NEW YORK (Top40 Charts) - Sister radio stations in New York leaked the new
Michael Jackson single last weekend, prompting his label to issue a cease-and-desist order.
WJTM-FM debuted "You Rock My World" at 6 p.m. on Friday (August 17), unleashing a herd of callers asking for more. WKTU-FM added it 45 minutes later. Both stations spun the single every two hours until around 6 p.m. Saturday, when Epic Records Group president Polly Anthony issued the cease-and-desist and called the program director for both stations, Frankie Blue, and asked him to stop.
"[Anthony] informed me of the dangers of playing a song too early," Blue said Wednesday (August 22). "She said, 'Please do me a favor and take it off the air.'"
The stations haven't played "You Rock My World" since and likely won't until the official add date, which has not been set, according to Epic.
Hitmaker Rodney Jerkins produced the uptempo pop tune, which features comedian Chris Tucker in its introduction and clocks in at just less than five and a half minutes.
Jackson has been recording his upcoming album, Invincible, for a few years under unyielding secrecy. Only a handful of Epic executives have heard the finished product (see).
Blue is a longtime friend of Jackson's but wouldn't say, for legal reasons, how he got the single. "[Michael is] not stupid enough to [give it to me]," Blue said. "I've done this before with Madonna, and I'm not friends with her."
Blue's stations each played the song about 12 times, using it as the springboard for a contest that qualified listeners to win front-row tickets to Jackson's upcoming Michael Jackson: 30th Anniversary Celebration, The Solo Years concerts in New York. Blue said it is too soon to know if they got a ratings boost, but the stations got about 30 requests per hour for the track.
"Michael equals ratings," Blue quipped. "You Rock My World" opens with Jackson and Tucker talking about a beautiful woman who appears unapproachable. "You can't get that girl, Michael, I guarantee you can't get that girl," Tucker says. Jackson answers, "Watch me get that girl." Later, over a crisp Jerkins beat, Jackson croons, "You rocked my world, you know you did."
