Ben (album)

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Ben
Ben cover
Studio album by Michael Jackson
Released August 4, 1972
Recorded 1971-1972
Genre Bubblegum pop/Soul
Length  ??
Label Motown
Producer(s) Hal Davis
Michael Jackson chronology
Got to Be There
(1971)
Ben
(1972)
A Collection Of Michael Jackson's Oldies
(1972)


Ben was the second full-length solo album by teenage pop-soul music phenomenon Michael Jackson. Released in August 1972, seven months after his auspicious debut as a soloist, Got to Be There, the album showcased a Jackson in vocal and artistic growth. A number of the songs on the album are ballads, a genre which was rare in the main Jackson 5 repertoire, but would become a staple of Michael Jackson's over the course of his four-decade solo career.

The album's title track helped separate Jackson from his family and his pop music contemporaries convincing an audience he could belt out a ballad, even though the song was dedicated to a rat, that was eulogized in the 1972 film that gives the album its name. However, no one noticed, as the song became the first of Jackson's thirteen #1 solo hit singles, and garnered both a Golden Globe award win and an Academy Award nomination. The album peaked at #5 Pop and #4 R&B upon its release.

[edit] Track listing

  1. "Ben" (Black/Scharf)
  2. "The Greatest Show on Earth" (Larson/Marcellino)
  3. "People Make the World Go Round" (Bell/Creed)
  4. "We've Got a Good Thing Going" (The Corporation)
  5. "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" (Adams/Hampton)
  6. "My Girl" (Robinson/White)
  7. "What Goes Around Comes Around" (Levinsky/Stokes/Meyers/Weatherspoon)
  8. "In Our Small Way" (Verdi/Yarian)
  9. "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day" (Cosby/Moy/Wonder)
  10. "You Can Cry On My Shoulder" (Gordy)

[edit] Charted Hit

[edit] Music samples