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Here’s another item that’s no laughing matter. He penned it as a reaction to a woman stalking him who claimed the two had a son together. For Jackson this was a serious song with a serious message. Allegedly, the song isn’t a complete work of fiction.
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From the instant I decided to embark on this countdown, Billie Jean was always going to represent as its number-one song. However, there’s one thing that was never in doubt.
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I wavered on many songs concerning placement or being on the countdown all together, and to truthfully I wasn’t sure how most my list would end up when finalized. Over the course of a few days, I sat down and examined each year of this glorious decade- generating a spreadsheet and painstakingly ranking the tunes I liked. When I decided months ago I would kick off my blog by running a countdown of my favorite songs of the 1980s, I was uncertain of many things. I’m sure I’ll do future countdowns on MoranAlytics, but for me nothing will be more fun than reliving 80’s music)
#MICHAEL JACKSON GREATEST HITS BILLY JEAN SERIES#
Perhaps it will be the next to cross into the Billion Views club.(Editor’s Note: This is the 100 th and final post in my countdown, thus concluding a 100-day journey that honestly has been the most fun series I’ve written about. Meanwhile, the video for the album’s title track Thriller is nearing 765 million views on YouTube. It was a move credited with generating an extra $10 million in sales for Jackson's Thriller album, which was the bestselling album of all time for decades.
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MTV reluctantly caved, and put the Billie Jean video in heavy rotation only after it topped the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. Subsequently, Walter Yetnikoff, then president of CBS, told MTV that if it didn’t air Billie Jean, he’d pull all the label’s other artists off the channel, never give them any videos in the future, and would tell the media that MTV didn’t want to play Black artists' music. They reportedly didn’t feel that Black music was "rock" enough. When Jackson’s record company, CBS Records, first asked MTV to play Billie Jean, the programming executives at the channel refused. © IMAGO / Hans Lucasīecause of racism and segregation in the music business, MTV wouldn’t play any videos by Black acts during its early years. The video Michael Jackson's Thriller is nearing 765 million views on YouTube. Some could argue that Jackson wouldn’t have reached the levels of superstardom he enjoyed in the ’80s if MTV hadn’t resisted and then been bullied by his record company into playing Billie Jean. The infectious track, written by Jackson and produced by Quincy Jones, won two Grammy Awards and two American Music Awards. Guns N’ Roses’ Sweet Child O’ Mine from 1988, and a-ha's 1984 groundbreaking video for Take On Me, are the only others to have previously achieved one billion clicks.Īccording to YouTube, the Billie Jean video has been averaging 600,000 daily views globally this year alone.īillie Jean – which was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame in 1992 – is considered one of the greatest videos of all time. The accomplishment makes it only the third music video of the ’80s to rack up that many views, and the first ’80s clip by a solo artist to ever hit that benchmark. © Collage: 123RF/gilc & IMAGO / LFIĭebuting on MTV in March 1983, the Steve Barron-directed clip - where Jackson lands on his toes and illuminates tiles on the ground - has now crossed one billion views on YouTube. Michael Jackson's music video for Billie Jean (r) was initially banned from being played on MTV, due to the network's refusal to showcase Black artists.