"Blame It on the Boogie" / Michael Jackson

When I say I'm not a Michael Jackson fan, I always have to qualify it. When the Jackson 5 first hit, I loved seeing little Michael steal the show, and their first string of Motown hits were solid radio faves. But then I lost the thread -- god, there was so much music in the early 70s that was way more to my taste -- so it wasn't until Michael broke out on his own that I paid attention again. Off the Wall took me totally by surprise, and I played it nonstop; I still think it's an extraordinary album. I got excited when Thriller came out, and it delivered the goods -- "Beat It," "Billie Jean," "Wanna Be Startin' Something," and the cryptic "Human Nature," which still kinda seems like Michael was trying to tell us something.

But in the MTV-dominated world of 1982 pop, Thriller got overplayed and overhyped and suddenly the spell snapped, at least for me. I stopped listening to Michael Jackson, and from then on he was just a curiosity to me, a mix of creepy tabloid stories and baffling reports of sold-out arenas. I knew absolutely nobody who listened to the so-called King of Pop.

And the stories got creepier. And the death story was gruesome. And how could you even listen to his music anymore?

So when my Spotify algorithm suggested this song for a playlist I was making, I almost clicked over it. But I didn't -- and it took about 10 seconds for me to be seduced by this song. It went straight onto the playlist, and every time it comes on I laugh out loud with joy. Listen and I think you'll see why. 

 

Now, I wasn't aware of this song when it first came out in 1978 -- it was recorded not by Michael solo but by the Jacksons, as they had to rename themselves after leaving Motown. Michael was already one foot out the door -- Off the Wall would come out just a few months later -- but in this video, they are still pretty adorably a brother act, with matching Afros and sunny smiles. Michael hasn't yet bleached his skin or changed his nose, and even though he's clearly front and center, Marlon and Randy and Tito and Jackie are still in the picture. 

But more than that, it's an infectious dance track with hooks galore and no matter who recorded it, it will get me out of my chair and dancing EVERY TIME. 

There's an odd story behind the song. It was actually written by a guy named, yes, Mick Jackson (what are the odds?), an English singer-songwriter with only a couple of albums to his name. This is far and away his biggest hit, and even when he wrote it, he was thinking of it as a number he might be able to sell to Stevie Wonder. (This is probably why my personal trainer always thinks it's Stevie when it comes on my workout playlist, as it often does.) Here's Mick's recording -- a genial little disco groove, but nothing memorable.

 

Mick released his version in 1978, but the Jacksons' manager heard it pre-release at a showcase, snapped it up, and somehow got the Jacksons to record their version so fast that it was actually released before Mick Jackson's.

Well, sorry Mick, but the Jacksons' track is head and shoulders better. They've taken the tempo up a tick, added a funky bass line, and brought the harmonies forward on those key words in the chorus, both the stuff you can't blame it on -- "sunshine," "moonlight," "good times" -- and the real culprit, snuck in as if no one if listening, "boogie."  I love it when everything else drops out and it's just a capella on those harmonies.

This is just pure fun distilled into three minutes and thirty-two seconds, and it restores my faith in the King of Pop. 

"Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" / Michael Jackson

What can I add to the tsunami of commentary on the death of Michael Jackson? I wouldn't bother at all, except that everywhere I turn for the past couple of days there has been Michael Jackson music playing, and it is way too catchy not to get stuck in my head. Here I have been away from this blog for months, finishing a book (and then, for the past few days, officially on vacation -- see my other blog The Family Truckster) -- how ironic that it should be Michael Jackson to haul me back.

Sadly, however, I notice that the songs being played are mostly from the first half of his career, up through his hugely successful Thriller album. Did the man not record any music later? Of course he did, and a chart I saw in USA Today says that many of those later albums -- Bad, HIStory, et cetera -- sold in the range of 7 million copies each. Who was buying those records?

