30 Cool Facts You Didn't Know About 'Billie Jean'

[helena22]

15
It propelled 'Thriller' to be the best-selling album of all time partly due to winning shitloads of awards and honours.

Seriously? Why are we seeing this on the list called "~ you DIDN'T KNOW ~"??:ermm:
You find some other familiar facts there, but this one right here is just...
Don't get me wrong, all in all I appreciate the list. I can see they went for the number 30 for the 30th anniversary, which is cool. They just couldn't come up with enough rare facts lol

.....I woulda included something else. Like, "Billie Jean remix by Blackstreet is pretty decent. Teddy Riley, who collaborated with MJ on various songs, made a nice little tribute."

I can't believe that Quincy didn't like or want the song. Thank god Michael fought for it. I love this song. I can't imagine no Billie Jean.

I don't think Quincy Jones could surpass MJ when it comes down to the umm...the instinctive sense of rhythm or hits. Technically speaking, you never know what would click with the public. (I should add, "know" here, as in analyzing or predicting characteristics of potential hits) I think he went with his gut feelings, which made all the sense to him.

 

[Bubs]

Birthday wishes to Billie Jean!
Well and truly deserve a place in music history.

It would be interesting to see in another 30 years time, how :billiejean: is doing then:fortuneteller:

 

[Lucilla]

Seriously? Why are we seeing this on the list called "~ you DIDN'T KNOW ~"??:ermm:
You find some other familiar facts there, but this one right here is just...
Don't get me wrong, all in all I appreciate the list. I can see they went for the number 30 for the 30th anniversary, which is cool. They just couldn't come up with enough rare facts lol

Yeah, well I think it's an article written for the average public
But anyway, it's cool they remembered the anniversary.

 

[Go Flying]

30 Cool Facts You Didn't Know About 'Billie Jean'

By Lucy JonesPosted on 01/02/13 at 02:58:45 pm

Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean' turns 30 today. Not only is it one of the highest selling singles of all time and the catapult that shot Jackson to the zenith of pop, it also changed the entertainment world. First, it was the video that drew attention to MTV and kick started its significance in popular culture. Second, it finally broke the grip of the racists in charge who refused to play videos featuring black performers. Here are 30 other facts you might not know.


1
Memo to this decade's lazy pop moguls: 'Billie Jean' was mixed 91 times by Bruce Swedien. 91 times!

.... I suspect that mix #2 or 3 was probably the mix that ended up being used. It's an all to typical studio scenario wherin as a mix is 'refined', energy and emotional impact are significantly diluted. It's not an uncommon thing.

2
Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson's record label CBS, threatened MTV that he'd go public with their stance on race:

I said to MTV, 'I'm pulling everything we have off the air, all our product. I’m not going to give you any more videos. And I'm going to go public and f***ing tell them about the fact you don't want to play music by a black guy.'

3
Michael Jackson said he came up with the idea while driving his Rolls-Royce down a motorway. He was so absorbed by the song that he didn't notice his car had caught fire. A guy passing on a motorcyclist warned him and saved his life.

4
Quincy Jones did not want 'Billie Jean' to appear on 'Thriller'.


5
Jones hated the bassline.

6
He also hated the intro.

7
"But that's the jelly!...That's what makes me want to dance,' said Jackson. And the rest is history.

8
Kind of. Jackson and Jones quarelled over the title of the song. Worried that people would confuse the name with tennis player Billie Jean King, Jones wanted to change the name to 'Not My Lover'. Jackson won that battle.

9
But he didn't get the co-producing credit he asked for. Or the subsequent royalties.

10
Jackson sang the vocals into a six-foot-long cardboard tube.

11
He performed his first moonwalk when he sang 'Billie Jean' on the TV show Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever

12
You might think 'Billie Jean' sounds similar to Hall & Oates' 'I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)'. You'd be right. Here's Daryl Hall on whether his song influenced the King of Pop.

No question about it. Michael Jackson once said directly to me that he hoped I didn't mind that he copped that groove. That's okay; it's something we all do.


13
He nailed the vocals in one take.

14
Jackson's head was set on fire by special effects explosions while filming a Pepsi-Cola commercial soundtracked by 'Billie Jean'.

15
It propelled 'Thriller' to be the best-selling album of all time partly due to winning shitloads of awards and honours.

16
Billie Jean is based on the groupies that used to hang around Jackson and his brothers when they were in The Jackson 5. Here's MJ:

Billie Jean is kind of anonymous. It represents a lot of girls. They used to call them groupies in the '60s...They would hang around backstage doors, and any band that would come to town they would have a relationship with, and I think I wrote this out of experience with my brothers when I was little. There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there. Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers.

