Why you wanna trip on me (Michael Jackson) (LP 447)

Michael Jackson Dangerous  (Vinyl, Epic, 1991) ***

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Music shop in Nelson

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Black Or White (BLM makes the message a current one)

Gear costume:  Jam, Who Is It  

Active compensatory factors: My vinyl version of this album was a double and with a double album there are always potential issues - songs that get lost, songs that shouldn't be there, songs that don't fit and so on. 

Dangerous showcases over its four sides some good songs, but also some of Michael Jackson's more forgettable material. There are also other songs that could have been trimmed from the set.

At his best there are few who compare; I'm thinking of the catchy pop songs like Jam, Black and White, Who Is It. Unfortunately his other sickly sentimental side - the icky Will You Be There is also here.

I'm not sure about his piously sincere save the world songs like Heal The World. His heart was in the right place and, in a world locked in Covid-19 hell, the message is still relevant. But, yikes, it's like drowning in saccharine music sometimes.

Where do they all belong? That's it for Michael in my collection - from the terrific Off The Wall through to mega seller Thriller, on to Bad and Dangerous. He sure could deliver!

Who's bad? (Michael Jackson) (LP 237)

Michael Jackson Bad (Vinyl - Epic, 1987) ***

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (Queen's Arcade, Auckland)  

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Man In The Mirror




Gear costume: Bad

Active compensatory factors: I grew up with Michael (I'm a few months older than him) and he defined the times along the way quite well. The Jackson 5 years, Ben, and the solo albums up to and including Thriller were signposts of our mutual love of music and development as people.

In 1987, the news eventually broke about Thriller's follow up - a long 18 minute video/song called Bad. Huh?

I had the VHS recorder all set to record the debut of Bad (it was an event!) and I did, but, in the end, the whole thing was a little risible to be honest. 

Now it's as easy as a couple of clicks to find:



By 1987 I was a father of two, and the pop of Bad indicated to me that he was stuck in perpetual Peter Pan mode.

I hung in there through to Dangerous but really, I was going through the motions. Hoping for the best. But it turns out he'd already peaked.

Where do they all belong? In many ways Bad was the end of the pop prince. Dangerous is next and the start (and end) of the self-styled King of Pop.

Beat it (Michael Jackson) (LP 184)

Michael Jackson Thriller (Vinyl - Epic Records, 1982) ****

Genre: Soul 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (Auckland) 

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Beat It - remember him this way!




Gear costume: Billy Jean 

Active compensatory factors: While Billie Jean has lost a little of its freshness via over-exposure over the years (and some of the songs on the album have definitely not aged well), Beat It remains a stunning thing of beauty. A song (and video) for the ages!

MJ's finest moment of joyous energy!

As a whole, the album rode a tidal wave of success via MTV's exposure of Thriller, Beat It and Billy Jean, but it lacked the cohesion of Off The Wall. Just sayin'.

The playful Paul McCartney duet, The Girl Is Mine, is worthwhile but overall, Thriller has too much filler material. Maybe that's harsh and the high water mark of Beat It shades a lot of the songs, but for a megaseller, you'd expect more consistency right?

Where do they all belong? Bad was next and it could not compete sales wise, but it did its best creatively speaking.

You got me working day and night (Michael Jackson) (LP 122)

Michael Jackson Off The Wall (Vinyl - Epic, 1979) ****

Genre: Soul

Places I remember: Marbecks Records (Auckland)

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Rock With You

Gear costume: Off The Wall, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough

Active compensatory factors: Off The Wall was eclipsed by Thriller's uber-mega-success but, for me, this is a purer, funner, Michael Jackson album. Even if there are only three songs written by MJ.

Off The Wall is just a load of fun, from the first whooooo to the last disco tune.

In fact, there is a neat balance between the dance/disco material that bookends the album (the very funky Don’t Stop ‘til You Get Enough…to the slightly weak final Burn This Disco Out), the impressive but soppy ballad (She’s Out Of My Life), and superior pure pop (Rock With You).

The quality control isn’t 100% though with at least one track on each side that is a little weak and/or formulaic. Never mind. The joy and high energy elsewhere more than makes up them.

Where do they all belong?  The behemoth was coming.

Help me darling! What does it mean? (Paul McCartney) #280 - 283

Michael Jackson/Paul McCartney The Girl Is Mine/ Michael Jackson Can't Get Outta The Rain (Epic, ES 791, 1982)

Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson Say Say Say/ Paul McCartney/Michael Jackson Say Say Say (Instrumental); Paul McCartney Ode To A Koala Bear (Parlophone 12", GOOD 19, 1983)

Paul McCartney Press; It's Not True/ Hanglide; Press (Parlophone 12", GOOD 127, 1986)

Paul McCartney Once Upon A Long Ago; Back On My Feet/ Midnight Special; Don't Get Around Much Anymore (Parlophone 12", 12R 6170, 1987)

The eighties were not his finest years. It wasn't until 1989 that he made the decent Flowers In The Dirt. Between that and 1982's Tug Of War it was all dirt.

