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Title: Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (Acapella Version) Description: "Billie Jean" is a 1983 hit single from Michael Jackson's Thriller album. A number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100, the song was also the number-one R&B single for nine weeks in the United States and is widely acknowledged as one of Jackson's most critically acclaimed songs. It was voted best single of the year in The Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics' poll, and received two Grammy Awards in 1984 in the categories Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best New Rhythm & Blues Song. It was nominated for Record of the Year and Song of the Year, along with "Beat It", at the Grammy Awards of 1984. In 2005, Blender magazine recognized "Billie Jean" as the greatest song since 1980.[1] It's also his best-selling single worldwide, with 5.25 million copies sold, and contributed to the immense sales of the album Thriller. On March 6, 2006, "Billie Jean" was re-released as a single as part of Visionary - The Video Singles box set. It went on to become the highest charting UK Visionary single, reaching #11 on the UK Top 40. Largely because of the impact of the video, and the live performance in which Jackson dressed in a black fedora, a sparkly black jacket and a single white sequin glove while performing his most famous dance step, the moonwalk, and the overall haunting nature of the song itself, "Billie Jean" is regarded by some as his signature song. The song's lyrics allude to a girl who claims that Jackson was the father of her child.Jackson started writing the first demo of the song in his home in Wilson, North Carolina in the fall of 1981. When he presented the song to his co-producer Quincy Jones, Jones had problems with the title and wanted to call the song "Not My Lover". He thought when audiences heard it they would assume Jackson was referring to tennis superstar Billie Jean King.[2] He also had complaints about the length of the song's intro, believing it was too long; Jackson replied that the long intro made him want to dance. Jackson won both arguments: he got to keep the title of the song and the intro. The introduction of the character Billie Jean is foreshadowed by a four-line reference from the album's first track "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," another Jackson-penned song. In the third verse, it's evident that Billie Jean doesn't have the singer's best interests at heart, "tellin' lies and rubbin' shoulders," but her dismissal is casual: "So they called her mouth a motor." However, coupled with her appearance on the second side of the album, the listener is made privy to the earliest of Jackson's lyrics to deal with the subject of celebrity suspicion of those in their periphery (media, groupies, etc.). This marked a subtle but important occasional shift in the entertainer's material toward somewhat more adult themes. Jackson is said to have recorded his lead vocal performance on the first take. But it was Jackson's arrangements and orchestration in "Billie Jean" that helped make the song unique. Jackson had wanted to write "the perfect bass line" and has said he worked on it for a couple of weeks until he succeeded with what became the basis of the final product. He had also arranged the drum and synthesizer lines into perfect order, and with help from co-collaborator Jerry Hey on the strings and horns and Jackson's mastery at multi-tracking his voice for background vocals, completed the final production on "Billie Jean" only weeks before Epic's scheduled release of the Thriller album on December 1, 1982. "Billie Jean" officially became the second single from Thriller when it was released in January 1983.Thriller is the sixth studio album by American pop singer Michael Jackson. It was released on November 30, 1982 by Epic Records, quickly becoming the best selling album of all time with sales between 45 and 108 million copies worldwide. Seven of the nine songs on the album went on to be top 10 singles. Thriller cemented Jackson as the predominant pop star of the late 20th century, enabling him to break down racial barriers by appearing on MTV and visiting the U.S. President at the White House. The album was the first to use music videos as successful promotional tools, with the videos for "Thriller", "Billie Jean" and "Beat It", all receiving regular rotation on MTV. The album itself also received overwhelmingly positive reviews, with All Music Guide giving it a perfect score. Thriller won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year as well as six others, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008. As a sign of the album's longevity, in 2003 Thriller was ranked number 20 on the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums of All time list. Thriller is preserved by the Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry as "culturally significant". By: Esnyperx2 Added: 06/09/08 Runtime: 4:54 Views: 31,565 Comments: 25 Tags: ACAPELLA, BEST, BILLIE, FOREVER, JACKSON, JEAN, KING, MICHAEL, OF, YOUTUBE
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