Posts from 14th January 2010

14
Jan 10

The FT Top 100 Tracks Of All Time #19: Michael Jackson – Billie Jean

• FT • /// • Post a comment • 1,593 views

There really isn’t much to add about Billie Jean that wasn’t mentioned in Tom’s excellent piece for Popular, or indeed in this Freaky Trigger & The Lollards Of Pop episode where we heard Jackson’s slightly ramshackle unformed demos of the song. So I will give you the one thing that always made me wary of Billie Jean, bar it being on an album that my family had already dismissed for being “silly”. The name. Who is called “Billie Jean”?

So in lieu of saying anything about Billie Jean, here are some other prominent Billie Jeans, or Billies Jeans.

Billie Jean King: Probably the most famous Billie Jean, and almost certainly the most important female tennis player of all time. But was Michael Jackson a big tennis fan. It would certainly make sense when Mike says she is not his girl though, by 1983 she had been outed. Certainly if Mike chose the name to honour her, he would have been way ahead of the US: she did finally receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Barack Obama last year. But apparently Quincy Jones (who never liked Billie Jean anyway) wanted to change the name of the song because he though people would think it would be about Billie Jean King.

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Camembert de Normandie (cheesy lover #63)

• FT + Pumpkin Publog • / • Post a comment • 1,432 views

My cheese was not as melty as this one

This is a soft raw milk cows’ cheese from Normandy, bought from Mons

My colleague Lars joins me for a cheesy lunch, and fancies something brie-ish oozing out of bread. We acquire a little wooden box of camembert from Mons – it’s the drippiest white-rind cheese they’ve got for sale today. It’s covered in a slightly patchy and uneven fuzzy white mould, and a rich, sticky orange rind peeks out from underneath this. The pale creamy yellow paste’s exposed when I cut a wedge, and while it’s not quite as oozy I’d count perfect, it’s still pretty moist.

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NICK BERRY – “Every Loser Wins”

• FT + Popular • 102 comments • 9,686 views

#578, 18th October 1986, video

Here’s a thing: I have never watched an episode of Eastenders. Not all through. Too much shouting for me. I’m neither proud nor ashamed of this but it does mean I missed out on the astonishing storyline in which “Every Loser Wins” made its debut before it became the first soap star single to reach number one. I’m missing some critical context on “Wicksy” here, people, and I expect you to fully enlighten me in the comments box.

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