by Craig Marks
ABBEY KONOWITCH: MTV adhered to a rock format, and record companies accepted formats. That’s how radio was programmed. We never thought an R&B artist would get played on MTV. It didn’t enter our minds until “Billie Jean.”
Chapter 14
“I’M NOT LIKE OTHER BOYS”
MICHAEL JACKSON SAVES A STRUGGLING NETWORK FROM ITSELF
CBS RECORDS AND MTV BOTH PROFITED IMMENSELY from the success of Michael Jackson. But neither party can agree on how it happened, and each, in effect, says the other is lying. MTV says they loved “Billie Jean” and were happy to play it; CBS says MTV turned down the video and played it only after the label threatened to pull its videos, which comprised a substantial part of MTV’s playlist.
“The MTV version of the story is bullshit,” says a former CBS executive who asked to not be named. “Walter Yetnikoff loved to fight. So did David Benjamin. They both relished a fight, and there was a sense of justice about it, too.” If key CBS executives are lying, it’s to exaggerate their power and importance. If MTV executives are lying, it’s to disguise the fact that they had to be forced to play a singer who more or less saved their network. Also, if they did reject “Billie Jean,” it’s consistent with Bob Pittman’s often-stated commitment to maintaining a rock n’ roll playlist.
This much is inarguable: MTV did not immediately play “Billie Jean.” By the time MTV added it, the song had been out for more than two months and had reached number one, and Thriller had ended Men at Work’s long run at the top of the album chart. A Billboard article in March 1983 observed that “some time elapsed between when the tape was submitted [to MTV] and when it was aired,” and writer Paul Grein added in the article, the “decision to add a mainstream black music smash, even if its mass audience appeal is by now rather obvious, is significant.”
At first, MTV added “Billie Jean” in medium rotation, with two to three plays per day. It was bumped into heavy rotation a month later, only a week before MTV began to play “Beat It.” For eight weeks, both songs were in heavy rotation. Then “Beat It” dropped out, and after four more weeks, so did “Billie Jean.” By early summer, Michael Jackson was off MTV, even as Thriller remained at number one. Medium rotation for “Billie Jean,” eight weeks of rotation for “Beat It”: This is strong but not overwhelming support.
At a point when it seemed Thriller’s run was over, Jackson released the “Thriller” video—strategically, just before the Christmas buying season. The upper range of a video budget was $50,000; Jackson spent $1 million. It was the most elaborate video ever made, and this time, MTV was fully behind it. The decision, and the success it brought MTV at a time when staffers worried daily about the network’s survival, effectively ended the policy of playing only rock artists.
BOB PITTMAN: Rick James made the claim that MTV wasn’t playing any black videos. I figured, “That’s ridiculous, people will watch MTV and know it’s not true.” I learned my first great PR lesson there. The press ran with MTV PLAYS NO BLACK VIDEOS, ALLEGES RICK JAMES. All of us realized, “God, we’d better work extra hard to find some black videos.” And the problem was not just black videos. No one was making videos yet. But people got paranoid about it, and it began to be a problem. So we looked for artists. And when the guys saw “Billie Jean,” they said, “This is it.”
ROBIN SLOANE: I was at Epic when the “Billie Jean” video came out. MTV refused to play it under the guise that it was not an AOR record. It became a huge battle. Those negotiations were mostly handled by Freddy DeMann and Ron Weisner, who were managing Michael. Michael paid for the video himself. He owned it. We had nothing to do with it. And our head of pop promotion, Frank DiLeo, got involved as well.
JEFF AYEROFF: Quincy Jones called one day and told me to come to his office and meet Michael. He asked me who should do Michael’s video. I played them the Human League “Don’t You Want Me” video and said, “That’s who should do the video.”
STEVE BARRON: Michael Jackson liked “Don’t You Want Me,” so his management contacted me. They said he had a new song coming out and he wanted something cinematic. I got the track and loved it. I had this flash to do something magical, where he’d have a Midas Touch, and everything he touches lights up. I’d had a similar idea for a Joan Armatrading video that never happened, and as soon as I heard “Billie Jean” I went back to that idea.
