OnirMJ
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It has to be.. But it didn't seemed to me while I was reading it.
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Spike Lee announces Off The Wall Documentary - Estate Announcement Page 66
- Thread starter OnirMJ
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It has to be.. But it didn't seemed to me while I was reading it.
OnirMJ
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What is great about this documentary and CD re-release bundle is that even though Off The Wall is critically very acclaimed MJ album and thought by critics as one of his best, the majority of songs from the album are still very unknown outside of the fan community and to regular people. Because when they buy HIStory - Greatest Hits, Number Ones, The Essential and other greatest hits collections they only get Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, Rock With You and She's Out Of My Life. And those are the only three songs from the album that have short films. A lot of people are not aware of gems like Working Day And Night and even Off The Wall (the song). So that's another reason why I think this project is a positive release. For example on Bad you had 9 singles and majority of them went to top 10 worldwide and all of them had short films. So only Speed Demon and Just Good Friends were relatively unknown to general public. This release will be a new revelation of MJ music to them. I was even thinking that it would be a smart move to release Working Day And Night as a single. That song is second best song on the album (in my opinion) and it was never released as a single!
barbee0715
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^^I think you're right. I've noticed that from reading the reviews of the doc. I just assumed everybody's familiar with the album but obviously not.
I'd love to hear 'Off the Wall' on the radio again too.
Another interesting thing. I've wondered all these years why I never saw Michael's category for DSTYGE at the Grammys or anyone accepting for him either at the time and the last few years on YouTube. Never could find it.
Now I know.
Funny thing. They've returned to doing the R&B categories off camera in lieu of rap.
I'd love to hear 'Off the Wall' on the radio again too.
Another interesting thing. I've wondered all these years why I never saw Michael's category for DSTYGE at the Grammys or anyone accepting for him either at the time and the last few years on YouTube. Never could find it.
Now I know.
Funny thing. They've returned to doing the R&B categories off camera in lieu of rap.
OnirMJ
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Especially younger audience. There are songs on HIStory album and even Invincible that are more known (and I don't mean that as a bad thing at all) to the general public than the lesser known songs on Off The Wall even though Off The Wall (the album) is considered to be a classic, critically acclaimed and all that. So introducing those unknown songs to the new audience is great opportunity. I think after this release we'll see Off The Wall charting on Billboard Hot 200 much more often.
Psychoniff
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Is there actual footage?
barbee0715
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No. According to this doc it was off camera before the show itself.
Michael said in his book that he watched the ceremony on tv. I'd never heard this part of the story.
Michael said in his book that he watched the ceremony on tv. I'd never heard this part of the story.
SheilaMJFan4Ever
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They used to do that as part of a skit during the tour; a little fake fight to create drama. On the Jacksons Live cd you can hear Mike "complaining" about the old songs. Now if someone caught an unplanned moment of the brothers fighting that would be interesting to hear, LMAO!
barbee0715
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Although I think Spike might have used that "fake fight skit" as a mirror of what was happening in real life-symbolic of Michael breaking away-that would be Hilarious if they caught a real life fight on film.
There might have been some real doozies.
People thinking it's real is flat out funny too. It's like all the people on YouTube who think Slash is really hogging the stage during the MTV show.
DuranDuran
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R&B
Well if you look at the current Billboard charts, rap averages 90% or more of the top 25 R&B albums.
wonderouzdj2
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They did it on the 30th show when randy yelled "you down with o.p.p"
wonderouzdj2
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Thier supposed to. That was the plan. I dont think they wouldve did it if they knew ppl would know it was fake
Bubs
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Spike Lee on His New Michael Jackson Doc and Going After MTV
"If I do tackle 'Thriller,' I'm going after MTV and sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass," filmmaker says
There's a moment about one-third of the way through Spike Lee's new documentary Michael Jackson's Journey From Motown to Off the Wall in which the Jackson estate's archivist pulls out a yellowed, frayed letter and reads aloud. Written after Michael and his brothers, collectively known as the Jackson 5, had left Motown and were recording under the name the Jacksons, the future King of Pop is jotting down various aspirational goals: He wants to get into the movies, he wants to explore all musical styles and directions, he wants to be addressed from this point forward as "MJ." And then, near the end of this free-form vision board in miniature, there's a single sentence scrawled in the middle of the page: "I want to be the greatest entertainer of all time."
Mention this letter to Lee, and the director will let loose one of those loud Spike laughs that echoes off the walls of the Sundance press room he's sitting in. "For most people, that concept might not be an attainable. But I think it's safe to say that Michael reached his goals and then some." By the time Thriller had turned the Gary, Indiana native into a global moonwalking phenomenon in the early Eighties, Jackson was the biggest musical star in the world. Before that, however, he had to break free from notions that he was part of "cartoon" act, go off on his own and make a solo album that would turn out to be a major turning point in late Seventies pop.
