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Michael Jackson · S3 E6
What Off The Wall Actually Was
The most underrated album in pop history
August 10, 1979. Off the Wall drops and within weeks plays on pop, R&B, and disco radio simultaneously because no single format can claim it.
She's Out of My Life, Michael Jackson (1980). The fourth single from Off the Wall. Michael sits on a stool, no choreography, nothing between him and the camera. At the end he breaks down crying, and the tears are real.
She's Out of My Life, Michael Jackson (1980)
This is the simplest arrangement on Off the Wall: acoustic guitar, a string section, and Michael's voice. A twenty-year-old sits on a stool singing a breakup ballad with so much conviction that he cannot get through it without crying. They tried take after take, and the tears came every time. Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien kept them in the final version.
Sources
Bruce Swedien, "In the Studio with Michael Jackson"
Off the Wall liner notes, Epic Records 1979
The Album That Defied Categories
The album defied categories. It was not disco, though it had disco tracks. It was not R&B, though it grooved harder than anything on the radio. Off the Wall was the first solo record that fused funk, jazz, pop, and soul into something the industry would spend a decade trying to name.
“"We didn't make a disco album. We didn't make an R&B album. We made the best album we could, and we let the music decide what it was."”
— Quincy Jones (on the making of Off the Wall)
TAP TO REVEAL: Why did Michael cry on every single take of "She's Out of My Life"?
Get on the Floor, Michael Jackson
Co-written by Michael Jackson and Louis Johnson of the Brothers Johnson, this is the hardest funk track on Off the Wall. The bass line is Louis Johnson at his most relentless, slapping and popping through a groove that refuses to let up. The track that proves Off the Wall was never just a disco record.
Off the Wall was a massive commercial success, but it never reached number one on the Billboard 200. What was its peak position?
Grammy night, Michael waits in the audience for Off the Wall to be recognized. What happens next changes the course of music history.
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