Chris Cornell is A Genius

Last year a guy from work gave this CD to my husband and one day my husband put it in my car. He said you've got to hear this. It's Chris Cornell doing Billie Jean. I'll clarify here and now, that yes, I owned Thriller. And yes I loved Soundgarden. So of course I was eager to hear this odd meshing of the two. What I heard blew me away.

I've always thought Chris Cornell somehow missed out a little bit on being a much bigger star. He was definitely in a different league then the other grunge band that were huge at the time. Nirvana was awesome, but to me Soundgarden was just bad ass. But this, Billie Jean? That's something I never would've have expected. 

What soul, and what a haunting melody! I couldn't help but wonder if somewhere, Michael Jackson wasn't thinking to himself, "Now why didn't I think of that?" In MJ's defense though, it seems Chris Cornell's arrangement just simply removed all the pop fluff and kept only the meat of a great song. 

Last week on American Idol one of the contestants sang this version of Billie Jean. It was good. But, it was good because Chris Cornell arranged a kick ass tune. It's nice to know that every once in awhile music can still surprise me.