Charting the boy-to-man arc that occurred between putting out singles like "ABC" and the release of his 1979 hit album Off the Wall, Journey shows exactly how that pimply-faced kid with the Afro and the angelic voice became the artist who'd record "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Working Day and Night," "Rock With You" and "She's Out of My Life." And as did with Bad 25, which delved into Jackson's 1987 album, Lee collects choice archival footage and testimonials from the singer's collaborators, select family members, and public figures ranging from Pharrell Williams to Misty Copeland and Kobe Bryant to provide a 360-degree picture of how MJ made a classic. "We're connecting the dots," Lee says. "People have forgotten that, after all that other stuff, that Michael made great music. That's a big part of why we made this movie. This is where all really starts."
Settling into a chair and staring out at the film festival hustle and bustle happening on the street below, Lee talked about Jackson's ambitions in making that seminal work, what he wants to do if he gets the chance to tackle Thriller next and why MTV's revisionist attitude about playing black artists back in the day has got to go.
You remember hearing that album growing up?
Oh yeah, summer of 1979. I had finished Morehouse in May, and was starting NYU's graduate film school in September, but I was lucky enough to get an eight-week internship at Columbia Pictures between the two. So I was in Los Angeles when the album came out, and I mean, I'd hear it everywhere I'd go.
When you listen to this album now, what do you hear?
I still hear something that sounds like it was made yesterday. It doesn't sound like a late Seventies album; it still sounds fresh and innovative. I hear a lot of what's in music today, being worked out and recorded 35 years ago. Pharrell says it in the film: My music is directly influenced by this man and this album. Justin Timberlake says it! The Weeknd says it! You can hear a lot of Off the Wall in recent stuff.
How did you pick folks to speak about Michael for the film? Folks like Pharrell and Questlove are no-brainers; Kobe Bryant showing up was a bit of a surprise.
It proves that Michael's influence was everywhere, not just in music but with athletes too. Game respects game! [Laughs]
"I'm telling you know, if I do end up doing [Thriller], I'm going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me!"
When you started combing through the archives …
I don't want to talk about what we find, you're going to give all our secrets away! People gotta watch to find out.
But we can talk about that incredible letter you found, yes?
Oh yeah, the letter that he writes that says he's wants to become the greatest entertainer of all time! He's already visualizing what he wants to do, who he wants to become … how's he going to get to that point so he can become that person. You can see he had a blueprint, he had a plan even when he was young. It was not haphazard. It was not an accident. This shit was planned! Let's be clear about one thing, though: He made that shit happen. There was no hocus pocus, abracadbra going on here; he worked his ass off to get to that level.
Why do think he was so driven and such a perfectionist? Do you think that came from coming out of the Motown factory of hit makers?
There were a lot of factors that played into it, I think. He had a strong work ethic, which he got from his dad — the man got up every morning and went to a steel mill to put food on the table for his 11 kids. And then he saw firsthand, when his dad worked all his sons and rehearsed them night and day, ran them through their steps, how hard work could pay off. Same with Berry Gordy and the Motown work ethic. But you gotta remember, he got to see some of the greatest artists of the day at work up close and personal: Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Diana Ross. Then he gets to go on the road and he’s standing in the wings at the Howard Theater, the Apollo Theater, and watching James Brown and Jackie Wilson perform. He saw all that firsthand. The kid was a human sponge!
And when you fill in the gaps between "ABC" and Off the Wall, you see how he he took all of those influences and just synthesized them when he went solo.
That's what we're trying to do: connect the dots. "The Journey from Motown to Off the Wall" — we called it that for a reason.
It's funny to hear people in the documentary saying that they didn’t think Quincy Jones would be the right person to produce the album — that he was too square and "jazzy."
As [songwriter] Kenny Gamble says in the movie, "A&R people … they don't know!" [Laughs] There were people there that did not want him to make that album and thought he was the wrong fit — that's a fact. But what's funny is, after he made the album, absolutely no one was saying that! Then it was, hey Quincy, can you give us more of that Off the Wall sound? They worked well together, he and Michael. Three great albums, man.
Some Jackson family members are conspicuous by their absence — were they opposed to you making this movie?
There are just some issues between the estate and the family … that's the bottom line. Everyone was invited, and those who participated came on board. It really was as simple as that.
You worked with Michael in the 1990s, right?
In 1996, yeah — the "They Don't Care About Us" videos, off the HIStory album. We did two of them, actually: We did the prison version and then we went to Brazil and did a version there. He was really wonderful to work with; these were some of the best times I've ever had on a set. It wasn't like were best friends or anything, and I never saw him after we did those videos. But it was a great experience. He knew what he was doing.
You've said you can still see a lot of joy in Michael as he's working these songs out. Is it hard to watch some of this footage and not think about everything that comes after?
It's not hard for me; maybe it's hard for you, but not for me! No disrespect, but we're concentrating on a very specific period of his life. I'm not looking forward, I'm looking back. The whole point of the documentary, to me, was to just deal with the music, and not all that other stuff. I want to remind people that he made this incredible music, and tell them how he got there. I got to do it with Bad, I got to do it with Off the Wall — and hopefully, I'll get to do it with Thriller!
So are you going to do a doc on Thriller?
That's what I want to do. That's the plan. I've gone on record as saying I'll do it in a second. It's just not all up to me.
There's a lot of rich material to work with — not just the music, but the way that album blew up, the Grammys appearance, the way he broke the color barrier on MTV…
I'm telling you know, if I do end up doing it, I'm going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me! [Laughs] I wanna clear up the bullshit revisionist history that’s being spread around right now.