SIMON FIELDS: Steve originally wrote a Wizard of Oz–ish concept that cost way more than we could afford.
STEVE BARRON: Michael really liked the treatment I wrote. And the budget was set at somewhere around $55,000 for a two-day shoot. Then he had an idea that would have required a choreographer and dancers and another $5,000. Simon Fields called CBS, and CBS said, “No way. No. Way.”
Michael was lovely. Really sweet, soft-spoken, and excited about this next step in his career. He felt like he’d grown up, even from Off the Wall. Freddy DeMann called me and said Michael had been practicing dance moves in front of the mirror, so it would be good to save some of the video for him to dance. There’s an interview somewhere with Michael where he says the director on “Billie Jean” didn’t want him to dance. Which is completely and utterly untrue. Can you imagine me saying, “Sorry, Michael, I don’t want to have dancing in your video”?
DANIEL PEARL: Steve Barron and I brought in a guy from England named Eric Critchley. He did matte paintings. We didn’t have much money, so we built a small set and faked the rest. We’d set up a shot where the set might occupy only a third or a quarter of the frame. Then we’d put a piece of glass between the camera and the set, and Critchley would paint an extension of the set on the glass. And we’d fill up the whole frame with the blend of the actual set and Eric’s painting. For example, there’s a scene where Michael is walking down the sidewalk and you see a wide shot of the sidewalk and the buildings. In reality, only the sidewalk and the first floor of the storefront existed. Above the first floor, the buildings were painted on glass. But it looks like one big set.
RAQUEL PENA: I had posters of Michael Jackson on my wall when I was a kid, and then I spent fourteen hours alongside him for “Billie Jean.” They took my picture and superimposed it on a big billboard, and they put me in bed right next to him. He got in and laid down, and we both giggled. He was the gentlest guy, hiding and playing on the set, just having fun. His brothers came—I think he had six or seven siblings there.
WAYNE ISHAM: I worked on several Michael videos in those days. Years later, when I directed “You Are Not Alone,” I said, “Michael, I’ve worked with you before.” And he goes, “Really, Wayne? When?” And I go, “Dude, I’m the one who picked up the tiger’s shit from ‘Billie Jean’!”
PAUL FLATTERY: While we were making “Billie Jean,” MTV called and said, “We don’t want ‘Billie Jean’ first, we want ‘Beat It.’” Because “Beat It” had Eddie Van Halen playing guitar on it. We didn’t have any control over which videos the labels were going to make, or in what order. But MTV was green when they started out. They thought we owned the videos.
GALE SPARROW: We wanted “Beat It” to be the first Thriller video, because Eddie Van Halen was on it. But “Billie Jean” was fabulous. We started to realize that we had to open up the playlist a bit. We realized we had a broader audience than we’d thought.
LES GARLAND: We got a copy of “Billie Jean.” I had huge speakers in my office. I mean, I’d rock the fucking building. And so we popped in the video and invited everybody in, and it became a party. And from the first shot, I was mind-blown. It was like the first time I saw “Hungry Like the Wolf.” We got it on the air as quick as we could.
SUSAN BLOND, record executive: In those days, we usually had a messenger bring a new video to MTV, but in this case, we realized it was special. I brought them this amazing video, and they said, basically, “This doesn’t fit onto our network.” I first met Michael when he was a kid, and he was obsessed with the Osmonds—they were getting more coverage than the Jacksons, because Michael was black. This had been a major thing wit
h Michael—his whole life, he had been excluded from the media because he was black.
BRUCE DICKINSON: All I can tell you is what I heard Walter Yetnikoff say. I was sitting in Bob Sherwood’s office while Walter was talking to Don Dempsey, who was the head of Epic Records, and Sherwood, the vice president of marketing for Columbia Records, who was there because what Walter had to say affected both labels. Walter goes, “If they don’t play this, I’m going to pull all the CBS videos.” That’s the way Walter was. He liked to fight. MTV would always say, “Well, it doesn’t quite fit our format.” They’d use every euphemism for “He’s black!” It was really sick stuff.
