But Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson were indeed colossi, and they did once rule the world.įor around seven years, Michael Jackson was the most luminous, powerful, influential star in the music business, and no one else was even close. Members of the latter group often become so strange, so pathetic, so self-destructive that it is hard for people who come after them to believe that they were once colossi who ruled the world. Obviously, Jackson had his way.There are four kinds of pop stars: the ones that work hard at remaining cool and stylish and vaguely hip long after their careers have plateaued (David Bowie, James Brown, John Lennon, Cher) the ones that gracefully enter middle age and assume the role of living legend/elder statesman (Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan) the ones who never understand that it is time to get off the stage (Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart) and the ones who simply lose their grip and drift off into the void (Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson). Producer Quincy Jones didn’t like the bass line or the title, infamously pushing to change “Billie Jean” to “Not My Lover,” so as not to confuse with then-tennis pro Billie Jean King. There’s certainly a musical fingerprint present in both, even if “Billie Jean” beefs up the production with a slicker, more full-bodied style.
That’s okay it’s something we all do.” The groove in question originally appears in “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do),” off the duo’s 1981 record Private Eyes. Musician Daryl Hall, famously one-half of Hall & Oates, claims Jackson told him “directly… that he hoped I didn’t mind that he copped that groove. In listening to “Billie Jean,” the bass line may feel more than a little familiar, and it is. But I was so absorbed by this tune floating in my head that I didn’t even focus on the awful possibilities until later.” If the car had exploded, we could have been killed. We were getting off the freeway when a kid on a motorcycle pulls up to us and says, ‘Your car’s on fire.’ Suddenly, we noticed the smoke and pulled over, and the whole bottom of the Rolls-Royce was on fire. “ was going around in my head, and that’s all I was thinking about. Jackson took a break from recording and went for a leisurely ride along Ventura Freeway with his longtime assistant Nelson Hayes.
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