Spanish guitar virtuoso plays Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ like you’ve never heard
Michael Jackson is alive and he lives in an acoustic guitar.
That's the only explanation for how Miguel Rivera, a guitar teacher in Madrid, can do what he does with six strings.
On June 22, Rivera uploaded a video of himself playing Michael Jackson's "Beat It" on YouTube, and it's glorious.
Now, granted, YouTube is overflowing with Michael Jackson covers. Most fall somewhere on the spectrum of terrible-to-okay. But a very few are truly remarkable, like this version of "Smooth Criminal" by a Croatian-Slovenian cello duo called 2Cellos.
Rivera now joins the pantheon of transcendent MJ imitators.
The thing that makes Rivera's cover great is that he manages to use a rapid-fire combination of drumming, slapping, tapping, plucking, and strumming to play all the song elements at the same time: vocal melody, lead riff, and drum and bass lines.
Visually, it's mesmerizing, but the musical effect is harder to describe.
So you'll just have to watch:
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