Even if you’re not much of a food critic, you can still tell the difference between a burger that’s delicious and one that tastes like a charbroiled hockey puck. Metal is kind of like hamburgers. You don’t have to be super well-versed in it to know when a metal band is the “bad kind” of metal. A surefire way to tell is if their logo uses the same font as the Monster Energy Drink logo. Another way to tell is if the band has any combination of the words “God” and “smack” in their name.
Five Finger Death Punch fall into that charbroiled hockey puck side of metal. The LA band released an album this month called The Wrong Side of Heaven and the Righteous Side of Hell and somewhere in between songs called “Watch You Bleed” and “Diary of a Deadman,” they snuck in one of the most bizarre choices for a cover song ever: LL Cool J’s “Mama Said Knock You Out.” This raises so many questions. Actually, it just raises one: WHY?
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Why would a metal band think that anyone in the world but the Kangol-wearing rap stuperstud, LL Cool J, could pull off the words, “Mama said knock you out?” It sounds like something a seven-year-old would say just before getting wedgied. In fact, why would any metal band ever think they could pull off a cover of any rap song? It’s a crossover that has failed over and over again. Sometimes the covers make a sincere effort at sounding cool and end up being unintentionally hilarious. Other times, they’re meant to be a joke and end up being tragically unfunny. Here are some of the worst offenders of the metal/rap cover disasters:
