Cee Lo Green Gets Inspired By Michael Jackson On “Bright Lights Bigger City”
Cee Lo Green, who has been overwhelmed with musical nostalgia on his last few old-school tracks, creeps toward the modern age with the sleek, synthy new tune, “Bright Lights Bigger City”, which could have come right out of the late 70s, early 80s. In fact, the beat is knocked off from Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”, with strings recalling the theme from James Bond flick “You Only Live Twice”. Listen below!
The “Billie Jean”-inspired beat (we’ve been told it’s not literally a sample) is perfectly used here — it’s subtle and doesn’t overpower the whole song. Basically, “Bright Lights Bigger City” would still work without it, as opposed to, say, Jason Derulo’s “Whatcha Say” or Nicki Minaj’s “Your Love“, which pretty much owe the popularity of their whole song to the original source material they’re sampling. (Imogen Heap and Annie Lennox, respectively.) Nor does it feel haphazardly crammed in there, like the Dirty Dancing song “(I’ve Had) The Time Of My Life” in the Black Eyed Peas’ new ditty, “The Time (The Dirty Bit)“.
Cee Lo’s The Lady Killer drops November 9.
