Cheese stands alone.

There are hundreds of lounged-up covers out there, to be sure, but the only ones that really matter to me come from Richard (or Dick) Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine. Generally, I tend to find myself hating bands who strictly do covers (Hayseed Dixie and Me First and the Gimme Gimmes, I'm looking in your direction), but ol' Dick Cheese has the uncanny ability to make even my most-hated radio classics amusing enough to listen to repeatedly. For instance, I never thought the new millennium frat party classic "Butterfly" by Crazy Town could be so imminently listenable. Because I'm inexplicably not yet jaded enough to hate how damned clever he is and practically love it all—and because his repertoire is huge—I had a difficult time choosing which songs to showcase here. His live version of the Lords of Acid's "Let Me See Your Pussy"? His 48-second run-through of Kelis' "Milkshake"? It was all too daunting. Alas, that's what shuffle play is for: making my decisions for me. I'm glad that it landed on the "Stand Up"-meets-"Danke Schoen" brilliance.

Richard Cheese "Come Out and Play" (Offspring cover) 2.6MB

Richard Cheese "Nookie/Break Stuff" (Limp Bizkit cover) 2.5MB

Richard Cheese "Stand Up" (Ludacris cover) 2.5MB

Richard Cheese "Yellow" (Coldplay cover) 2.1MB

Just can't get enough? All of Cheese's CDs are available at his site, and those of you in the Pacific Northwest who find yourselves enjoying the insanity can check out his live show in the next month.