The Onion's non-satirical entertainment website, AVClub.com, has spent the last two years performing one of the more interesting multimedia music experiments on the Internet.

Last week, The A.V. Club finished their second season of "A.V. Undercover," where the editors and readers compile a list of 25 songs, and then invite bands to their office to choose a song and record a cover of it on video. The results have been good, bad, weird and heartfelt, but always interesting. However, with over 70 videos on the various "Undercover" pages, it can be hard to sift through.

Through extensive watching, listening, arguing and being subjected to an excessive number of Starbucks advertisements, Jay Gary and Brad Canze have compiled a list of the five best and five worst "Undercover" performances.

Top Five

5. Peter Bjorn & John performing “Try A Little Tenderness” by Otis Redding

Probably one of the most daunting songs on the second “Undercover” list, the Swedish trio of Peter Bjorn & John attack this Otis Redding classic fearlessly and brilliantly.

The massive amount of energy on display by the band, specifically in the singing and dancing of singer-guitarist Peter Morén, make this cover hard not to love. They manage to bring their own indie-rock sensibilities to the song while maintaining the soulfulness of the Redding version.

4. Ted Leo And The Pharmacists performing “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears For Fears

This was the first song recorded for the first season of “Undercover,” and it is a wonder that all the other bands didn’t just pack it in and leave after hearing this.

This is a natural choice for the band; Ted Leo’s vocals are a great match for the original Tears For Fears version. That similarity allowed for the band to completely rearrange the instrumentation into something much more rocking and experimental than the original New Wave tune. At the end of the song, the band lets its attitude fly off the rails with a soaring guitar solo that was not in the original version, but should have been.

3. Bob Mould performing “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” by Sugar

It was a precedent set by bands such as Superchunk and They Might Be Giants that if your band had a song on the “A.V. Undercover” list, you picked a song by another band. Bob Mould, formerly of the bands Hüsker Dü and Sugar looked at the rules, looked at the precedents, gave them the finger and played Sugar’s “If I Can’t Change Your Mind.”

Mould creates something entirely different from the original he did with Sugar nearly 20 years ago. This version is older and wiser, but also rougher and more aggressive, a description that could possibly be given to Mould himself.

Even better, A.V. Club was unsure whether or not Mould’s cover counted, and allowed The Decemberists to cover “If I Can’t Change Your Mind” the very next week, and they just look like chumps in comparison.

2. They Might Be Giants performing “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba

They Might Be Giants takes one of the goofiest pop hits of the 90s and absolutely revels in it, creating a cover and a video that are just over-the-top fun.

Enlisting 16 AV Club employees to be packed into the performance with them to all sing the chorus, TMBG create not only a great cover, but an experience to behold. Musically, it sounds like signature TMBG, and the gang vocals on the chorus just lift it up to another level. This is the most fun video to watch out of all the “Undercover” performances.

1. The Clientele performing “Paper Planes” by M.I.A.

During the first season of “Undercover,” this was maybe one of the most challenging songs on the list. Who would dare try to recreate M.I.A.’s massive hip hop-pop hit, and how would they do it?

English band The Clientele were brave enough to step up to the plate and, with the aid of a two-woman string section, came up with a blindingly original version of the song. In turning the original hip-hop beat into a quirky funk jam, it is obvious the band put a lot of thought and effort into how to perform this song in the best way possible, and had a lot of fun doing it.

Bottom Five

5. Baths performing "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem

Some songs are immune to minimalism.

Few people would ever be foolish enough to attempt power-rock masterpieces like Meat Loaf’s “Bat Out Of Hell” or Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” on an acoustic guitar. Similarly, LCD Soundsystem’s lush electro-rock opus “All My Friends” is just too much song for one piano.

If the way-too-minimalist rendition wasn’t bad enough, it is accompanied by a man drumming on his lap and stomping on the floor to provide percussion, which is both way too precious and distracting.

4. Smith Westerns performing “American Girl” by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers

Smith Westerns lead singer Cullen Omori was too busy trying to look cool to hit the right notes, wearing sunglasses indoors while hiding his face with his hair in a manner that can only be described as "trying too hard".

At least the band tried to do something different with the Tom Petty classic, but they chose to do it by slowing down the chorus and changing the melody, which leaves this performance sounding less like “American Girl” and more like a sack full of woodland animals in a trash compactor.

3. Retribution Gospel Choir performing “Kokomo” by The Beach Boys

This cover is bizarre. The band obviously knows this is a goofy song of dubious quality, as evidenced by the interview preceding the performance. But when they actually play it, they do it without any irony or sense of humor.

What results in a plodding and disappointing yawn.

To be fair, whichever band chose “Kokomo,” almost without question the worst single The Beach Boys ever released, was going to have to do something very special to not end up near the bottom of the list. As it is, this performance does not even muster what it takes to be mediocre.

2. Parts And Labor performing “Runaway” by Kanye West

Parts And Labor ran into a perfect storm of poor song-choice and poor execution on their cover of Kanye West’s instant-classic rap-pop ballad “Runaway.”

First the band decided to strip away the verses, leaving only the introduction and chorus to be covered. Then they decided to replace the clean piano track repeated throughout the original with a fuzzy, distorted, abrasive keyboard sound. Along with the low-key vocals and unrepentant repetition, this sounds less like a pop ballad and more like a funeral march for a robot.

1. Rise Against performing “Sliver” by Nirvana

For a radio-oriented hard rock band like Rise Against, covering Nirvana was not only an obvious choice, but also a very bad one.

The entire reason the original “Sliver” worked was Kurt Cobain’s vocal performance. Otherwise, this is a weird, goofy little song about a kid spending the night at his grandparents’ house.

Completely soulless and joyless, Rise Against here sounds like a bunch of kids in a garage learning to play their first Nirvana song.