36. Michael Jackson, "Off the Wall"

 


This was Michael's first album with Quincy Jones, one of the best producer-artist combos in history, and starts off with the incredible one-two punch of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" and "Rock With You."  I've been wondering my entire life what the lyrics in the chorus were.Was it "Keep on, when the funk starts up/Don't stop til you get enough"?  "Keep on, when the first star shows"?  I never could figure it out/never felt the pressing need to check.  Turns out it's "Keep on, with the force, don't stop/Don't stop til you get enough."  Hmmmm, I like "when the funk starts up" better, but I'm not Michael Jackson.

Michael actually wrote that song, one of the first hits he wrote himself, and it's not hard to see why.  It's a bouncy, propulsive pop-disco song with a super catchy chorus.  I bet this still gets the kids on the floor at middle school dances, even though it's slightly risque:

Touch me and I feel on fire
Ain’t nothin' like a love desire (Ooh)
I'm melting (I'm melting)
Like hot candle wax
Sensation (Oh, sensation)

Hilariously, Michael denied the song had anything to do with sex, and said that it was about striving to fulfill your goals.  I guess that's true, if your goal is getting laaaaiiiiiiid.  

Then it's followed by "Rock With You," another all-time classic that's also probably about sex.  ("I wanna rock with you (All night)/We're gonna rock the night away").  Knowing what we know now about Michael puts this in a more, uh, disturbing light, but for some reason MJ hasn't been cancelled the way, say, Kanye has, even though Michael's offenses, if true, go way beyond words.

That track, and two others on the album, were written by Rod Temperton, a frequent Jackson collaborator who remained largely out of the spotlight despite writing a slew of number one songs (including the title track to Thriller, which we will certainly see soon.)  Jackson wrote or co-wrote three of the songs, and there is one cover, "Girlfriend," by Sir Paul McCartney, which is honestly not a very good song but which Michael polishes up a bit.  (McCartney originally wrote the song with Jackson in mind and it should have stayed there.)  The title track of the album is more disco-funk and clearly presages Thriller in its feel and construction.  "I Can't Help It" was co-written by Stevie Wonder and sounds like it.  

Honestly, I had never heard this album all the way through and apart from a few songs, it didn't really click for me.  I mean, apart from the ballads, it's mostly a disco album, which I think is an unfairly maligned genre but also one that I don't really connect with.  

It is wild to see 21-year-old Jackson on the cover knowing what he's going to look like down the road.

Is this album in my personal Top 100? No.

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