Thriller 25 (and other music)

Recently, I was just sort of browsing through a random set of blogs here and there and I ran into a posting about a new version of Michael Jackson's "Beat It" featuring Fergie, in the same type of vein as what Natalie Cole did with "Unbelievable", singing along to the original recording. The poster mentioned that it was horrid and not worth listening to - so of COURSE I had to hear it for myself! (I am a firm believer in listening to anything at least once, just to see how good or bad it is in your own opinion. I have heard some songs that people love that I despise, and the reverse has been true as well.)

Now, first, I guess I should mention that despite his personal tastes and the various scandals surrounding him, I do appreciate M.J.'s music. It has soul and style, and in it's time was rather unique. Even now, I don't think anyone ever did anything quite like it, though I am not a musical historian, so I could be wrong on that account. Still, despite my upbringing of 70s rock, 80s New Wave and then eventual appreciation/love for hair bands, and then my progression to various forms of alt/metal/prog/hard rock, I always did appreciate the music of M.J. My brother was a huge fan, collecting every album and recording he had ever done, and even had the signature red fleather zipper jacket. So I can remember doing renditions of "The Girl is Mine" and "Beat It" (complete with the air guitar solo) with my brother, when I was in my early teens, and he was a late single-digit age.

So, I went to YouTube - the place everyone should go to get a glimpse/listen to something that they are interested in - and found a recording of the song in question. Remarkably, I was not disgusted by the song, and actually enjoyed it, listening to Fergie stretch her vocal chords to hit the high notes. The music sounded a little bit different as well, if I am remembering the original correctly, so it was kind of an interesting find.

Now with YouTube, they always seem to have that little sidebar menu that shows you other related videos, and I saw that there were other songs, including "You Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' 2008" with Akon. That one was impressive! The slow start with Akon's light, lyrical voice was a different take on it, and then the upbeat swing to the song just made it take off. It was a toe-tapper for sure, and I was definitely listening to that one with a close ear.

There were a couple of others that I remember as well, I think "P.Y.T 2008" was one, with Will.i.am that wasn't too too bad, and another with Will.i.am that I actually didn't like at all, but I can't remember the name (oh yeah, it was The Girl is Mine - the original was far better, in my humble opinion). And then one with Kanye - "Billie Jean 2008"? - that one I didn't like. It was too slow, and all it really was, was a more modern hip-hop or R&B rhythm added to the song, which really didn't add anything useful in my opinion. It certainly didn't make it better, and actually lessened my enjoyment of the song.

Still, what I heard definitely made me want to go buy the album, and I may do that at some point in the not-too-distant future.

So all of this reminded me of a few other remakes that I have heard in the last few years that I actually liked. I was a fan of some of Genesis's later stuff, and Phil Collins's work as well. One song that was always one of my fave's from Genesis was "Land of Confusion", and a couple of years ago, I guess, I heard the version by Disturbed. I was taken aback! I didn't expect a song like that to come out of Disturbed (though "Shout" was an equally shocking remake that they did and was also quite good, despite the "Ice-ice, baby!" remark in it which still makes me laugh), but they did a great job doing justice to the song, both making it their own, and paying tribute to the original. I remember the video from Genesis with the puppet characters from that show in the 80s... I am currently searching Google for the name of it... Spitting Image! That's it! Right, so it had the Spitting Image puppets for the video, and the one by Disturbed had some sort of anime-type video that was a lot grittier and less humorous, and maybe more representative of the overall tone of Disturbed. It was a good choice, I think, and I don't think a direct remake of the video with caricaturized versions of the band would have worked out. This was a good choice by the makers of the video.

The other one that really hit home with me was an old song by the great Ronnie James Dio, from his band Dio, the album and title song: "Holy Diver". The band Killswitch Engage did a great cover of the song, and even tribute to the sadly produced video done by Dio. If you have never seen the video (or if you don't know the song at all), go YouTube it. Watch the Dio video first. It's a classic for the heavy metal genre (the song), and the video is something that should not be missed (ahem!). I simply have no words that describe how much the video disturbed me - not for the content, but the simple fact that I could have produced the same thing with $50, a couple of random people, and a borrowed video camera - and I am talking about in 1983-ish or whenever it was made (I would have been 13 at the time). The one by Killswitch Engage takes some of the cheesiness of the original and adds an extra bit of humour to the whole thing. I couldn't help laughing while I watched it, but the actual song itself is quite well done.

Anyway, I think that is all I have to say on all of this for now. If you read this and have anything to say, please drop in a comment or two. I'd love to hear what other people think.


Cheers!

Slyde