What revisionist history, exactly?
That there was no opposition to anyone at MTV playing Michael’s music. Have you seen that David Bowie clip that just resurfaced? No, seriously, have you seen it?
I have, yeah. It's amazing.
He’s telling the truth. It's not Spike Lee saying "MTV doesn't play black people," it's David Bowie saying this! Listen to what that guy who's interviewing him is saying, about having a certain demographic and what will play in America, all that. He's just mouthing the party line; those were there talking points of the whole company. All those mother****ers are full of shit, saying that they opened Michael's videos with open arms!
Who's still saying that? It's pretty much an established fact now that they didn't want to play his videos, or videos by any black artists, at first … are people still disputing that story?
They're still saying they welcomed Michael Jackson with opens arms, yes, and it's bullshit! We have that moment in the Bad doc: [CBS Records CEO] Walter Yetnikoff called up the head of MTV at the time and told him "I'm taking every CBS artist off MTV unless you play this." What's the guy's name? It's Robert something. Google that shit right now. I'll wait.
[One quick Google search later] Robert Pittman.
[yelling] Bob Pittman! That's him! People on the wrong side of history are trying to rewrite history all the time. And I don't care what people are saying now, Bob Pittman and MTV were on the wrong side of history! You don't have to be David Bowie to know that.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...oc-and-going-after-mtv-20160128#ixzz3yYmvvbnP
"If I do tackle 'Thriller,' I'm going after MTV and sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass," filmmaker says
There's a moment about one-third of the way through Spike Lee's new documentary Michael Jackson's Journey From Motown to Off the Wall in which the Jackson estate's archivist pulls out a yellowed, frayed letter and reads aloud. Written after Michael and his brothers, collectively known as the Jackson 5, had left Motown and were recording under the name the Jacksons, the future King of Pop is jotting down various aspirational goals: He wants to get into the movies, he wants to explore all musical styles and directions, he wants to be addressed from this point forward as "MJ." And then, near the end of this free-form vision board in miniature, there's a single sentence scrawled in the middle of the page: "I want to be the greatest entertainer of all time."
Mention this letter to Lee, and the director will let loose one of those loud Spike laughs that echoes off the walls of the Sundance press room he's sitting in. "For most people, that concept might not be an attainable. But I think it's safe to say that Michael reached his goals and then some." By the time Thriller had turned the Gary, Indiana native into a global moonwalking phenomenon in the early Eighties, Jackson was the biggest musical star in the world. Before that, however, he had to break free from notions that he was part of "cartoon" act, go off on his own and make a solo album that would turn out to be a major turning point in late Seventies pop.
Charting the boy-to-man arc that occurred between putting out singles like "ABC" and the release of his 1979 hit album Off the Wall, Journey shows exactly how that pimply-faced kid with the Afro and the angelic voice became the artist who'd record "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough," "Working Day and Night," "Rock With You" and "She's Out of My Life." And as did with Bad 25, which delved into Jackson's 1987 album, Lee collects choice archival footage and testimonials from the singer's collaborators, select family members, and public figures ranging from Pharrell Williams to Misty Copeland and Kobe Bryant to provide a 360-degree picture of how MJ made a classic. "We're connecting the dots," Lee says. "People have forgotten that, after all that other stuff, that Michael made great music. That's a big part of why we made this movie. This is where all really starts."
Settling into a chair and staring out at the film festival hustle and bustle happening on the street below, Lee talked about Jackson's ambitions in making that seminal work, what he wants to do if he gets the chance to tackle Thriller next and why MTV's revisionist attitude about playing black artists back in the day has got to go.
You remember hearing that album growing up?
Oh yeah, summer of 1979. I had finished Morehouse in May, and was starting NYU's graduate film school in September, but I was lucky enough to get an eight-week internship at Columbia Pictures between the two. So I was in Los Angeles when the album came out, and I mean, I'd hear it everywhere I'd go.
When you listen to this album now, what do you hear?
I still hear something that sounds like it was made yesterday. It doesn't sound like a late Seventies album; it still sounds fresh and innovative. I hear a lot of what's in music today, being worked out and recorded 35 years ago. Pharrell says it in the film: My music is directly influenced by this man and this album. Justin Timberlake says it! The Weeknd says it! You can hear a lot of Off the Wall in recent stuff.
How did you pick folks to speak about Michael for the film? Folks like Pharrell and Questlove are no-brainers; Kobe Bryant showing up was a bit of a surprise.
It proves that Michael's influence was everywhere, not just in music but with athletes too. Game respects game! [Laughs]
"I'm telling you know, if I do end up doing [Thriller], I'm going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me!"
When you started combing through the archives …
I don't want to talk about what we find, you're going to give all our secrets away! People gotta watch to find out.
But we can talk about that incredible letter you found, yes?
Oh yeah, the letter that he writes that says he's wants to become the greatest entertainer of all time! He's already visualizing what he wants to do, who he wants to become … how's he going to get to that point so he can become that person. You can see he had a blueprint, he had a plan even when he was young. It was not haphazard. It was not an accident. This shit was planned! Let's be clear about one thing, though: He made that shit happen. There was no hocus pocus, abracadbra going on here; he worked his ass off to get to that level.