I loved all those early Jackson 5 Motown hits, of course -- who could fail to love those? -- but for me Michael Jackson's crowning achievement was Off The Wall, the album where he finally declared himself a grown-up artist. And of all the intoxicating dance songs on that album, "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" is my favorite. Those little shimmers of synthesized strings runnning through it, like shivers of desire; the insistent pulsating rhythm and the backbeat melody; Michael's wails and vocal spasms -- it's such a sexualized tapestry of sound.

Oh, yes, brothers and sister, listening to this track you could have no doubt that Michael Jackson had experienced sex. Exactly what kind of sex he had experienced was always up for speculation, but there is something so flesh-and-blood about this track, you couldn't deny it. And there's just enough melodic darkness to his riffs, just enough jerkiness to the rhythms, to give it an undertow of menace. Kinkiness, even.

I'm not going to analyze the lyrics, because they barely exist -- it's the disco-tized texture of this recording that's the real genius. Michael seems totally in thrall to animal desire on this track. He sounds hynotized, imprisoned, delirious, out of control. He doesn't sound happy, and yet he's ecstatic. The ambivalence of this song is simply mind-blowing. Who knew that Michael (not yet Jacko, the grotesque thing he would become) could be so complex?

"Thriller" / Michael Jackson

Juiced as I am over the 30th anniversary of Jesus of Cool, I know that in the real world, the big recent event was the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's Thriller. Nick Lowe only sold about fifty-leven copies of Jesus of Cool; Thriller sold 23 billion copies, or something in that neighborhood. Still, that's not why looking back at Thriller makes me feel depressed. It's because it marked the beginning of the end for me; that record album killed my interest in pop music for nearly 20 years.

I don't mean to get into any Michael-bashing here -- he's way too easy a target these days. I was brought up on Motown and I loved the Jackson 5; I'm not ashamed to admit I owned Off the Wall, either. Hey, there were some good dance tracks on there -- "Off the Wall," "Rock With Me," and especially "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," with their delirious marriage of funk and disco. Seamlessly slick, yes, but with such a propulsive joyful beat, you couldn't resist.

And the first singles to come off of Thriller were dyn-o-mite. It's hard to divorce them from the videos, of course; this was the heyday of MTV, and Michael Jackson was the king of music video. The first one I remember was "Billie Jean," which was absolutely superb. I was mesmerized by that menacing bassline, those zaps of synth, not to mention Michael's trademark gasps and chokes. Of course we all believed him when he protested "The kid is not my son!" (And that was before we knew anything of his personal life.)

Then came "Beat It", which was even better -- and, to my mind, the best music video ever. The choreography perfectly conveyed the waves of tension in this song, from the jittery verses to that howling chorus; it even managed to be about something -- a passionate inquiry in the nature of machismo. (Our first clue to Michael's troubled gender issues.)

And then, with an enormous amount of hype, MTV premiered the "Thriller" video. I remember watching it for the first time -- that bloated production, the jacked-up musical frenzy, the incoherence of the whole outing -- and thinking to myself, "I will never believe in MTV again." How could this piece of crap be the "masterpiece" they had promised? Music video used to be great short form moviemaking, kept to its taut 3 1/2-minute format, bing bang boom, get in and get out -- and now they were adding extraneous dramatic scenes, full sound-stage sets, Oscar-quality make-up effects, and a cast of thousands. And there was absolutely no dramatic pay-off. I actually shut off the television set, went into another room, and picked up a book. Henry James, probably.

The funk was completely gone, leaving only the most vacuous kind of disco in its place. Seamlessly slick, again, but this time coated with creamy plastic, a robotic rhythm, flabby riffs played in endless loops, and a wall of sound so dense I could never imagine a real band on stage performing it. It was the most soulless thing I had ever heard -- and from the Crown Prince of Soul, yet. It was a musical hunk of concrete, dropped on the unsuspecting heads of the record-buying public. And yet the record was simply flying out of the stores! Everybody had to own it! Clearly there was something wrong with me if I didn't like it.

Other tracks came and went. There was his duet "The Girl Is Mine" with Paul McCartney -- really a Paul McCartney song, though, and a sub-par one at that. (And you know me, I love nearly everything Macca does.") There was also a track called "Human Nature," which was particularly creepy -- "Tell 'em that it's human nature / Why -- why / Does he do me that way?" This song should have been admissible evidence in his trial; he'd have been convicted in a heartbeat.