DAVID BENJAMIN, record executive: I was vice president of business affairs for CBS Records. I helped negotiate our contract with MTV, and there was a clause that allowed us to pull all our videos on twenty-four hours’ notice. This was for our own protection, in case we hadn’t negotiated the proper clearances with our acts to supply their videos to MTV. We hadn’t intended it, but that clause gave us a heavy hammer to wield.
The “Billie Jean” video came in, and it was brilliant. Susan Blond was doing video promotion, and she came back from MTV and told me they didn’t want to play it. I knew Bob Pittman well, so I called him. He didn’t take the call. Then I called Les. He didn’t take the call. Eventually, I got Sykes on the phone. I said, “The fickle finger of fate points at you, John. If you don’t play ‘Billie Jean,’ we’re pulling all our videos off the air.” We were CBS. You didn’t fuck around with us.
After I hung up, I walked around the corner to tell Walter Yetnikoff what I’d done. When I got there, his secretary Bonnie said, “He’s on the phone with Bob Pittman.” Walter waved me in and he was laughing. He said, “It’s your friend Bob Pittman. Bob says they’ll play ‘Billie Jean.’” And let’s face it, that video made MTV, right? Because all of a sudden they started playing black videos. We integrated MTV.
JOHN SYKES: That’s David’s recollection of what happened. I’ve heard that before. But I don’t remember having that conversation with him. And I wouldn’t be the person to get that call. Discussions about “Billie Jean” would have come down to Bob and Walter—not even Bob and David, but Bob and Walter.
CAROLYN BAKER: I don’t know if Walter ever talked to Bob directly, but I think that’s exactly what the hell happened: CBS threatened to pull its videos, and Bob and Garland tried to cover that up. MTV was a white boy’s trip. That’s what it was.
RON WEISNER, manager: We submitted “Billie Jean” to MTV, but they didn’t add it that first week. We were not only appalled, but surprised, too, because production-value wise, it was a great video, especially for the times. If you looked at “Billie Jean” versus everything else that was out there, there was no comparison. It was a different animal. But then what happened was, the video sort of leaked out; people saw it and were raving about it, and then MTV jumped on it. They were getting beat up because they weren’t playing black artists, so we became a test case for them.
RON McCARRELL, record executive: When Ron Weisner brought in the video, we all flipped out, because it was ground-breaking. But he told us he’d run into some resistance at MTV—they were playing Journey and Van Halen, and said Michael Jackson wasn’t “right for our audience.” Our position was, How can you not play this? Ron told me his next stop was Walter’s office. Then Walter called me and said, “I just spoke to MTV and they’re gonna add the Michael Jackson video now.” I heard this directly from Walter, and also from Ron Weisner.
Pittman and Garland are friends of mine, and they have a different version of it that’s almost dismissive: “I don’t know what you’re talking about, we loved that video, we put it right on.” I believe our version of the story. There’s a mountain of circumstantial evidence that to me, proves it beyond a reasonable doubt.
FREDDY DeMANN, manager: Ron Weisner and I were comanaging Michael Jackson when “Billie Jean” came out. I had a good relationship with MTV, and I pitched the video. They said, “No, we can’t play it.” We all called MTV. We persevered like crazy. I went to Walter. Walter was very colorful. He called MTV and made the appropriate threats. “Billie Jean” was just too great a song not to. And it worked. They acquiesced.
WALTER YETNIKOFF: My recollection about “Billie Jean”—and I was drinking and drugging a lot during that period, so my memory’s a little spotty—is that I called Pittman and said, “You have to play this video.” He said, “We’re a rock station, Walter, we don’t play black music.” I said, “That’s great. I’m pulling all my stuff. Then I’m gonna tell the whole world what your attitude is towards black people.” Then I said, “And I’m calling Quincy Jones.” Quincy produced Thriller, of course. But just as important, Quincy was close to Steve Ross, who ran Warner Communications and was part owner of MTV. If Quincy called Ross to complain about MTV, that would be that. And Pittman said, “All right, all right, we’ll play it.” Now they say they played “Billie Jean” because they loved it. How plausible is it that they “loved it”? Their playlist had no black artists on it. And at the time, Michael Jackson was black. So what is this bullshit that they loved it? They were forced into it by me.
