DMA’S cover of Cher’s song Believe has won Triple J’s inaugural Hottest 100 competition for its popular live cover segment Like a Version.
The Sydney trio’s acoustic cover of Cher’s iconic 1998 track was voted the best Like a Version of all time on Saturday.
DMA’S performed the cover six years ago, maintaining the vocal familiarity of Cher’s track but paring the electronic track back to two acoustic guitars and the vocals of singer Tommy O’Dell.
DMA’s guitarist, Johnny Took, told ABC TV there was “something about” Cher’s track that had resonated with the band.
“It is so funny. Going in and doing that segment, it is such a fleeting moment,” he said on Sunday.
“Even the way we came up with it at rehearsal, in Germany, I think, and our guitarist Mason started playing it and as a joke, he started singing the vocals as if it was on auto tune which makes your voice sound like that, and Tommy came in and sang the chorus and we all looked at each other and thought, it sounds quite special.
“So to go on that segment and three minutes later it is on the internet. It has become a really emotional part of our set.”
More than 800 covers have been performed for Triple-J’s weekly Like a Version segment. The vast majority – 81 of the Top 100 – were performed by Australian artists.
Every artist in the top 10 was Australian, save for a cover by American rapper Denzel Curry of Rage Against the Machine’s Bulls On Parade, which took out second spot.
Recently performed covers were more popular. More than half the covers appearing in the Top 100 were performed between 2019 and 2022, according to ABC data. Only three covers in the Top 100 were performed in the 2000s.
Ocean Alley’s cover of Baby Come Back by Player came in third and Lime Cordiale’s cover of the Divinyls classic I Touch Myself was fourth.
A.B Original and Paul Kelly’s rendition of the latter’s track Dumb Things was voted in fourth, while Gang of Youths took out fifth spot with their cover of Blood by The Middle East.
Took said prior to DMA’S success, he and his brother played a lot of cover gigs, something he described as “university for songwriting”. It helped them deconstruct and understand the elements of a song that resonated with a listener.
“It is funny because we did that a lot, and I guess, that is how we think about music these days,” he said. “There are some songs that, no matter how highly produced they are, when you bring them down to an acoustic or a piano, that is when you really know it is a beautiful song.”
