Somebody’s Watching Me album cover
Somebody’s Watching Me

Rockwell

1984
Motown

In his 2020 memoir, Lenny Kravitz admits to turning down the eventually omnipresent number-one hit, “Somebody’s Watching Me.” His loss was the gain of Kennedy “Rockwell” Gordy, fourth son of Motown mogul Berry Gordy, who recorded the track instead (with an appropriately paranoiac hook by Michael Jackson) and watched it soar into the Billboard Top 5. But the R&B synthpop of Somebody’s Watching Me went overlooked after his hit (and its follow-up, the Top 40 “Obscene Phone Caller”) crested. Rockwell’s capable cover of The Beatles’ “Taxman” is worth the listen, as is the pop confection “Foreign Country.”

Miles Marshall Lewis

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