I wanted to hate it.  I really did.  From the second the DJ said, "Up next we have Fall Out Boy with their cover of 'Beat It' my brain screamed sacrilege.  Aside from Alien Ant Farm's cover of "Smooth Criminal," I hadn't heard a decent Michael Jackson cover and I certainly wasn't expecting to hear one from Fall Out Boy.  But, alas, I couldn't help but enjoy it. 

Certainly, most of the credit goes to MJ for an amazing song to begi with, but Fall Out Boy really did a great cover.  They kept the essential elements that made the song great to begin with but changed it enough to give it their own unique spin.  I really liked it and I really hated myself for it. 

But that got me thinking about cover songs.  Now, I love cover songs. They're my favorite sub-sub-genre of music, easily.  Something about hearing a song I dig done in a different style makes me happy.  I have some favorites - Manfred Mann's cover of "Blinded by the Light" jumps to mind - but then i remember something curious I heard a few months ago.  On her debut album Lily Allen, the British singer, did a cover of one of her own songs!  Genius!

The song is called, "Smile" and it's insatiably catchy.  It heads up her album and then, three minutes later you're on to a new track.  But later, 12 later to be precise, you hear "Smile" again.  Where the first track has an upbeat-heavy reggae feel, the second incarnation of the track sounds like Phil Specter produced it with his famous Wall of Sound: a faster beat, fuzzy vocals, horns and staccato guitar.  It sounds like Ms. Allen found a time machine and recorded the track in 1962.  It's really wonderful; better than the original in my opinion. 

So I'm forced to ask the question, why don;t more artists do this?  A song can sound great many ways, why let other people figure out those ways and profit from it?  Why not just do it yourself, like Lily Allen did?