I kept waiting to hear something that would redeem Thriller, that would make it worth buying -- but there was nothing. Instead, I got out my old Beatle records and decided that modern American music wasn't for me. I still listened to British pop for a while, but a steady diet of the Thompson Twins, Flock of Seagulls, and Tears and Fears just wasn't gonna suffice, and eventually even Elvis Costello started to go sour on me. I began going to the opera instead.

Thanks for nothing, Michael.

Thriller sample

"The Love You Save" / The Jackson Five

MOTOWN WEEK #4

What in God’s name happened to Michael Jackson? I never hear any of his new music – I guess it’s only released overseas, where his “true” fans live. I dug Off the Wall and Thriller like everyone else, but that was 25 years ago, and to be honest, I’m not sure I would have liked them so much if it hadn’t been for those sensational videos, back when MTV actually mattered. Soon after that he jumped the shark, making every track Bigger!Badder!Better! without charting any new musical territory. Like most everybody, I’m horrified by the bizarre spectacle he has turned into – it’s like Thriller come to life, his face morphing into a creepy mask worthy of Lon Chaney.

But being in a Motown groove this week, I’m listening to those early Jackson Five songs and it breaks my heart. Yes, they were highly produced commercial funk-pop. Yes, Michael’s image was managed to the nth degree, I’m guessing because “Little” Stevie Wonder had left the fold and Berry Gordy needed another cute kid phenom to take his place. Whatever. The fact is, those Jackson Five hits were tight and spunky, with hooks that stay with you like a rhinovirus.

Michael sounded so sweet and earnest on ultra-smooth ballads like “I’ll Be There” and “Never Can Say Goodbye” – though, come to think of it, at Michael’s age most boys wouldn’t be caught dead in a room alone with a girl. (And they grew up to be sexually normal.) Still, there was a cunning genius at work behind hits like “ABC” that riffed on the idea that a kid was singing them. I defy you to sing this chorus just once: “Simple as do-re-mi / A B C/ One, two three / Baby you and me,” even if you mix up the order, like I do. Or even if somehow you segue right into “ABC” in the chorus of “I Want You Back.” It’s all the same song, really.

As soon as I hear “The Love You Save,” I think of those street safety filmstrips we had to watch in elementary school: “Stop the love you save may be your own / Darling look both ways before you cross me / You’re heading for a danger zone.” This song wipes the Supremes “Stop In the Name Of Love” off the map for me, it’s so much more lively, with funky staccato rhythms and a melody that bounces all over the place. Naturally it starts out with a childhood setting, as Michael innocently explains: “When we played tag in grade school / You wanted to be it / But chasing boys was just a fad / You crossed your heart you’d quit.” But now they're adults – “When we grew up you traded / Your promise for my ring” -- and she’s still chasing boys around the playground, and Michael’s getting worked up into a real tantrum.

Jermaine and Michael swap lines in the bridge, egging each other into a frenzy: Michael, “They’ll ruin your reputation! / They’ll label you a flirt!”; then Jermaine, “The way they talk about you / They’ll turn your name to dirt!” The second verse is even cleverer, as Michael names the boys she’s fooling around with, and after the second bridge they fall back on that time-honored middle-section spelling shtick ("ABC" all over again): “S is for save it / T is for take it slow / O is for oh, no! / P is for please, please, don’t go!”

The songwriter was having F-U-N here, and so did the studio band (I assume this was the Funk Brothers, with Joe Hunter throwing out those snazzy glissandos on the keyboards), and so did the other four Jacksons, doing vocal bass lines and percussion. I’m sure I saw them perform this on TV and they had a slick dance routine worked out as well. By the time it was over they weren’t the only ones who had to catch their breath.

So that's why I still care, in a sad little corner of my heart, about what's become of Michael Jackson. If you never saw the Jacksons in their prime, you might think he's just a freak show, a tabloid curiosity. But for those of us who did . . .