The music industry just lost another legend this week. Chris Cornell died on May 17 and will be remembered for inventing the grunge.
Chris has a very specific voice and when it took the challenge to do a cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, the result is beautiful!
Speaking to Rolling Stone in 2009 following Jackson’s death, Cornell reflected on what many saw as an unusual choice on his part. “The brilliance of ‘Billie Jean’ came to me when I was reading the lyrics for the first time, which was around the time that I was doing that arrangement, and the idea came from a conversation I had with my wife about the art of the cover song, because she would bring up ideas about songs I should cover, and I would always shoot ’em down, and I would explain the art of it: You can cover a song by an artist you are obviously influenced by and you will reproduce it, paying homage to it, and sticking close to the original,” he said.
“So she sort of challenged me with, what would that song be for you, and I thought well, who would be the least likely artist for me to attempt to cover and the first name that popped into my head was Michael Jackson. I liked “Billie Jean” because it had that little keyboard line in it, which I thought I could turn into an electric guitar line. And it was just embarrassingly awful. When I started reading the lyrics, I realized it’s a lament, not a dance track. His moonwalking and the video as well, as just the bass line and the beat, took precedence over the meaning. The lyrics are brilliant, and the way that the way the lyrics are put together. The story isn’t spoon-fed to you, it’s poetic.”
Here it is:
SOURCE: Billboard
