covers throughout her career.

Britney Spears’ cover of a Cher song should have been a torch-passing

Sonny & Cher had a successful television show, but today they are best known for two of their singles: “I Got You Babe” and “The Beat Goes On.” The former gets a lot more attention than the latter, but “The Beat Goes On” is still a great song. It’s a clever ditty about how culture changes on the surface, but the core of humanity remains the same.

Some of the lyrics are a little rough, but they’re more memorable than the average 1960s pop song. Lines like “Grandmas sit on chairs and reminisce / Boys keep chasing girls for a kiss / The cars keep getting faster / Boom still yells, ‘Hey buddy, got a dime?'” are as relevant today as they were when the song came out in 1967. The wisdom of “The Beat Goes On” later served Cher well as pop’s elder stateswoman.

Spears covered the song for her debut album … Honey, once again. Depending on how you look at it, the cover was either a passing of the torch from the Goddess of Pop to the Princess of Pop or lazy album filler. It’s easier to see it as the latter, because Spears’ “The Beat Goes On” is just awful.

Britney Spears is just bad at covers

“The Beat Goes On” could have used an update on Sears’ 1999 debut, but instead Spears’ version adds some unnecessary record fuzz that makes the song sound even older than it is. Many critics have attacked the “Womanizer” singer for her thin voice. At the same time, she adds some diva vocals to the track that sound obnoxious and out of place. Some dated 1990s synths are the cherry on top of a misguided cover.

While the “Everytime” star has given us some of the best dance tracks of all time and a few good ballads, she’s not the best when it comes to covers. Her renditions of the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts’ “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll” have been classic rock punchlines for many years. She also released a disco remake of Suzanne Vega’s “Tom’s Diner” that won’t do much for fans of 1980s/1990s alternative music. It’s probably best that Spears sticks to her own songs in general.

Cher’s version was a hit, but the cover appeared on a more famous album

The original “The Beat Goes On” reached number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed on the charts for 11 weeks. The track appeared on Sonny & Cher’s album If you are in loveThis record reached number 45 and stayed in the charts for 29 weeks.

Spears’ cover of “The Beat Goes On” was not released as a single and therefore did not chart on the Billboard Hot 100. The song’s previous album, …Honey, once againwas a juggernaut. It topped the Billboard 200 for six weeks and was on the charts for a total of 103 weeks. To date …Honey, once again is the singer’s most popular album in the United States.

Cher and Spears are both great pop stars, but only one of them did a great version of “The Beat Goes On.”