Michael Jackson, The #5 Artist of the Rock Era, Part Three

 

(Continued from Part Two)

While working on a dance routine, Jackson broke his nose, with required rhinoplasty and several subsequent operations because of breathing problems experienced as a result of the rhinoplasty.

In 1979, Jackson recorded the album Off the Wall, which jump-started his solo career.  At that time, the album was the first in the Rock Era to contain four Top 10 songs, and up to this point, MJ's five number one songs (four with the Jackson 5 and his 1972 solo hit "Ben") were all written by others.

Recording took place between December of 1978 and June of 1979.  The album's vocals and rhythm tracks were recorded at Allen Zentz Recording, the horn parts were recorded at Westlake Audio, and string instrumentation was captured at Cherokee Studios, all near Los Angeles.

 

It was legendary producer Quincy Jones who encouraged Michael to start writing his own material, and Jackson proved early on he was a strong songwriter.  Before Jones added the Midas Touch, Michael recorded a demo of this track with 12-year-old sister Janet playing glass bottles.  

The Disco song "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" (no doubt inspired by the blockbuster movie Star Wars) sold over two million copies and rolled to #1 in the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand and settled for #2 in the Netherlands and Spain and #3 in the U.K. and Canada.  It was a #1 smash on the R&B chart for five weeks and is The #7 R&B Song of the 70's*.  Listen for the contributions of brother Randy on percussion.

Off the Wall was a solid best-seller for two years, reaching a peak of #1 in Australia, #3 in the U.S. and the U.K. and #4 in Canada.  It has now sold over 20 million copies worldwide.

(Temperton, Jones and Jackson)

 

This combination worked well.  Take a song written by Rod Temperton, keyboardist and the main songwriter for Heatwave ("Boogie Nights" and "Always And Forever").  Those excellent songs got the attention of producer Quincy Jones, who recruited Temperton to write songs for Jackson.  The idea was Temperton would present Michael with three songs and Jackson would choose his favorite.  But he loved all three and used them all on Off The Wall.

The first one Rod wrote for MJ was this one.  "Rock With You" was one of the top songs of 1980, holding on to #1 in the U.S. and Spain and also selling over four million copies.  A #1 R&B killer for six weeks, it is The #19 R&B Song of the 80's*.

Jackson captured the Grammy Award for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough".  He won American Music Awards for Favorite Pop (Rock) Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Album, Favorite Soul/R&B Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B Single for "Don't Stop" and was nominated for Favorite Pop (Rock) Album.

Temperton also wrote the title song, which hit #7 in the U.K. and #10 in the United States (#5 R&B) and gave Michael a third consecutive Platinum single.  That's Louis Johnson from the Brothers Johnson ("I'll Be Good To You", "Strawberry Letter 23" and "Stomp!") playing the awesome bass line. 

The album was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.  This next song by Tom Bahler was thought to be about Karen Carpenter, whom Bahler dated briefly, but Bahler said it was written before he and Karen hooked up and it is actually more about Rhonda Rivera, his previous girlfriend.

Jones had Frank Sinatra in mind for the song before giving it to Jackson.  Bahler's painful breakup song was difficult for Michael to sing, as Jones wrote in the liner notes to a later edition of the album:

            "She's Out Of My Life", I'd been carrying 

            around for about three years--you can feel

            the pain in it, you know.  And I held on to 

            it and finally something said "this is the 

            right moment to give it to Michael."

            And when we recorded it with Michael, I

            know it was an experience he'd never 

            even thought about to sing in a song, 

            'cause it's a very mature emotion.  And

            he cried at the end of every take, you

            know.  We recorded about--I don't 

            know--8-11 takes, and every one at the

            end, he just cried, and I said, "Hey, 

            that's supposed to be, leave it on

            there."

In Jackson's autobiography, Moonwalk, Michael wrote that the song is about "knowing that barriers separating him from others are seemingly easy to overcome, yet they cause him to miss out on what he really desires."  He said he cried because "I had been letting so much build up inside me."  Michael felt "so rich in some experiences while being poor in moments of true joy."

"She's Out Of My Life" peaked at #3 in the U.K. and #10 in the U.S. and sold one million singles.

 

"One Day In Your Life" was originally released on his final solo album with Motown, Forever, Michael, but re-released in 1981 after the huge success of The Wall.  It became Jackson's first solo #1 in the U.K. when it replaced Smokey Robinson's "Being With You" at the top.

In a 2013 piece by 60 Minutes on CBS-TV, "The Manifesto", as it was called, was found in a storage warehouse among many other personal items.  Looking back and ignoring briefly the benefit all of us have of knowing what we now know about this incredible performer, it is truly remarkable that 21-year old Michael wrote this in 1979:

            MJ will be my new name.  No more 

            Michael Jackson.  I want a whole new

            character, a whole new look.  I should be

            a tottally [sic] different person.  People 

            should never think of me as the kid who

            sang "ABC", "I Want You Back".  I should

            be a new, incredible actor/singer/dancer

            that will shock the world.  I will do no

            interviews.  I will be magic.  I will be a

            perfectionist, a researcher, a trainer, a

            masterer [sic].  I will be better than every

            great actor roped into one.  I "must" have

            the most incredible training system.  To

            dig and dig and dig until I find.

