19-Year-Old Russian Guitarist Plays an Ingenious Cover of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”

Alexan­dr Misko, only 19 years old when this video was made, comes from a small town in Rus­sia. There, he steeped him­self in the music of mod­ern Amer­i­can com­posers, includ­ing Steve Reich and Philip Glass. And he taught him­self a fin­ger­style tech­nique of play­ing gui­tar, he tells the web site Cal­i­for­nia Rock­er, that involves “tap­ping,” or play­ing notes on the fret­board of the gui­tar. (It’s a tech­nique that has a long tra­di­tion, but reached its apoth­e­o­sis, if you will, with the 70s and 80s work of Eddie Van Halen.) While tap­ping with one hand, Misko also plays per­cus­sion with the oth­er, using the body of the gui­tar to cre­ate a drum-like rhythm. And then he real­ized, “Hmm, and I can put a lit­tle scrunchy on 2 low strings to mute them and cre­ate that sig­na­ture sound,” known to every­one who’s heard Michael Jack­son’s 1982 hit, “Bil­lie Jean.”

Misko’s “Bil­lie Jean” arrange­ment took a cou­ple of days to work out, then a week to prac­tice play­ing with­out flaws. The result, you have above.

Vis­it Misko’s Youtube channel to see his take on oth­er pop hits like George Michael’s “Care­less Whis­per,” The Cran­ber­ries’ “Zom­bie,” and A‑ha’s “Take on Me,” to name a few. You can pur­chase his new album, Beyond the Box, on iTunes.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A One-Man Pink Floyd Band Cre­ates Note-Per­fect Cov­ers of “Echoes,” “Com­fort­ably Numb,” “Moth­er” & Oth­er Clas­sics: Watch 19-Year-Old Wun­derkind Ewan Cun­ning­ham in Action

What Hap­pens When a Musi­cian Plays Ste­vie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy” on a $25 Kids’ Gui­tar at Wal­mart

One Man-Band Plays Amaz­ing Cov­ers, Note-for-Note, of Yes, CSNY, Zep­pelin & More