Why do think he was so driven and such a perfectionist? Do you think that came from coming out of the Motown factory of hit makers?
There were a lot of factors that played into it, I think. He had a strong work ethic, which he got from his dad — the man got up every morning and went to a steel mill to put food on the table for his 11 kids. And then he saw firsthand, when his dad worked all his sons and rehearsed them night and day, ran them through their steps, how hard work could pay off. Same with Berry Gordy and the Motown work ethic. But you gotta remember, he got to see some of the greatest artists of the day at work up close and personal: Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Diana Ross. Then he gets to go on the road and he’s standing in the wings at the Howard Theater, the Apollo Theater, and watching James Brown and Jackie Wilson perform. He saw all that firsthand. The kid was a human sponge!
And when you fill in the gaps between "ABC" and Off the Wall, you see how he he took all of those influences and just synthesized them when he went solo.
That's what we're trying to do: connect the dots. "The Journey from Motown to Off the Wall" — we called it that for a reason.
It's funny to hear people in the documentary saying that they didn’t think Quincy Jones would be the right person to produce the album — that he was too square and "jazzy."
As [songwriter] Kenny Gamble says in the movie, "A&R people … they don't know!" [Laughs] There were people there that did not want him to make that album and thought he was the wrong fit — that's a fact. But what's funny is, after he made the album, absolutely no one was saying that! Then it was, hey Quincy, can you give us more of that Off the Wall sound? They worked well together, he and Michael. Three great albums, man.
Some Jackson family members are conspicuous by their absence — were they opposed to you making this movie?
There are just some issues between the estate and the family … that's the bottom line. Everyone was invited, and those who participated came on board. It really was as simple as that.
You worked with Michael in the 1990s, right?
In 1996, yeah — the "They Don't Care About Us" videos, off the HIStory album. We did two of them, actually: We did the prison version and then we went to Brazil and did a version there. He was really wonderful to work with; these were some of the best times I've ever had on a set. It wasn't like were best friends or anything, and I never saw him after we did those videos. But it was a great experience. He knew what he was doing.
You've said you can still see a lot of joy in Michael as he's working these songs out. Is it hard to watch some of this footage and not think about everything that comes after?
It's not hard for me; maybe it's hard for you, but not for me! No disrespect, but we're concentrating on a very specific period of his life. I'm not looking forward, I'm looking back. The whole point of the documentary, to me, was to just deal with the music, and not all that other stuff. I want to remind people that he made this incredible music, and tell them how he got there. I got to do it with Bad, I got to do it with Off the Wall — and hopefully, I'll get to do it with Thriller!
So are you going to do a doc on Thriller?
That's what I want to do. That's the plan. I've gone on record as saying I'll do it in a second. It's just not all up to me.
There's a lot of rich material to work with — not just the music, but the way that album blew up, the Grammys appearance, the way he broke the color barrier on MTV…
I'm telling you know, if I do end up doing it, I'm going after MTV. I’m sticking both my Air Jordans up their ass, believe me! [Laughs] I wanna clear up the bullshit revisionist history that’s being spread around right now.
What revisionist history, exactly?
That there was no opposition to anyone at MTV playing Michael’s music. Have you seen that David Bowie clip that just resurfaced? No, seriously, have you seen it?
I have, yeah. It's amazing.
He’s telling the truth. It's not Spike Lee saying "MTV doesn't play black people," it's David Bowie saying this! Listen to what that guy who's interviewing him is saying, about having a certain demographic and what will play in America, all that. He's just mouthing the party line; those were there talking points of the whole company. All those mother****ers are full of shit, saying that they opened Michael's videos with open arms!
Who's still saying that? It's pretty much an established fact now that they didn't want to play his videos, or videos by any black artists, at first … are people still disputing that story?
They're still saying they welcomed Michael Jackson with opens arms, yes, and it's bullshit! We have that moment in the Bad doc: [CBS Records CEO] Walter Yetnikoff called up the head of MTV at the time and told him "I'm taking every CBS artist off MTV unless you play this." What's the guy's name? It's Robert something. Google that shit right now. I'll wait.
[One quick Google search later] Robert Pittman.
[yelling] Bob Pittman! That's him! People on the wrong side of history are trying to rewrite history all the time. And I don't care what people are saying now, Bob Pittman and MTV were on the wrong side of history! You don't have to be David Bowie to know that.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...oc-and-going-after-mtv-20160128#ixzz3yYmvvbnP
OnirMJ
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What was that?
wonderouzdj2
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??U down with o.p.p yea you know? me
You don't know that song?
OnirMJ
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We'll see about that. That depends on what the Estate and Sony Music had planned.
OnirMJ
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Maybe I do if I hear it. Are you saying there was a staged skit or real disagreement on stage?
DuranDuran
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Opp
It was a popular hit song from the early 1990s by the rap group Naughty By Nature. They're in this pic with Heavy D
EBONY MAGAZINE ?@EBONYMag 27. Jan.
With Spike Lee's doc getting love at #Sundance, we dig into the making of MJ's #OffTheWall: http://ow.ly/XBh5G
With Spike Lee's doc getting love at #Sundance, we dig into the making of MJ's #OffTheWall: http://ow.ly/XBh5G
Bubs
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Bringing Brighter Days
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There is no reason to make a documentary about Thriller, there's nothing else that can be said about that era that hasnt already been said, Thriller 25 botched the original version of those classic songs that could not have been made any better
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SheilaMJFan4Ever
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I love that Spike quote about MTV, lol! I'd love to see him ether their asses...
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Great article:
How ‘Off the Wall’ Launched Michael Jackson into Orbit
As Spike Lee's new Sundance-debuting documentary celebrates Off the Wall, vintage visionary Michael A. Gonzales pieces together the making of MJ’s blackest album
by Michael A. Gonzales, January 27, 2016
As one of those people who think that Michael Jackson’s masterwork Off the Wall was superior to everything he recorded afterwards, I was thrilled to read about Spike Lee’s upcoming documentary celebrating the album. Awkwardly titled Michael Jackson’s Journey From Motown to Off the Wall, the film recently previewed at the Sundance Film Festival and will be broadcast on Showtime beginning February 5. In addition, Sony Records will be reissuing the landmark album on February 26, in a package that will include the documentary.
Lee’s film features interviews with people who knew and influenced Jackson, including Quincy Jones—who produced Off the Wall after befriending Jackson on the set of The Wiz—Berry Gordy and Stevie Wonder. The filmmaker also talks to various folks who were inspired by M. J.’s yelps, screams and pure singing, including The Weeknd, Kobe Bryant and Misty Copeland. Jackson’s 1979 classic defines what creators mean when they say they want their work to be eternal.
Off the Wall, which turns 37 this coming August, was a beautiful fusion of soul, disco, pop and funk that was able cross various lines, including color, class and time (sounding as great tomorrow as it did more than three decades back), while also appealing to everybody from projects to penthouses and everywhere in between. Musically, it was as connected to mama Africa (the opening of “Workin’ Day and Night” is straight tribal funk) as it was to the Mama Feelgood who was ready to do the Hustle whenever “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” came on at the club.
Listening to Off the Wall today, the album also serves an aural time machine that takes me back to an era before pop had a king, back when many thought the end was near for the former child star whose remarkable precocious talent made him a superstar before he even hit puberty. Back then, me and all my friends spent Saturday morning watching The Jackson 5ive cartoon and begging our parents to buy Super Sugar Crisp so we could get the J5 record off of the cereal box.
While we were well aware that the Jackson 5 was a family group, for us it was all about Michael. With so much musical talent wrapped in his brown sugar cuteness, the little girls swooned while the boys wanted him to be their brother.
In the bicentennial summer of 1976, my cousin Denise suddenly announced to me, “Michael Jackson is played out”—and she wasn’t the only one who believed that to be true. As an impressionable 13-year-old kid used to my older teenage cousin being the beat barometer guiding me towards whatever cool music I should’ve been listening to, her announcement of Michael Jackson “falling off” struck me like a heavy blow from some playground bully’s fist.
We were sitting in the gaudy basement of her parent’s Pittsburgh home, the same Tiki lit/wood paneled wall cellar where, a few years before, we played the Jackson 5’s debut Motown single “I Want You Back” over and over and over. It was in that basement where we once sang “ABC,” lip-synched “Lookin’ Through the Windows” for our parents and did the robot whenever “Dancing Machine” (still one of my favorite songs) blared.
Perhaps at 16, Denise felt that the so-called “bubble gum soul” the Jacksons were known for during their successful tenure at Motown was too immature for her, choosing to boot them in favor of seemingly more grown-up musical crushes. Throwing those memories aside, she spread out her new 45s on top of the bar: the mid-tempo balladry of the Brothers Johnson’s “Good to You” (she loved her some bass playin’ Louis); the grown-folks’ soul of the O’Jays jam “Livin’ for the Weekend”; and the White-boy funk of Wild Cherry’s bugged “Play That Funky Music.”
I usually followed Denise’s lead concerning whatever musical journey she choice for us, but there was no way I could turn my back on Michael Jackson. He wasn’t just another pop star; brother M. J. was like family. That same summer, Denise and I were watching TV when talk show host Mike Douglas introduced a new sibling group called The Sylvers. With their sky-high Afros and syncopated steps, they performed their hit, “Hot Line.” It was difficult to look at them and not think they’d stolen some of the Jacksons’ mojo.
Meanwhile, the Jackson brothers (with the exception of Jermaine) left Motown in hopes of more creative freedom. Forced to leave the “5” behind at the insistence of their bullying former label, in 1976 they released the self-titled CBS Records/Philadelphia International album under their new moniker, The Jacksons.
Though I was a fan of the Gamble and Huff produced disco ditty first single “Enjoy Yourself,” and the smoldering ballad “Show You the Way to Go,” it was becoming difficult to muster the same mania I had a few years before, when my courageous mom battled a New York City blizzard to take me to see the Jackson 5 live at Radio City Music Hall. Soon, I too let go of the Jacksons as my tastes shifted towards the more aggressive sounds of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.
