I always thought that Leonard Cohen’s own version was the original, which illustrates your point. Jennifer Warnes beat him to it by a couple of years on her superb album of Cohen covers, Famous Blue Raincoat, which could fill up this thread all by itself.
(Peggy Lee did the original)
You’ve Got a Friend - which is a shame, because I vastly prefer the original.
It makes me wonder exactly how many covers James Taylor has done over the years…
Tom Petty gets a Like for just being Tom Petty!
Thinking more about covers that were more popular than the original made me think of “The Greatest Love of All,” and George Benson’s version vs. Whitney Houston’s. His cover of “This Masquerade” is among my faves:
That song and “Superstar” were both performed by the Carpenters (and written or co-written by Leon Russell), but I prefer the version by Luther Vandross:
Considering Leon Russell songs reminded me of Donny Hathaway’s cover of “A Song for You:”
And I never heard the original until about a year ago
Original:
My guilty pleasure:
And one of the most famous covers… never even bothered looking up the original unfortunately:
Glad to see some others give mention to charles bradley, sisters of mercy, bahaus, devo…
Speaking of which I always liked his version of On Broadway:
Forgot to include it in the 60s post- Killdozer did a ton of covers, probably mostly trying to take the piss, but I thought this actually worked really well for the subject matter:
Reina del Cid Covers Crowded House’s “Don’t Dream It’s Over”
Regarding Massive Attack’s Angel
Not so much a cover as a reimagining I guess. They brought in the original singer too, Horace Andy
The og cover artist
I’m not 100% sold on this one, but it’s pretty good:
Ah, that was heartwarming!
“The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” was not recorded for the first time by Roberta Flack:
“Strawberry Letter 23” by The Brothers Johnson was another cover:
Hard to beat Gladys Knight and The Pips, but I play Marvin Gaye’s version of “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” more often:
Tina Turner’s take on “Proud Mary” (from 3 years ago, and TIL she’s still touring 
):
Linda Ronstadt was mentioned above, she’s done a lot of covers during her career. I especially enjoy what she does with tunes originally performed by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. However, I didn’t know one of my faves of hers, “You’re No Good” was also a cover:
Finally, Lenny Kravitz performs “American Woman:”
Who could resist the Temptations?
