Michael Jackson – Billie Jean

“Billie Jean” – Single by Michael Jackson from the album Thriller
B-side “Can’t Get Outta the Rain” (US) / “It’s the Falling in Love” (UK)
Released January 3, 1983
Recorded 1982
Studio Westlake (Los Angeles, California)[1]
Label Epic
Songwriter Michael Jackson
Producers Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson
Charted No.1 in US (Billboard Hot 100), No.1 in UK, No.1 in Switzerland, No.1 in Australia, No.1 in Belgium, No.1 Canada, No.1 in France, No.1 in Ireland, No.1 in Italy, No.2 in Sweden, No.2 in West Germany.

When “Billie Jean” ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated March 5, 1983, Jackson became the first artist to top four pop and R&B charts simultaneously: The song marked its fourth week atop the then-named Black Singles chart (now Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs), while the album from which it was released, Thriller, had crowned the Black LPs (since renamed Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums) and Top LPs & Tapes (now the Billboard 200) charts for, respectively, six and two weeks.

This song is about a girl who claimed Jackson was the father of her child. Jackson based it on a woman who used to stalk him, writing him letters about a son she thought was his. Jackson rarely spoke about this woman, but he had a very hard time dealing with this unwanted attention and became more reclusive as a result. The song was his way of expressing his feelings without addressing her directly.

While Jackson didn’t give many details about the real Billie Jean, his producer Quincy Jones said that Jackson found the woman one day lounging by his pool with a bathing suit and sunglasses on. According to Jones, she accused Jackson of being the father of one of her twins, which Jones thought was pretty funny.

Michael Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” on the TV special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever was nominated for an Emmy Award. It introduced a number of Jackson’s signatures, including the moonwalk, rhinestone glove, black sequined jacket, and high-water pants, and was widely imitated. The “Billie Jean” music video, directed by Steve Barron, was the first video by a black artist to be aired in heavy rotation on MTV. Along with the other videos produced for Thriller, it helped establish MTV’s cultural importance and make music videos an integral part of popular music marketing. The spare, bass-driven arrangement of “Billie Jean” helped pioneer what one critic called “sleek, post-soul pop music”. It also introduced a more paranoid lyrical style for Jackson, a trademark of his later music.

“Billie Jean” was awarded honors including two Grammy Awards and an American Music Award. Billboard ranked it as the No. 2 song for 1983. In a list compiled by Rolling Stone and MTV in 2000, the song was ranked as the sixth greatest pop song since 1963. Rolling Stone placed it at number 58 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and at number 44 in its 2021 update of the list. The song was also included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll. Frequently featured in lists of the best songs of all time, “Billie Jean” was named the greatest dance record of all time by BBC Radio 2 listeners.

MTV initially refused to air the video for “Billie Jean”, as the network’s executives felt black music did not fit into its “rock”-centered programming at the time. Enraged by their refusal despite Jackson’s success as a musical artist, Walter Yetnikoff, the president of Jackson’s record company CBS Records, threatened to expose MTV’s stance on racial discrimination: “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 fucking tell them about the fact you don’t want to play music by a black guy.'” MTV relented and premiered the “Billie Jean” music video on March 10, 1983. After the video was aired in heavy rotation, Thriller went on to sell an additional 10 million copies. It was one of the first videos by a black artist to be aired regularly by the channel.

The music video was directed by Steve Barron, who was chosen because Jackson and Quincy Jones liked his work on the Human League video for “Don’t You Want Me.” Barron’s original idea was more complex and involved a group of dancers. With budget a factor, they simplified the concept and went with the idea of Jackson having a Midas Touch, with the squares he stepped on lighting up. To save on set design, they used a technique where painted glass was placed in front of the camera to fill in the wide shots without building actual set pieces. You can see this on some shots where Jackson is on a sidewalk with a city landscape behind him.

Barron remembered being in awe of the King of Pop: “We shot that first take, got to the end, and everyone – up in the gantries, eating their sandwiches, reading the paper, painters working on another set – just burst into applause. We all just knew we’d seen another era of superstar.”

On the 1983 TV special Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, Jackson performed this song live for the first time, which was the first time he did the Moonwalk. This was also the first time Jackson wore his famous white glove on stage – at the time it was a modified golf glove. In subsequent performances of the song, Jackson used similar choreography, always wowing the crowd with the Moonwalk, which became his signature dance move.

Jackson likely learned the move – known as the Backslide – from Jeffrey Daniel, a member of Shalamar who did it on Soul Train.