Hot! Live! Music!

Johnny Marr, "How Soon Is Now"

I've never been much of a Smiths fan, largely because most of their songs sound like tuneless meandering from Morrissey rather than awesome fuzz-rock jams like this one.  It's one of the great near-misses in rock history that the Smiths thought so relatively little of this song that they didn't even release it on a proper record, instead sloughing it off as a B-side.  It became such a cult hit that the band eventually released it, and HSIN became arguably the best-known Smiths song.  

Bruce Springsteen, "Royals"

Bruce performed alongside the Wallflowers at the 1998 MTV Video Awards, and I believe it was Bill Simmons who noted that Bruce so utterly and totally owned "One Headlight" that it must've been disheartening for Jakob Dylan to just stand there and watch another musician completely dominate (yet elevate) your own song.  I can maybe see Lorde feeling the same way after watching this, though she can always just go back to being Stan Marsh on a full-time basis.

Bruce Springsteen, "Stayin' Alive"

The Bee Gees don't need to adopt the persona of a middle-aged cartoon character in the wake of a Bruce cover since their original version is legit one of the best songs of all time.  Even still...man, Bruce is just the best cover artist of all time.  In a related story, the How Did This Get Made episode about the film "Stayin' Alive" (the Saturday Night Fever sequel directed by, you guessed it, Sly Stallone) is one of their best podcasts ever.

Radiohead, "Lotus Flower"

I'm going to see Radiohead this summer, yayyyyy!  If they play this song live, I'm going to shriek like a teenage girl at a Beatles concert, yayyyyyy!