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Kanye, Will.i.am Take On 'Thriller'

The duo add their talents to some of the album's best-loved tracks

December 27, 2007
kanye west will.i.am
Kanye West and Will.I.Am at the Grammy Foundations Starry Night with Quincy Jones in Los Angeles.
Jason Merritt/FilmMagic

Twenty-five years after Michael Jackson released Thriller, the world's best-selling disc is getting a makeover for its re-release on February 12th. The two-disc set – which includes demos, videos, live footage and the unreleased Thriller-session jam "For All Time" – also features revamped versions of classic tracks: Kanye West puts his spin on "Billie Jean" and Will.i.am takes on "P.Y.T." and "The Girl Is Mine." (will is also working on Jackson's comeback album, due out in 2008.) In other Jackson news, the singer could reunite with his siblings next year for a Jackson 5 tour, according to his brother Jermaine. "We feel we have to do it one more time," Jermaine told BBC Radio. "We owe that to the fans."

This is a story from the December 27th, 2007 issue of Rolling Stone.

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Song Stories

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Fishbone | 1985

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.

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