'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin,'' Michael Jackson
From 1982's 'Thriller'

It's hard to put my finger on exactly why I freakin' love this 'Thriller'-opening track. I think it's mostly because this song is weird. Weird, frenetic genius.

I won't bore with superlatives about how much the album 'Thriller' shaped my musical childhood. It pretty much defined it. Years of obsession with Michael Jackson and literally everything he did. I taped all of his videos off of MTV and had his poster on my wall. The 'Making of 'Thriller'' VHS was a prized possession. I once made a horror-film challenged friend watch it, and the behind-the-scenes film scared her so badly she got a bloody nose all over my mother's beige living room carpet. That's commitment.

When Spinner asked cover song specialist Jay Brannan for his reaction to Michael Jackson's passing, he went one better. The singer-songwriter and 'Shortbus' star sat down in his New York apartment and recorded a touching acoustic take on this 1998 classic.



Brannan tells Spinner, "Whether or not you're a Michael Jackson fan, at least one of his songs, if not many, is bound to evoke the memory of a certain time, a certain place or certain people in your life. His songs earmark pages in the lives of billions of complete strangers across the globe. I find that pretty extraordinary." And we found his tribute pretty extraordinary.

Today, our friends at AOL Radio will take requests for a station programmed entirely via Twitter. For the next 12 hours, tweet your must-hear songs to @aolradio, tagged with #aolradiorequest. You've got until midnight to tweet your requests, and the songs that get the most tweets will get the most frequent airplay. So, unless you want to hear all @iamdiddy all the time, get tweeting, people.

Our pals at SHOUTcast are finalists in the Audio and Music category of CNET's 2009 Webware 100 poll.

Thank them for helping you tune in to indie radio stations like KEXP, KCRW and WOXY, plus thousands more free stations from around the globe. Voting closes on April 30.

As U2's whirlwind week taking over New York comes to an end, we've got 149 beats per minute of behind-the-scenes 'Get On Your Boots' video footage. The band talks about their fastest song ever, the upcoming stadium tour and black holes at the center of the Milky Way. Enjoy.

inputstring

2302263969

width

400

imageoverride

http://www.aolcdn.com/spinner-photos/u2_getonyourbootsbts.jpg

hidetitle

1

thumbquery

id:2302263969 OR id:1859302520 OR id:3823994579

U2 continued their 'Late Show' blitzkrieg on Wednesday night with some startling revelations about the veteran band. Namely, Edge sucks at 'Guitar Hero,' and people confuse them with YouTube all the time. Both of which we completely believe. See the full clip of the "Top Ten Things U2 Has Learned Over the Years" below, and watch for Edge's Sting gaffe around 2:20.

"I'm so devastated I can barely talk." --Lady GaGa

It's not desperate economic times or global warming that's got GaGa feeling verklempt. You can chalk this outpouring of emotion up to the loss of her beloved Versace sunglasses.