Ben | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Studio album by | ||||
Released | August 4, 1972 | |||
Recorded | November 1971 ("Ben") December 1971 – February 1972 | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 31:31 | |||
Label | Motown | |||
Producer |
| |||
Michael Jackson chronology | ||||
| ||||
Singles from Ben | ||||
|
Ben is the second studio album by the American singer Michael Jackson, released by Motown Records on August 4, 1972, while Jackson was still a member of the Jackson 5. It received mixed reviews from contemporary music critics. Ben, however, was more successful on the music charts than Jackson's previous studio album, peaking within the top 10 on the Billboard 200 in the United States. Internationally, the album was less successful, peaking at number 12 in Canada, while charting within the top 200 positions in Australia and France.
The album released one single, the title track "Ben", which was a commercial success on the music charts, topping both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Australian ARIA charts, giving Jackson his first number-one single domestically and internationally. "Ben" also charted within the top 10 in other territories worldwide. "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" was planned to be released as the second single from the album, but was cancelled for unspecified reasons.[3] Two of the album's songs were "stripped" in 2009 as part of the three-disc compilation Hello World: The Motown Solo Collection.
Jackson proved he wanted to move on from the constraints of the R&B charts into the wider limelight of mainstream pop