I get the... "pleasure" of hearing this song on the Muzak at work everyday. It's not one I recall hearing when it first came out several years ago and, well, I'm glad. How the fuck do you cover one of the better Michael Jackson songs -probably one of his best songs- and one of his best videos?! That's just... I'm sorry, that's just like trying to be God. Michael Jackson is six-shades of fucking bizzare crazy nuts right now and someday when he dies we'll find he had some bizzare varaint of CJD or some other brain-rotting disease but back in the 80s he was all aces. Thriller and Smooth Criminal. Pure awesomness. You can recreate it, duplicate it or best it. Alien Ant Farm. You were made of fail.
It gives them a distinctly amateur sound on the cover-some things are just iconic and should be left alone. I mean, even people/groups that cover Beatles tunes don't try to do it like the Beatles. AAF didn't take it far enough from the original to make it sound fresh, IMO.
That's the thing with uninspired covers. Be too faithful and you'll be accused of not being fresh. Make an interesting re-interpretation, and you'll be accused of sacrificing a baby kitten wearing a bonnet.
I actually liked this as a cover, though the video was nowhere as good as the original (or indeed any good at all.) and the bands own stuff was weak. The Jackson cover I can't stand is Fall Out Boys version of Beat It. Urggh.
No. No it's not. You cannot cover the King of Pop. Yeah, that one isn't very good either but at least they made it their own a little bit and changed it a bit more. It's crap, but at least it's more "their own." I mean This Video is damn near perfection.
I've alway liked Alien Ant Farms take. Liked the video too. Never thought Smooth Criminal was one of those songs that couldn't be covered.
Great songs come from the soul. To do a great cover, you have to find a song that mirrors something already in your soul, absorb that song into your soul, and regurgitate it transformed into something of your own. Johnny Cash's version of Hurt is a great cover. Jimmi Hendrix's version of Wild Thing is a great cover. And I've never heart either version of Smooth Criminal so I have no opinion on either.
Smooth Criminal is a classic IMHO. And classics are very, very difficult to cover. Alien Ant Farm, again IMHO, were never in a place where they could have hoped to succeed with a cover. In order to succeed, they would have needed to put their own spin on the song, make it their own. But I think they're simply not good enough to do that. I agree with hyzmarca that Cash's version of "Hurt" is an example of a really great cover, as are many of the other covers he produced as part of the "American Recordings" albums. The thing is, he really takes those songs and makes them his own. What you end up with is something that is based on the original song but still very different and moving.
They did succeed with the cover given that it reached no. 1 status in the modern rock charts and over here in Australia.
AAF succeeded with Smooth Criminal in many ways. It's a damn good fun rock song. Is it better/worse than the original? I don't care.I've always liked AAF's version of Smooth Criminal and in the last 8 years this is actually the first time I've known anyone who outright hates it, Jackson fans included.
Like it too, I don't see the point of doing a cover unless you're gonna change it a bit Movies is another good AAF song. I was about 16/17 when they first came out and loved that sort of music. Though a friend copied me the album, and apart from those two songs it's pretty lame Agreed though that the Fallout Boy version of Beat It is uber shite. What a crap band
The single was released in July 2001, but it probably got a huge boost from its use in American Pie 2, in the scene where Jim superglues his hand to his dick. I've never been a big Michael Jackson fan, so I didn't lose much sleep over this song.
Oh, there's a can of worms . For example, sure, P Diddy (or was it Puff Daddy at the time) succeeded commercially with his cover of "I'll be watching you" ("I'll be missing you"). But is that really a way to measure how successful it was as a cover and not just as a release? For me, personally, it certainly has no relevance in terms of whether I think it's a success as a cover. People will have different views on this anyway. Plus I wonder how many people who bought the AAF version were aware that this is a cover since I'd say a lot of young people went for it. Let's not forget Smooth Criminal was from '87 / '88. That means the cover came about 13 years after that.
In fact, the evidence would suggest you can cover him-in little boys. However, he keeps settling out of court...