3 items
George Michael's 1987 hit "Faith" was a four-week No. 1 and a defining pop moment of the '80s. Limp Bizkit took it and weaponized it: quiet verse, explosive down-tuned chorus, turntable scratches. The cover became the radio hit that broke the band to the mainstream.
One of the biggest radio songs of the late '90s — and almost nobody knew it was a cover. Natalie Imbruglia's version went supernova in 1997, spending 11 weeks atop Billboard's airplay chart while barely denting the Hot 100, because you literally couldn't buy it as a US single. The video's film crew dismantled the apartment set around her mid-song.
The paradoxical summer of 2000 phenomenon: it peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100 yet became completely inescapable at every stadium, school bus, and kids' movie imaginable.