             I will study and look back on the whole

             world of Entertainment and perfect it.  

             Take it steps further from where the

             greats left off.

It is safe to say that Michael Jackson accomplished most of his goals.  This Stevie Wonder song was written for his 1977 masterpiece but wound up on another great album.  "That was supposed to be one of the songs on Songs in the Key of Life," Wonder said.  "My sister Renee had been hearing me play this cassette, she and Michael were friends, and she took it over to let Michael hear it."   Here is that song from one great to another--"I Can't Help It".

 

"Get On The Floor", co-written by Michael with Louis Johnson, is another example of the cutting-edge, ready for the dance floor music of this landmark album.  "Though it wasn't a single, [it] was particularly satisfying," Jackson wrote in his 1988 memoir Moonwalk, "because Louis gave me a smooth enough bottom to ride in the verses and let me come back stronger and stronger with each chorus."  "Bruce Swedien, Quincy Jones' engineer, put the final touches on that mix, and I still get pleasure out of hearing it," Jackson added.  Joseph Vogel, author of the 2011 book Man In The Music:  The Creative Life and Work Of Michael Jackson, calls the song "quite simply, a celebration of life, music and dance."

Despite being the B-side to "Rock With You" in the U.S. and "Off The Wall" in the U.K., "Working Day And Night" has nonetheless become one of Jackson's most popular songs and one he performed often in concert.

As a result of the blockbuster album, Michael renewed his contract with Epic for the highest royalty rate in the business--37% of album profits.  Michael recorded duets with Freddie Mercury of Queen that were meant for an album but the project was shelved.  The recordings were later released in 2014.

What happened next changed music history in multiple ways.  

Michael released the album Thriller in 1982.   In Craig Halstead's 2007 book Michael Jackson:  For the Record, Jackson said that the recording of this song was one of his favorite memories in the studio:

               One of my favorite songs to record, of all

               my recordings as a solo artist, is probably

               "The Girl Is Mine", because working with

                Paul McCartney was pretty exciting and

                we just literally had fun.  It was like lots

                of kibitzing and playing, and throwing 

                stuff at each other, and making jokes.

                We actually recorded the (instrumental)

                track and the vocals pretty much live at

                the same time, and we do have footage

                of it, but it's never been shown."

Footage of the recording was later shown during the McCartney World Tour.  Several members of the great group Toto helped out on this song, including David Paich on piano, drummer Jeff Porcaro, guitarist Steve Lukather and Steve Porcaro, providing synthesizer programming.

Although "The Girl Is Mine" was an overrated #2 (#1 R&B), there was much more to come.

With the verse “She was more like a beauty queen from a movie scene / I said, “Don’t mind, but what do you mean, I am the one / Who will dance on the floor in the round?’”, we learn right away that there is an admiring woman obsessed with the protagonist, and no matter what he does, he cannot shake her.

There has been much speculation as to who the subject of the song is.  Jackson said (in Moonwalk) that "there never was a real Billie Jean."  The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years," he said.  "I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true."

Michael would experience those kind of accusations (some true, most untrue) over the coming years.  Thanks to songs like "Billie Jean", which sold two million and hit #1 in nearly every country, the album stayed in the Top 10 for 80 straight weeks.  The single went Platinum and dominated the R&B chart for nine weeks, garnering the spot as The #3 R&B Song of the '80's*.

Thriller caught the world by storm, rocketing to #1 for an unbelievable 37 weeks in the U.S. are topped charts throughout the globe.  Superstar guitarist Eddie Van Halen helped "Beat It" jump to #1 in the U.S. (as well as #1 R&B), Canada, New Zealand, the Netherlands and Spain and go Top Three throughout the world.  It has now sold over 8 million singles.

Interestingly enough, when Van Halen's 1984 album reached #2, it was Thriller that kept it out of the top spot.   

Thriller is now the top-selling album of all-time in both the U.S. and worldwide, with 33 and 66 million copies, respectively.  One of the key elements of this song is the "bathroom stomp board", a 4 x 3-foot piece of plywood that Michael played in the middle of the song.  Jackson released "Wanna' Be Startin' Somethin'" next, a #1 smash in Canada that also hit #5 in the U.S. on both the Popular and R&B charts and sold over two million.  

Thriller spawned a record seven Top 10 songs, including the #7 hit "Human Nature", co-written by Steve Porcaro of Toto and John Bettis.  

Grammy Award-winning engineer Bruce Swedien mixed the album, just as he had done for its predecessor, Off The Wall.  Jackson and Greg Phillinganes wrote the original demo of this song but when Quincy didn't like it but liked the title, he brought in James Ingram to write a completely different song.  "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" sold over four million singles and peaked at #10.

 

"The Lady In My Life" is another song written by Temperton.

An album so great that everyone knows its name.  Stay tuned as the Michael Magic continues.