Mazzy Star isn’t dreampop by the conventional metrics – lots of acoustic guitars, atmosphere from arrangements and songwriting rather than pedals, strong blues and folk influences – but they’re still held up as one of the pillars of the genre thanks to the haziness intrinsic to Hope Sandoval’s vocals and the late David Roback’s so-tasteful guitar work. And also for the fact that they wrote “Fade Into You”, from their second album, 1993’s So Tonight That I Might See, which makes a good claim to being the most covered song of the genre (I have no numbers to back that up).

There were two official videos for the song, not so dissimilar from each other save for the palette – the black-and-white one came out around the time of the record’s release in October 1993, and a second colour version came out in March 1994.

Anyone who’s seen the band live – or attempted to in the pitch blackness of their stage aesthetic – knows that live footage is a rare thing. However there’s some video performances from when they were still up and coming and presumably had to conform to industry expectations like being visible without infra-red goggles. This one comes from the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, as part of Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit in 1994:

And this one is from an appearance on Later…….with Jools Holland in July 1994:

Not for nothing did Vulture declare it the Most Overused Song in Film and TV; by the same token it’s got to be one of the most covered (adjust for indie), and yeah it’s enough of a cliche that it surprises and disappoints me a bit when someone I like opts to do a version, but it’s such a good song that when performed well, it’s still a bit magic. But consider that this piece at Far Out enumerating the “five best covers” of the song doesn’t include a single one I’m deeming worthy of sharing. There’s a lot!

Emmy The Great included a version as a bonus track on the special edition of her 2011 album Virtue:

Dinosaur Jr frontman J Mascis released a 7″ with his take on it for Record Store Day 2014:

Perfume Genius contributed a version to a Pride-themed playlist on Amazon’s Prime Music in 2020; said Mike Hadreas:

I chose ‘Fade Into You’ because I carried it with me for a long time and I always looked to it for the warmth and the very heavy vibe that it always brings. It felt almost uncoverable but I wondered what I could do to make it sharper and maybe a little more desperate but still maintain the sort of beauty of it and the quietness of it. 

Mike Hadreas, Perfume Genius
Perfume Genius Covers Mazzy Star’s “Fade Into You”: Listen @ Pitchfork

This version is credited to Maximo Park guitarist Duncan Lloyd but it was included on the deluxe edition of their 2013 album Too Much Information

And finally, because it seems like I can’t do one of these without finding a Lotte Kestner version – this is not a complaint, by the way, here’s Lotte Kestner’s version, from her 2015 Covers album.