Episode 38 · Pop
Billie Jean
Michael Jackson
A bassline that arrives before the singer does. We look at how a paranoid story became the engine of a pop landmark.
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Billie JeanMichael Jackson · The first four seconds
Show notes
Everything about this record is tension: the drum pattern, the bass, the story of a claim nobody can quite prove. We trace how those pieces lock into one groove and stay locked for four minutes.
Jade Monroe breaks down the mix, Layla Brooks on the narrator who protests too much, and Rio Castillo on the first time he ever heard it.