BaronSamedi3's Full Review: Off the Wall by Michael Jackson
It may seem hard for a lot of people to believe, but there is a whole generation of kids just about to enter college who have never known Michael Jackson to be anything other than the reclusive, freakish media junkie he became in the early '90's. As far as music goes, this is deeply criminal. I had the fortune to be born at the outset of the '80's and so I was able to experience the King of Pop in his full glory, a fearless and daring entertainer gifted with a soaring, versatile, and powerful singing voice which went perfectly with sets of otherworldly dance moves. In a way, Michael Jackson became THE quintessential entertainer of the glittering 1980's music industry: His productions were huge, shiny, and expensive.
Here we have Off the Wall, the album Michael Jackson released in that odd period of his life when he broke free of his old record label and established his own sound. Yet, this was also before the point where Michael Jackson turned into MICHAEL JACKSON. Off the Wall has a slightly different, less refined sound than his other albums of the Thriller/Bad/Dangerous persona. It's a bit more experimental and raw and it frequently sounds more simplistic sonically. Jackson's music doesn't have the philosophical heft of "The Man in the Mirror" or "Heal the World" or any of his post-criminal charge work on Off the Wall. Jackson's voice is also a little bit higher - the opening track, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," is in fact sang in a falsetto worthy of the Bee Gees.
Off the Wall is considered by many Jackson acolytes to be his finest album ever. I'm not sure if I agree with this assessment, but it's a damn fine album and an important piece of culture in the annals of great pop music. It is mainly a dance album, a party album used to get people into a feel-good dancing mood. At least half of the songs on Off the Wall appear to revolve around getting up, getting down, and dancing the night away. Nearly all of them have steady, bass and beat driven rhythms to accompany gliding and shimmering keyboard notes which in a couple of cases sound like something you would hear on Miami Vice.
The most manufactured song on Off the Wall is the opening track, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." With the ultra-fast pace, falsetto voice, and disco beat box, it doesn't take a whole lot to imagine a large glass disco ball and rotating colored lights. And Jackson's voice stays monotone in that falsetto, which lacks the sincerity and beyond-his-years wisdom which makes Jackson's voice so rich. (Michael Jackson was a week away from his 21st year when he released Off the Wall.) Yet it makes a strong opening track which sets the tempo for Off the Wall. The track itself is really the most important component of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough." There are points in it where the lyrics are barely discernible. They serve mainly as another catchy instrument to hum to when the song gets stuck in your head, which believe you me it WILL.
The first side of Off the Wall - yes I'm reviewing the cassette - is hard driving, adrenaline-raising, infectious dance music. It consists of the first four tracks, "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Rock with You," "Working Day and Night," and "Get on the Floor." "Rock with You" provides the softest break from the heavy rhythms with a slower pace, R+B influence, and heavier bass line than the others. It marks the first appearance of the traditional singing voice of Jackson, soulful and sincere. The whole first side of Off the Wall is rife with disco and funk. Jackson's voice throughout is free of the angry hardness which marked so much of his later work and so his singing sounds more comfortable. One could easily call it welcoming and even hospitable.
Side two is where things start to get interesting. The funk and disco influences even take off for a couple of quick breathers and we begin to hear the kind of experiments Jackson performed on later albums like Bad and Dangerous. The side opens with the title track, which begins with a creepy witch cackle which really doesn't have anything to do with the song. "Off the Wall" is aesthetically close to "Rock with You" in its lighter pace and R+B sound. After "Off the Wall," the album begins its official wind down point with the Paul McCartney-penned "Girlfriend," and all I can say about the instrumentals is that they really do make it sound like a Paul McCartney love song. Quick but not overly fast pace and ultra-perky music, "Girlfriend" sounds very much at home with the writer of "Silly Love Songs."
Michael slows it down so much over the next couple of songs that it sounds like Off the Wall hit its air brake. "She's Out of My Life" and "I Can't Help it" both lack the hard beats which are synonymous with so much of this album. "She's Out of My Life" is probably the black sheep of Off the Wall because it is almost completely stripped. You have to strain to hear any of the bass lines, and the keyboard is used sparingly and Michael's voice is allowed to soar almost free. "I Can't Help it" reintroduces the beats and bass, but it is a perfect companion for "She's Out of My Life" because it sounds almost dark. The instrumentals don't have nearly as much prominence as they do in the rest of the album. "I Can't Help it" is used as a way to build the sound back up for the last two songs after stripping it away completely. "It's the Falling in Love" and "Burn this Disco Out" close Off the Wall. Both are as good as anything else on the album.
Any pop music or just plain music nut will probably love Off the Wall. There's not a single weak point on it. It has some of the best bass and keyboards ever heard on a pop album, and Michael Jackson, still young, sounds wise, soulful, and sincere. Yet he also sounds like the youth he was, having the time of his life with none of the razor edge which we would hear on his later work. Listening to it and remembering watching Michael Jackson's live shows when I was a kid, it's sad to think of the insane directions his life took, wondering and dreaming of how it could or would have been different IF ONLY... Michael Jackson deserves to be known as something far greater than a comic punchline, and recalling what I said in the first paragraph, I didn't realize how lucky I was to be a young kid in the '80's, watching Jackson at the height of his spellbinding powers as an entertainer. His death a couple of days ago shocked me not just for this poignant reason, but also because of its date, which will now be branded on peoples' minds forever. Especially mine. He died on my 28th birthday.
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