17
However there is a theory that Billie Jean is a real person.

18
Biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli writes that a woman wrote to Jackson claiming he was the father of one of her twins (I didn't even know this was possible).

19
Apparently, after a run of letters, the woman sent a parcel that contained a gun and requested he commit suicide on a certain date after which she'd kill the baby and then herself.

20
The weirdest part? Jackson framed a picture of the stalker she'd sent to him in his home.

21
Ian Brown covered it. It's horrific.

[video=youtube;wUBTy_8jO1s]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wUBTy_8jO1s[/video]


22
The tiger cub at the end of the video belonged to Michael Jackson and was called Thriller, according to the internet.

23
Jackson doesn't actually start dancing till almost halfway through the video. The famous en pointe moment happens at 2:31.

24
The song is in the key of F# minor.

25
The UPC barcode on the album cover contained seven digits that were rumoured to be Jackson's telephone number.

26
Chris Cornell's cover isn't half bad.

[video=youtube;R0uWF-37DAM]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R0uWF-37DAM[/video]


27
Kanye West's remix on the other hand...

28
The audio engineer was told by Quincy Jones to add "sonic personality".

29
He'd already told Swieden to create a drum sound no one had heard before. Demanding, much!

30
The handwritten lyrics to 'Billie Jean' sold for £24,984 at auction in 2012.

http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?b...itle=30_things_you_didn_t_know_about_billie_j

 

[DJ_OXyGeNe_8]

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[Smooth72]

Best song ever! Best performance for a song ever! Original and unforgettable!!!!

 

[MJultimatemusiclegen]

I actually think Hall is making up the Billie Jean story, it's never sat comfortably with me, because with all my musical knowledge i cannot see it, it's similar enough for him to make such a claim, but not the same by any means. It doesn't feel lifted at all to me my instinct tells me no. Van Morrison could equally make such a claim about Moondance and Billie Jean with the chords, but who would challenge him? I just don't buy it i'm sorry i think Michael came up with the groove entirely himself and Hall has noticed enough degree of similarity to get away with blagging this story. I know when musicians borrow stuff or rip stuff off there are endless examples of it, and this ones doesn't seem right, they would be more similar still if he'd really lifted it, the rhymic feel is totally differen't in both basslines, Billie Jeans even quavers for the whole line gives the whole thing a moving/dancing feel, it just floats. To me if Michael wanted to lift it he'd keep feel, i just don't believe it and i don't think it's my fan head speaking, it's my musicians head.

 

[Petrarose]

Multimate I am glad you said that ^^ because I do not see it either. I danced to that Hall song so many times back in the day and I never made a connection between it and Billie Jean. In fact, today is the first time I ever heard about it. I guess if you scrutinize a song long enough you will find something in it that is similar to another song....

 

[mjjmsc]

I like this one:

13
He nailed the vocals in one take.

Michael was a genius!

 

[Petrarose]

^^Yes he nailed many things in one take. He was able to listen to something and sing it the exact same way.

 

[analogue]

Anything else that quincy hated??..... SMH

Smooth Criminal. If it were up to Quincy there would have been no Billie Jean on Thriller and no Smooth Criminal on Bad

 

[Bubs]

^^^ I don't think he likes to be reminded of those mishaps of his:cheeky:

 

[AliCat]

[video=youtube;Zi_XLOBDo_Y]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zi_XLOBDo_Y[/video]
[video=youtube;ccenFp_3kq8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccenFp_3kq8[/video]

play them at the same time and you decide if the story is true, is there a similarity?
According to Daryl Hall, during the recording of “We Are the World”, Jackson approached him and admitted to lifting the bass line for "Billie Jean" from a Hall and Oates song, apparently referring to "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do)". Hall says that he told Jackson that he had lifted the bass line from another song himself, and that it was "something we all do."

 

[144000]

^^^ I don't think he likes to be reminded of those mishaps of his:cheeky:

let's keep reminding Jones, shall we? :yes:

 

[Petrarose]

AliCat I can't play both at the same time, but I should have been going, Oh that sounds familiar when I heard Billie Jean for the first time, and I did not. This tells me that the similarity is not very noticeable to the general public. Maybe I was focusing more on the words of the Oats song. I remember as soon as I heard New Editions Candy Girl my mind immediately thought of Michael's ABC song.

When you listen to it at the same time, are you hearing the complete baseline of the Oats song in Billie Jean, or are they simply similarities?

 

[Bubs]

^^^ I listened them 2 playing the same time, and if one wants to find similar sound, it is there in the bass line.
Then again, if you play Queen's Another Bites the Dust on top of 2 other, it is similar too

Did H & O lifted their bass line from Queen's song as they said "its something we all do" and ABoD was released a year before H & O song? Did Billie Ocean lifted the bass line from Billie Jean to his Caribbean Queen? The list foes on and on and on........


There is a thread about songs that sound similar in Gearslutz, if you want to check some songs that are similar to other songs.
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/338285-two-hits-songs-sound-same.html

 

[HIStory]

I actually think Hall is making up the Billie Jean story, it's never sat comfortably with me, because with all my musical knowledge i cannot see it, it's similar enough for him to make such a claim, but not the same by any means. It doesn't feel lifted at all to me my instinct tells me no. Van Morrison could equally make such a claim about Moondance and Billie Jean with the chords, but who would challenge him? I just don't buy it i'm sorry i think Michael came up with the groove entirely himself and Hall has noticed enough degree of similarity to get away with blagging this story. I know when musicians borrow stuff or rip stuff off there are endless examples of it, and this ones doesn't seem right, they would be more similar still if he'd really lifted it, the rhymic feel is totally differen't in both basslines, Billie Jeans even quavers for the whole line gives the whole thing a moving/dancing feel, it just floats. To me if Michael wanted to lift it he'd keep feel, i just don't believe it and i don't think it's my fan head speaking, it's my musicians head.

There is another guy who tells everybody who would listen that Michael took the Billie Jean bass line from him. It's Mike McKinney who played bass on a couple of Jacksons songs and also toured with the guys. He co-wrote Everybody on Triumph. There is a guy on YT telling this story how he has an interview (it wasn't clear to me if he did the interview or he saw the interview somewhere) with McKinney where he, almost in tears, told Michael "stole" the Billie Jean bass from him. I don't know if the guy who is spreading this is the same who runs this website: http://www.gruvgear.com/articles/detail/32/ because that too flat out claims that McKinney "wrote the bass line for Billie Jean":

Legendary multi-platinum bass player Mike McKinney, who has played in several tours and recordings with Michael Jackson and wrote the famous bass line for "Billie Jean" shares, "After over 30 years of playing in venues from clubs to auditoriums to arenas, I've always felt awkward having my bass sit on one shoulder with one strap. I discovered the DuoStrap from Gruv Gear and fell in love with it ? This strap revolutionizes the way you hold the bass and takes the pressure off one shoulder. It's really much more comfortable to stand and there's not much pressure any more. It's much better playing to people when you're comfortable!"

In another place I saw him refer to McKinney as "our friend", so I guess this is something that McKinney claims to his friends and people who know him, who in turn write about it as if it's fact on the Internet.

How many more people will claim to have written Billie Jean's bass line?

I don't think the bass line in itself is so special that several people cannot come up with something similar. Also a bass line alone doesn't make a song. A song has to be built around it to make it work. The bass line works fantastically in the song Billie Jean, but alone it's nothing, just a bass line and in another song it would not work this way.

Also there is this obsession with being 100% original in today's music, but it's a ridiculous obsession because no one is 100% original. In every song there can be found elements those have been played somewhere else before. In classical music with classical composers it was a common practice to borrow musical elements, parts, musical ideas from each other, or from unknown/less famous musicians or from folk music (more often than not uncredited) and incorporate it into their own work and take it to another level. No one questions Bach, Handel or Mozart's songwriting talent for it. They all did it. ALL of them. And IMO they all do it in popular music as well. Unless a song is a blatant rip off of something, it's not stealing, it's just how music and art worked and developed for centuries. You hear an idea, you take it to another level and you incorporate it in your work. That's what art is about! Nothing is 100% original. Unless you invented music itself, you cannot claim that you are 100% original.

McKinney might have (or might not - who can tell, if his memory serves him right?) played something similar to BJ's bass line in a jam session he had with Michael or the Jacksons, but that doesn't make him the co-writer of BJ. It also doesn't mean that no one else ever came up with a similar bass line before him (it's not that complex), so how can he claim to be the inventor of it? I see a lot of ego in such claims and people trying hard to "achieve" something on the back of Michael.

 

[dam2040]

I'd love to hear the later versions of Billie Jean. We all know the track so well and it'd be cool to hear alternate mixes.

 

[AliCat]

Dang Petrarose I am almost stumped playing them simultaneously as to maybe the story is true! Maybe it's why Hall and Oates are in "We Are The World" because of Michael's personal reasons for the contribution with "Billie Jean" and the Bass line. Wow!

Aw heck, to go a little deeper, maybe it was really "We Are The World" of which Paul Simon and Harry Belafonte came up with the conceptual ideology of "Graceland." http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jan/02/great-performances-paul-simons-graceland-journey/

 

[Thoth]

I think it's funny when i hear the story about Quincy Jones not wanting Billie Jean on Thriller and the media portray him as ''the genius producer who was making all the smart choices'' and say crap like ''Thriller was really Quincy Jones vision''

Thriller wouldn't be as successful as it is today without Billie Jean

Quincy was always weird like that for some reason. The only time he won a battle was when "Another Part Of me" made Bad instead of Streetwalker and that was thanks to Frank dileo. He wasn't a fan of Smooth Criminal either apparently. Now just imagine Thriller without BJ and Bad without SC? lol

 

[analogue]

Quincy was always weird like that for some reason. The only time he won a battle was when "Another Part Of me" made Bad instead of Streetwalker and that was thanks to Frank dileo. He wasn't a fan of Smooth Criminal either apparently. Now just imagine Thriller without BJ and Bad without SC? lol

I remember Quincy saying that when they had to choose between Streetwalker and Another Part Of Me that it didn't make any difference to Michael what song was picked because Michael wrote both of them himself

 

[Thoth]

I remember Quincy saying that when they had to choose between Streetwalker and Another Part Of Me that it didn't make any difference to Michael what song was picked because Michael wrote both of them himself

It didn't make any difference to Michael but he still preferred Streetwalker. Q wanted APOM so instead of debating they let Frank decide.

 

[Petrarose]

Dang Petrarose I am almost stumped playing them simultaneously as to maybe the story is true! Maybe it's why Hall and Oates are in "We Are The World" because of Michael's personal reasons for the contribution with "Billie Jean" and the Bass line. Wow!

Aw heck, to go a little deeper, maybe it was really "We Are The World" of which Paul Simon and Harry Belafonte came up with the conceptual ideology of "Graceland." http://www.kpbs.org/news/2013/jan/02/great-performances-paul-simons-graceland-journey/

Yes. Now to you hear the whole thing the same or is it that you can hear bits & pieces of similarity. I wonder why Michael never mentioned this before, since he tends to talk about how he created his music.

Streetwalker energy seems to fit along with a BAD album more, to me, although I like APOM too.

 

[WhoIsIt89]

I think both of those covers stink. The Ian Brown one is just disastrous. On the other hand, I like Kanye's version of Billie Jean.

 

[144000]

It didn't make any difference to Michael but he still preferred Streetwalker. Q wanted APOM so instead of debating they let Frank decide.

Man..i will never give any credit for a final decision on a Michael album while he was here, to anybody, but Michael. I have learned over the years, that unless I heard it from Michael's unedited mouth, i never believed it. So as far as I am concerned, whatever ended up in the stores, while Michael was here, was Michael's final decision. Including..APOM. And..as far as BJ vs ICGFT by Hall or whatever..all i listen to is Billie Jean, so the MJ x factor is all the originality i need. That's what made Michael the legend he is, forever...and what all this backriding is based upon.

 

[Lucilla]

Man..i will never give any credit for a final decision on a Michael album while he was here, to anybody, but Michael. I have learned over the years, that unless I heard it from Michael's unedited mouth, i never believed it. So as far as I am concerned, whatever ended up in the stores, while Michael was here, was Michael's final decision. Including..APOM.

I believe so too.
Deciding which song goes in an album is not something to take lightly. I bet the guy who had creative control (MJ) decided that.

Anyway, between Streetwalker and APOM, well I think the choice was pretty obvious IMO...

 

[AliCat]

@Petrarose "Yes. Now to you hear the whole thing the same or is it that you can hear bits & pieces of similarity."

---Michael copped the groove from "I Can't Go For That (No Can Do), Michael sampled it.

It starts with the bass line on the organ and then goes on to the drum machine, the similarities, starting with the intro.

 

[Petrarose]

^^AliCat I finally was able to play them together & yes it is there. Does it seem to you that one of them is a little faster, or is it that what is above the baseline in the Billie Jean is more exciting/dramatic?

 

[AliCat]

Licks are usually associated with single-note melodic lines rather than chord progressions. However, like riffs, licks can be used as the basis of an entire song.

So with that in mind, it's the same, the baseline in both song's Petrarose!--- Does it seem to you that one of them is a little faster, or is it that what is above the baseline in the Billie Jean is more exciting/dramatic?

 

[Petrarose]

^^Yes i think you are right. What is above the baseline in Billie Jean is more exciting & dramatic so it makes the whole piece sound faster.