Michael Jackson is the most pervasive artist of our generation, and to prove it, we looked to see what sort of crazy covers of his songs we could find. And boy, we weren’t disappointed.
1. Our first interpretation is “Beat It” by Inactive Messiah, a Greek melodic death metal band. The intro is very graceful, but our favorite part is when singer Xristos starts growling.
2. It’s too easy for us to put Alien Ant Farm’s cover of “Smooth Criminal” here. So we put this loose electronica-by-way-of-jazz interpretation by J.Viewz (remixed by S.T.Louder) here instead.
3. Willie Nelson has a history of bizarre cover choices, unrivaled by any country crooner except Johnny Cash. But did Cash ever cover Michael Jackson’s “She’s Out of My Life”? We think not. (Nelson’s version still makes us cry. :( )
4. Only Michael Jackson could be covered sensibly in both death metal and Bossanova-leaning smooth jazz styles. The guy guilty of this “Man in the Mirror” cover is Brazilian crooner Paulinho Loureiro.
5. We totally saved the best/worst for last. Five words: “Black or White,” polka-style. Blame Texingtal Musikanten.
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Google’s been on top of the heap for nearly a decade, and it’s a firm hold. They’ve built themselves around the idea that the Web’s organization should be simple. Their ads are well-targeted, and their services – especially search, Gmail and News – are incredibly useful. They made $4.2 billion last year alone.
Facebook, on the other hand, is building influence and currency on the Web. They’ve got critical mass, and, smartly, didn’t even focus on competing with MySpace. They want to be the new Google, and have just the right arrogant CEO to pull it off. Their hyper-focused information means they can focus on advertising for brands.