Fall Out Boy covering Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ is without doubt going to be some peoples idea of hell caught on record; I quite like Fall Out Boy however and when this track first emerged was really quite looking forward to giving it a listen. The track features John Mayer, a man that prior to listening to this record I had no previous knowledge of and given his ghastly guitar solo on this track I have no intention whatsoever of seeking out any further material of his either. Fall Out Boy’s ‘Beat It’ is somewhat of a disappointment I feel, it sticks to the original script of the track fairly religiously without ever really offering anything new to the sound. There are of course added guitar element here, other than this there’s just nothing to set it apart from the original though. Truth be told I’d much rather listen to the original than this, the cover is by no means a bad one but it’s certainly not as strong as the original Michael Jackson version of the track.
At times here Patrick Stump’s vocals go hideously out of tune, I’ve seen the man perform live and even then his voice was up to more than this. The vocal sound created here does on occasion sound a little strained, in the main the performance is quite a powerful one and the track is full of energy but there are certainly elements of the sound that let the overall quality of the cover track down a little here. John Mayer should be culled for crimes against guitar after his solo here, Patrick Stump needs to hang his head in shame for his occasional tuneless nature, other than this though the track is really quite a good one. I probably make the cover sound worse than it really is here; it’s not a bad track, not as strong as it potentially could have been but still not a massively disappointing effort. I love Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’, any artist covering the track faces a terrifically tough task but this was most definitely a valiant effort on behalf of Fall Out Boy.
Label: Mercury
Release Date: 25th March 2008
Rating:
UK based film graduate with a huge passion for music, sports and video games.
