Hurt: Johnny Cash or Nine Inch Nails?

Even though I love NIN, I have to concede that Cash's version is my favourite. There's a lot more emotion in the way he sings it, and I was blown away the first time I heard it.

I like the way songs make me feel, and the Johnny Cash version does that better than the NIN version.

 

I think Cash's version is way better than the original. There is so much more passion and emotion and the music video just adds on another layer of all that.

 

I love covers of any song and I usually think that there's at least one cover better than the original song. But I do think that the Nine Inch Nails version takes the biscuit. I prefer the sound of the piano on its own for the song; it captures something special~.

 

Cash's is better, but they're both incredible. NIN obviously get credit because it's their song, but Cash put more passion and emotion into it, and I think that NIN put too much effort into making it sound 'distressed' and overproduced, without putting enough of themselves into it.

edit:

I'm talking about the version on The Downward Spiral, not the piano one in the OP. the same still stands, Cash put more emotion into it, although both are excellent.

[youtube]prDoGmY5kj8[/youtube]

 

Oh, Johnny Cash all the way. I had never hear the original, and thought it was one of his songs.

 

There are very few good songs that have been remade in a different but equally good cover version. (Jimi Hendrix's take on Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower" comes to minde.) This is one of those few. Arguing about which one is better is like arguing about which color is better.

Lex

 

^^ Easy. Blue.

 

Cash all the way. I am was left in awe the first time I heard it..and I am still blow away every time I hear it.

 

Unfair question is unfair. So I won't answer. I love both too much, and both songs have different meanings to me.

I'll leave this here though...
[YOUTUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57ta7mkgrOU[/YOUTUBE]

 

>>>Easy. Blue.

Except when it's green.

Lex

 

Do I have to pick? I really love both versions, for different reasons. I really can't choose.

 

Exactly. I'm a big fan of covers but 9/10 times I'm a big fan of the originals.


Although, out of the two songs... I'd prefer Nine Inch Nails version. But JC does a great job.

 

Definitely Johnny Cash's version. The Nine Inch Nails version was amazing as well, but I love the raw emotion Cash put into his version. Overall I felt his version was the more powerful of the two.

 

Just listened to Cash's rendition again. The raw emotion he has is astounding. He knew he was dying when he recorded this, so that obviously adds to it. When singers pour their souls into songs, it is heartbreaking to listen to....this is one of those moments...a heartbreaking song.

 

I really can't answer that question D:. Maybe the context of Cash's version makes it better, but some days i prefer one and other days the other.

 

Well, my friend is big into NIN, and I couldn't listen to "Hurt" by NIN because it was too depressing.
But I think Cash's version may have taken the cake on the depression-o-meter. That was absolutely heart-wrenching, but incredibly beautiful.