I have no idea what he was thinking by linking up with Michael Jackson on such pap as The Girl Is Mine and Say Say Say. He didn't need the exposure - he's Paul McCartney of the bloody Beatles. He didn't need the money. He did need a quality controller and MJ is not one of them.

So we got the embarrassing video of Say Say Say and all this sub par music instead!

Press is also dire (from the lacklustre Press To Play album). For a master of melody he suddenly came up short; this one is smothered in eighties drums. Ick!!

The 1987 12" EP is an offshoot of the covers collection known as the Russian Album. The A side pair didn't make the cut for the album and are of rarity value. I wish I could report that they are awesome nuggets from the vaults but I can't. Pleasant is about the best I can say for Once Upon A Long Ago. I include the video only because that's become a routine for these posts - not because it's a stellar piece of work.



Hidden gems: Again I wish I could report that Ode To A Koala Bear was worth searching out. It only appeared as a B side and there are many reasons why. But all you need to know is in the title really. 

The MJ B side is also discolite rubbish btw.

I said, "Don't mind, but what do you mean I am the one?" (Michael Jackson) #175

Michael Jackson Billie Jean (long version)/ Billie Jean (instrumental version) (Epic 12", ES12053, 1982)

This song takes the 'let's build up the instrumentals until we get into a great groove' approach. There must be a technical name for this, surely.

I'm a sucker for it, whether it's Deep Purple's Smoke On The Water, The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band's  The Intro And The Outro (Adolf Hitler on Vibes) or Billie Jean.

The song opens with a standard drum beat along with a standard hi-hat, and it contains hardly any reverberation. After two bars, another standard open hi-hat enters. After two more bars, a repetitive bassline enters. Each time it passes through the tonic, the note is doubled by a distorted synth bass. This accompaniment is followed by a repetitive three-note synth, playedstaccato with a deep reverb. The defining chord progression is then established. Jackson's quiet vocals enter, accompanied by a finger-snap, which comes and goes during the verses, as the rhythm and chord progression repeats.

That was according to wikipedia and I'm not about to argue. Written like that it doesn't sound like much does it? But there is a definite sense of energy and power when you hear it building these layers of sound. There's a reason for this.

The song was mixed by Bruce Swedien ninety-one times — unusual for Swedien, who usually mixed a song just once. Quincy Jones had told Swedien to create a drum sound that no one had ever heard before. The audio engineer was also told to add a different element: "sonic personality". "What I ended up doing was building a drum platform and designing some special little things, like a bass drum cover and a flat piece of wood that goes between the snare and the hi-hat" Swedien later wrote. "The bottom line is that there aren't many pieces of music where you can hear the first three or four notes of the drums, and immediately tell what the piece of music is." He concluded, "But I think that is the case with 'Billie Jean' — and that I attribute to sonic personality

Have a listen:



Hidden gem: The B side is labelled an 'instrumental version' but there are a few of MJ's vocals, the Billie Jean bits, on it. I guess this was made for a DJ kinda thing. For the rest of the world we'll take MJ's peerless vocals as well as those amazing instrumental passages thanks very much.

As a sidebar: I came across this version of the song a few years ago on a CD compilation of Eighties Anthems by some outfit called Clubhouse. It's a mash up between Steely Dan's Do It Again and Billie Jean and it works really well!



Outside of this the most widely celebrated 'live' version of this song is MJ's famous Motown 25th anniversary performance and it would be against some sort of musical law of the universe not to include it here.

I feel like letting my freak flag fly (CSNY)

Leading on from that weird Placibo cover - Sleeping With Ghosts - the next cover theme features similar freakily surreal worlds.

Pink Floyd - Division Bell

ELP - Brain Salad Surgery

Led Zeppelin - 4th album

Pink Floyd - Meddle

Pink Floyd - Piper At The Gates Of Dawn

Led Zeppelin - Houses Of The Holy

Paul McCartney

Groove - let the madness in the music get to you. Life aint so bad at all, if you live it off the wall.

The blogosphere and interweb generally will be chocka with posts and thoughts on Michael Jackson who will not age another day past his 50th year on the planet. I guess for most people he'll be frozen in history as a teenager singing with the Jackson Five or at the Motown birthday show doing that amazing version of Billie Jean, rather than as the freakish fifty year old man he became. Everywhere I went today people were telling me that Michael Jackson died. No one seemed particularly sad about that though. Instead there was a sharing of cruel/stoopid jokes that referred to Michael's predilection for the company of young children, or else a kind of resignation, as if this was just another of his weird behaviours. The music will be forgotten for a while but then we'll rediscover his genius. We're a strange bunch - humans.

Top 5 MJ moments/songs: The video to Beat it; Jackson Five 's ABC and I'll Be There; The whole of Off The Wall; the Motown 25th bash with Billie Jean and the moonwalk; and The Making of Thriller video that pictures him clowning around with Jon Landis and cast.

Some magic moments from a real iconic figure from the 20th century (let's not dwell on the last 9 years).

Remember him this way: