cover me badd

i've always thought that most music from the eighties can be remade into better songs today. [one instance would be no doubt's cover of the talk talk song, 'it's my life.'] the caveat to this theory is the band covering the song actually needs to have comparable or exceeding talent. one glaring example would be the used/my chemical romance cover of the queen/david bowie classic, 'under pressure.' i can't stress enough that neither of the bands covering the song have nowhere near the muscial talent of queen and/or david bowie. not surprisingly, it's one of the worst covers ever. anyway, a cover of michael jackson's 'beat it' by fall out boy featuring john mayer is one of the latest cases that, needless to say, falls well short of the original.



i'm sure fall out boy and john mayer thought it would be 'awesome' to cover this song, but i don't know what made them think that their interpretation could compete with michael jackson's version on a vocal level. furthermore, in the jackson version, eddie van halen plays the solo in the song; in the fall out boy adaptation, john mayer plays the solo. while i do think that john mayer is a better guitar player than he has shown in his songs, he's not on the same level as eddie van halen. the only reason why i think fall out boy released this cover is that they know that most of their fans are too young to know that this is even a cover song, which really is a shame.