Years ago, someone snapped a picture of a young Michael Jackson in the studio studying what his friend and mentor Stevie Wonder was doing behind the boards. As we’ve learned, Michael was a sponge who, like all the best artists, could absorb from the masters (James Brown, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye) and make it their own. The same way young M. J. stared at Wonder, he surely was studying just as intensely the other musical geniuses who crossed his path.
Still, Michael’s brothers might’ve respected him as their front-man falsetto singer, when but when they were finally producing themselves on Destiny in 1978, more than a few of his ideas got vetoed. After the record was released and Mike’s track “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” (co-produced with little brother Randy Jackson) became the group’s biggest post-Motown hit, he decided to go in the studio and record his first solo joint since Forever, Michael.
With the Off the Wall sessions beginning in the winter of ’78, Jackson would be in the studio for the next seven months. According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, when the rest of the family tried to bogart, Michael declared, “I’m doing this on my own. They’re just going to have to understand. For once.”
As we all know, Jackson didn’t really do it completely on his own. In fact, he had a lot of help. Recruiting Quincy Jones (much to his label’s dismay) wasn’t just about the superior sounds the maestro achieved in the studio, but also having access to the arsenal of talent at Jones’s fingertips. “Nobody ever said no to Quincy,” producer and former Q engineer Phil Ramone told me in 2007. “If he called, you were there.”
In the days when liner note studying was a part of the listening experience, the Off the Wall roster was a who’s who of session gods: guitarists Phil Upchurch and Larry Carlton; keyboardists Steve Porcaro and Greg Phillinganes; synthesizer specialists George Duke and David Foster; songwriter Rod Temperton; percussionist Paulinho da Costa; backup singer Patti Austin; and my cousin’s main man Louis Johnson (he co-wrote “Get on the Floor”) on bass.
As M. J. said many times in his career, his choices weren’t about color or race, but talent, and L.A.-based studio sessions often looked like a Benetton ad. But in the beginning, according to the producer, Michael’s shyness was a factor. Jones would later describe 20-year-old Michael as “very, very introverted, shy and non-assertive. He wasn’t at all sure he could make a name for himself on his own. Neither was I.”
The summer of 1979 was a big year for both me and Michael Jackson. He would be 21 come August and I had just turned 16 in June. Having moved from Harlem to Baltimore a few months before, one night I sat in our Monroe Street living room watching Midnight Special when suddenly the video clip for Jackson’s first single “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” started. Randy, who played percussion on the song, was the only Jackson bro on the album.
To put the video for “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” in pop culture perspective, this was two years before the launch of MTV, and I’d never seen a video before. But there before my eyes was M. J. clad in a tux, looking simultaneously uncomfortable and like the coolest kid in class.
As strange images were projected behind him, the pulsating percussion kicked in (“Fever/ Temperature’s risin’ now”), the pure ecstasy of the song makes you “melt like hot candle wax.” When Jackson sang on the chorus—“Keep on with the force, don’t stop,”—some thought he was making a reference to Star Wars, but I think he was simply talking about himself. As he would soon prove, when it came to making pop records in the upcoming 1980s, he was the force. The video clip for “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” was tacky and revolutionary, and the perfect advertisement for his upcoming album.
A couple of months later, it was that song’s irresistible groove that got my usual wallflower booty on the dance floor at Baltimore’s renowned club Odell’s, where I was a slave to rhythm. In retrospect, it’s ironic that the same season White boy rockers were declaring “disco sucked” and detonating 12-inch singles in Chicago, Michael Jackson released one of the best dance tracks of his career.
That summer, I worked for a local youth program that served young folks in the community. Reporting to the North Avenue offices at nine o’clock, there were about 30 Black teenagers assigned to the clean the streets and alleyways. Every day, we left with push brooms and plastic bags. As we worked, a radio was always playing, and Jackson’s soulful falsetto became the soundtrack of the entire season. One hot July morning, as we swept cigarette butts and broken glass, the DJ “Workin’ Day and Night,” which became our official theme song.
It was impossible to switch on the soul stations WEBB or V103 and not hear the Hustle inducing “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” the mid-tempo boogie of “Rock with You” or the infidelity anthem, “Girlfriend.” Written by Paul McCartney (who first recorded the song with Wings for 1978’s London Town), Jackson’s voice was sweeter than the sugar in my coffee, but the song was actually about betrayal and deceit. On Off the Wall, “Girlfriend” (featuring legendary guitarist Wah Wah Watson) was followed by the heartbreaking break-up track, “She’s Out of My Life,” one of the saddest pop songs on the planet.
Cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales has written cover stories for Vibe, Uptown, Essence, XXL, Wax Poetics and elsewhere. He’s also a columnist for soulhead.com. Read him at Blackadelic Pop and follow him on Twitter @gonzomike.
http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-...l-jackson-into-the-stratosphere#axzz3ya4wXMXU
How ‘Off the Wall’ Launched Michael Jackson into Orbit
As Spike Lee's new Sundance-debuting documentary celebrates Off the Wall, vintage visionary Michael A. Gonzales pieces together the making of MJ’s blackest album
by Michael A. Gonzales, January 27, 2016
As one of those people who think that Michael Jackson’s masterwork Off the Wall was superior to everything he recorded afterwards, I was thrilled to read about Spike Lee’s upcoming documentary celebrating the album. Awkwardly titled Michael Jackson’s Journey From Motown to Off the Wall, the film recently previewed at the Sundance Film Festival and will be broadcast on Showtime beginning February 5. In addition, Sony Records will be reissuing the landmark album on February 26, in a package that will include the documentary.