LES GARLAND: I love him dearly, but I believe Walter Yetnikoff cooked up that story about threatening to pull CBS videos if we didn’t play “Billie Jean.” I got more grief from Walter for not playing Barbra Streisand!
BOB PITTMAN: If anybody at CBS thought that we weren’t going to play Michael Jackson, they were out of their minds. Walter Yetnikoff claims that he made us play the video. That’s such a typical Walter trick, to make himself seem important to his artists. Quincy Jones, Michael’s producer, is my oldest son’s godfather. He and I often laugh about Walter.
RONALD “BUZZ” BRINDLE: We may have declined it initially. It seems to me CBS threatened to pull their videos. My reaction was “Great, go tell your rock acts they’re not getting exposed on MTV because we’re not gonna play Michael Jackson’s video.” There was a confrontation.
LARRY STESSEL, record executive: I heard from some fellow executives at CBS that Walter was out of his mind about “Billie Jean” and was going to pull all of our videos at MTV if they didn’t play it. The story I heard—I don’t know if it’s true—was that Walter called Pittman. But even if MTV didn’t play black videos, they were going to play “Billie Jean.” It’s one of the most perfect songs ever made. It’s like “I Want to Hold Your Hand”—how can you not like it? It’s “Billie Jean,” for God’s sake.
JOHN SYKES: Michael Jackson was the reason MTV went from big to huge. He put us at the center of the culture.
SUSAN BLOND: Eventually, when “Billie Jean” went on the air, someone from CBS sent champagne to MTV. I thought that was disgusting, because they’d given us such a hard time and been so awful.
TREACH, Naughty by Nature: Are you kidding me? The “Billie Jean” video was major. I rocked a red pleather jacket, can’t lie. I wasn’t too hardcore for that.
RALPH TRESVANT: When “Billie Jean” came on the TV, I lost my brains.
PAUL FLATTERY: Steve Barron was initially hired to do both “Billie Jean” and “Beat It.” I think his “Beat It” was going to be set on a slave boat.
RONALD “BUZZ” BRINDLE: For the “Beat It” clip, Michael originally wanted to do it on a white slave ship with him as the slave master. I heard that from a director in Roberta Cruger’s office.
SIOBHAN BARRON: CBS originally wanted Steve to direct “Beat It” as well, but they didn’t like our concept. It was more political. It had something to do with a slave ship. All the Americans were flipping out.
PAUL FLATTERY: Michael was very mercurial, and he saw something by Bob Giraldi and asked him to direct “Beat It.” And it was fantastic, obviously.
BOB GIRALDI, director: I was disappointed. “Billie Jean” had been the track I really wanted to direct.
STEVE BARRON: I have friends who say “Billie Jean” changed their lives. But “Beat It” quickly came along and stole a lot of the thunder,
because it was harder and edgier.
FREDDY DeMANN: Bob Giraldi was the hot commercial director. His reel was phenomenal. He found a dilapidated area in downtown LA. Michael went up to the apartment where we were shooting interiors, jumped on the bed as if it were his own bed, in his own room, in his own house. He became part of it. The beat and melody of “Billie Jean” are phenomenal, but “Beat It” was a better visual. It brought out who and what Michael really was.
RON WEISNER: For “Beat It,” Michael and I spent a lot of time trying to define exactly what we wanted, and to find somebody who could translate that. I looked at hundreds of demo reels, and the one that stuck out was Bob Giraldi’s. He had a PSA on his reel for a free clinic or something. It was very street, and that’s what we wanted: we wanted to do a contemporary version of West Side Story.