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Michael Redux: Jackson's a Joker by Bob Lefsetz "Take back Vanessa Redgrave Take back Joe Piscopo Take back Eddie Murphy Give 'em all some place to go You're jammin' me, you're jammin' me Quit jammin' me." "Jammin' Me" Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers Take back Michael Jackson. PLEASE! I've got sympathy for the dude. He had no childhood. Rather he lived out the fantasy dreams of an abusive father. The dude had talent. He could sing. And dance. But he was no Stevie Wonder. The Jackson 5 were a fad. Better than New Kids. Certainly better than the Osmonds. But being white, when the Osmonds' recording career petered out, the family could go into television. Both in front of and behind the camera. Michael Jackson was limited to singing. He had a solo career. He made a moderately successful movie, The Wiz. He wasn't exactly a has-been, but he wasn't influencing popular culture, either. What do you do with an act that's got name value and talent, but is stuck in the marketplace? You hook them up with Quincy Jones. Quincy Jones does not work quickly. He does not make records in an off-the-cuff fashion. He's meticulous. He builds layers. He works and works until he gets it right. It wasn't like Phil Spector working with the Beatles. Or even Glen Ballard working with No Doubt. Quincy wasn't in the popular music mainstream, and Michael wasn't, either. It wasn't quite like they were working in secret, but other than the record company and the players involved, nobody really cared. In other words, Quincy and Michael had something to prove. That's when you get the best material, the best recordings, when nobody's paying attention, when you're screaming to make your point. You're HUNGRY! If there had been video back in 1979, if MTV was airing BLACK videos back in 1979, Michael Jackson would have gone nuclear then. Off the Wall wasn't made for the masses. Not a little bit of this and a little bit of that, to satisfy EVERYBODY! No, Off the Wall was made for Michael Jackson's PEEPS! African-Americans. Disco-dwellers. The album was narrowly focused, and people CAME TO IT! There was no hysteria upon the release of Off the Wall. The target audience went on it pretty quickly, but it took YEARS for the average white man to discover it. You see, it was word-of-mouth. Actually, it was less about talking than listening. Somebody would be at somebody's house and hear the album. He or she would immediately have to go out and buy it. Then you'd go to a party at THIS person's house, and you'd hear "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough," or maybe a track or two after that, and you'd force yourself to wander over to the stereo. You'd flip through a few album covers, and finally find the one with Michael Jackson standing against a brick wall. THIS was Michael Jackson? Little Michael Jackson? Of the falsetto and wide smile? It became a secret cult. The album never went mainstream, because back then you COULDN'T. Like I said, there was no MTV. And top 40 didn't resurge until 1982. Music was ghettoized. Rock stations weren't playing Off the Wall. And as for TV... At this time even CABLE wasn't ubiquitous. It was still network TV. There was no hipness, TV wasn't a subculture arbiter. Those in the know - Motown, Michael, Quincy - they knew they had something. Momentum was building. They'd broken down barriers. Now was the time to go all the way. With the right record, Michael Jackson would become a superstar, bigger than the Jackson 5 ever were. So they went back into the studio. You see, they still wanted to get on top. And they recorded Thriller. True fans say Off the Wall is better. That Thriller was made for the masses. They like the disco/club feel of Off the Wall. They think it's more authentic. |
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