Lee’s film features interviews with people who knew and influenced Jackson, including Quincy Jones—who produced Off the Wall after befriending Jackson on the set of The Wiz—Berry Gordy and Stevie Wonder. The filmmaker also talks to various folks who were inspired by M. J.’s yelps, screams and pure singing, including The Weeknd, Kobe Bryant and Misty Copeland. Jackson’s 1979 classic defines what creators mean when they say they want their work to be eternal.
Off the Wall, which turns 37 this coming August, was a beautiful fusion of soul, disco, pop and funk that was able cross various lines, including color, class and time (sounding as great tomorrow as it did more than three decades back), while also appealing to everybody from projects to penthouses and everywhere in between. Musically, it was as connected to mama Africa (the opening of “Workin’ Day and Night” is straight tribal funk) as it was to the Mama Feelgood who was ready to do the Hustle whenever “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” came on at the club.
Listening to Off the Wall today, the album also serves an aural time machine that takes me back to an era before pop had a king, back when many thought the end was near for the former child star whose remarkable precocious talent made him a superstar before he even hit puberty. Back then, me and all my friends spent Saturday morning watching The Jackson 5ive cartoon and begging our parents to buy Super Sugar Crisp so we could get the J5 record off of the cereal box.
While we were well aware that the Jackson 5 was a family group, for us it was all about Michael. With so much musical talent wrapped in his brown sugar cuteness, the little girls swooned while the boys wanted him to be their brother.
In the bicentennial summer of 1976, my cousin Denise suddenly announced to me, “Michael Jackson is played out”—and she wasn’t the only one who believed that to be true. As an impressionable 13-year-old kid used to my older teenage cousin being the beat barometer guiding me towards whatever cool music I should’ve been listening to, her announcement of Michael Jackson “falling off” struck me like a heavy blow from some playground bully’s fist.
We were sitting in the gaudy basement of her parent’s Pittsburgh home, the same Tiki lit/wood paneled wall cellar where, a few years before, we played the Jackson 5’s debut Motown single “I Want You Back” over and over and over. It was in that basement where we once sang “ABC,” lip-synched “Lookin’ Through the Windows” for our parents and did the robot whenever “Dancing Machine” (still one of my favorite songs) blared.
Perhaps at 16, Denise felt that the so-called “bubble gum soul” the Jacksons were known for during their successful tenure at Motown was too immature for her, choosing to boot them in favor of seemingly more grown-up musical crushes. Throwing those memories aside, she spread out her new 45s on top of the bar: the mid-tempo balladry of the Brothers Johnson’s “Good to You” (she loved her some bass playin’ Louis); the grown-folks’ soul of the O’Jays jam “Livin’ for the Weekend”; and the White-boy funk of Wild Cherry’s bugged “Play That Funky Music.”
I usually followed Denise’s lead concerning whatever musical journey she choice for us, but there was no way I could turn my back on Michael Jackson. He wasn’t just another pop star; brother M. J. was like family. That same summer, Denise and I were watching TV when talk show host Mike Douglas introduced a new sibling group called The Sylvers. With their sky-high Afros and syncopated steps, they performed their hit, “Hot Line.” It was difficult to look at them and not think they’d stolen some of the Jacksons’ mojo.
Meanwhile, the Jackson brothers (with the exception of Jermaine) left Motown in hopes of more creative freedom. Forced to leave the “5” behind at the insistence of their bullying former label, in 1976 they released the self-titled CBS Records/Philadelphia International album under their new moniker, The Jacksons.
Though I was a fan of the Gamble and Huff produced disco ditty first single “Enjoy Yourself,” and the smoldering ballad “Show You the Way to Go,” it was becoming difficult to muster the same mania I had a few years before, when my courageous mom battled a New York City blizzard to take me to see the Jackson 5 live at Radio City Music Hall. Soon, I too let go of the Jacksons as my tastes shifted towards the more aggressive sounds of Led Zeppelin and Jimi Hendrix.
Years ago, someone snapped a picture of a young Michael Jackson in the studio studying what his friend and mentor Stevie Wonder was doing behind the boards. As we’ve learned, Michael was a sponge who, like all the best artists, could absorb from the masters (James Brown, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye) and make it their own. The same way young M. J. stared at Wonder, he surely was studying just as intensely the other musical geniuses who crossed his path.
Still, Michael’s brothers might’ve respected him as their front-man falsetto singer, when but when they were finally producing themselves on Destiny in 1978, more than a few of his ideas got vetoed. After the record was released and Mike’s track “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)” (co-produced with little brother Randy Jackson) became the group’s biggest post-Motown hit, he decided to go in the studio and record his first solo joint since Forever, Michael.
