Quincy Jones says Michael Jackson stole songs including ‘Billie Jean’. But can you hear it?
‘Michael stole a lot of stuff … The notes don’t lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as they come’
Quincy Jones, the legendary music producer behind Michael Jackson, says that the late King of Pop plagiarised some of his hits.
“I hate to get into this publicly, but Michael stole a lot of stuff. He stole a lot of songs,” Jones said in an interview full of eyebrow-raising comments published Tuesday by Vulture, the culture site of New York magazine.
“The notes don’t lie, man. He was as Machiavellian as they come,” the 84-year-old music veteran said.
He specifically cited Billie Jean – a signature song off the Jones-produced Thriller, the top-selling album of all times.
Jones suggested similarities between the song and disco queen Donna Summer’s State of Independence, which was also produced by Jones and released several months earlier in 1982.