With the Off the Wall sessions beginning in the winter of ’78, Jackson would be in the studio for the next seven months. According to biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, when the rest of the family tried to bogart, Michael declared, “I’m doing this on my own. They’re just going to have to understand. For once.”
As we all know, Jackson didn’t really do it completely on his own. In fact, he had a lot of help. Recruiting Quincy Jones (much to his label’s dismay) wasn’t just about the superior sounds the maestro achieved in the studio, but also having access to the arsenal of talent at Jones’s fingertips. “Nobody ever said no to Quincy,” producer and former Q engineer Phil Ramone told me in 2007. “If he called, you were there.”
In the days when liner note studying was a part of the listening experience, the Off the Wall roster was a who’s who of session gods: guitarists Phil Upchurch and Larry Carlton; keyboardists Steve Porcaro and Greg Phillinganes; synthesizer specialists George Duke and David Foster; songwriter Rod Temperton; percussionist Paulinho da Costa; backup singer Patti Austin; and my cousin’s main man Louis Johnson (he co-wrote “Get on the Floor”) on bass.
As M. J. said many times in his career, his choices weren’t about color or race, but talent, and L.A.-based studio sessions often looked like a Benetton ad. But in the beginning, according to the producer, Michael’s shyness was a factor. Jones would later describe 20-year-old Michael as “very, very introverted, shy and non-assertive. He wasn’t at all sure he could make a name for himself on his own. Neither was I.”
The summer of 1979 was a big year for both me and Michael Jackson. He would be 21 come August and I had just turned 16 in June. Having moved from Harlem to Baltimore a few months before, one night I sat in our Monroe Street living room watching Midnight Special when suddenly the video clip for Jackson’s first single “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” started. Randy, who played percussion on the song, was the only Jackson bro on the album.
To put the video for “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” in pop culture perspective, this was two years before the launch of MTV, and I’d never seen a video before. But there before my eyes was M. J. clad in a tux, looking simultaneously uncomfortable and like the coolest kid in class.
As strange images were projected behind him, the pulsating percussion kicked in (“Fever/ Temperature’s risin’ now”), the pure ecstasy of the song makes you “melt like hot candle wax.” When Jackson sang on the chorus—“Keep on with the force, don’t stop,”—some thought he was making a reference to Star Wars, but I think he was simply talking about himself. As he would soon prove, when it came to making pop records in the upcoming 1980s, he was the force. The video clip for “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough” was tacky and revolutionary, and the perfect advertisement for his upcoming album.
A couple of months later, it was that song’s irresistible groove that got my usual wallflower booty on the dance floor at Baltimore’s renowned club Odell’s, where I was a slave to rhythm. In retrospect, it’s ironic that the same season White boy rockers were declaring “disco sucked” and detonating 12-inch singles in Chicago, Michael Jackson released one of the best dance tracks of his career.
It was impossible to switch on the soul stations WEBB or V103 and not hear the Hustle inducing “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” the mid-tempo boogie of “Rock with You” or the infidelity anthem, “Girlfriend.” Written by Paul McCartney (who first recorded the song with Wings for 1978’s London Town), Jackson’s voice was sweeter than the sugar in my coffee, but the song was actually about betrayal and deceit. On Off the Wall, “Girlfriend” (featuring legendary guitarist Wah Wah Watson) was followed by the heartbreaking break-up track, “She’s Out of My Life,” one of the saddest pop songs on the planet.
After having a good cry, Mike returns with his voice floating over a soft bed of Moogs (courtesy of Greg Phillinganes) as the moody brilliance of the Stevie Wonder-written quiet storm groove “I Can’t Help It” plays. The song was originally penned for Wonder’s own masterpiece, 1976’s Songsin the Key of Life. Subsequently, “It’s the Falling in Love” takes us back to smiley face happiness before M. J. jets to the club again on the horn heavy into of “Burn This Disco Out.” Released August 10, 1979, Off the Wall (some say his blackest album) was critically acclaimed and would go on to sell millions.
Buying the album at Modern Music record store in Mondawmin Mall that week with friends, we returned to my crib ready for the boogie to capture our souls and never let go. Thirty summers later, June 25, 2009, when it was announced that Michael Jackson was dead, I sat with my friend Patricia that sad afternoon as she downloaded our favorite songs and played them on her laptop. When the title track for Off the Wall came on, we momentarily put our misery up on the shelf and just enjoyed ourselves.
Cultural critic Michael A. Gonzales has written cover stories for Vibe, Uptown, Essence, XXL, Wax Poetics and elsewhere. He’s also a columnist for soulhead.com. Read him at Blackadelic Pop and follow him on Twitter @gonzomike.
http://www.ebony.com/entertainment-...l-jackson-into-the-stratosphere#axzz3ya4wXMXU
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AtlasAir
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Nonsense. There's plenty that can be said, and done in a structured, 2 hour film.
Not every person is part of the deep fandom. Not everyone knows every minuscule detail.
Bringing Brighter Days
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It was bigger than fandom
25 million people in the united states alone bought that album and it was probably more than that
And we dont need to know every miniscule detail
There's thousands of clips on youtube right now that captures what the impact of that album had when it actually happened