HIStory
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The list has four MJ songs on it:
P.Y.T at #102
Human Nature at #36
Billie Jean at #13
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' at #2
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9700-the-200-best-songs-of-the-1980s/10/
I was a bit surprised that this time Billie Jean wasn't ranked as MJ's best as usual, but I do not complain because I think WBSS is a genius song that is often overlooked compared to Billie Jean or Beat It. It's such a uniquely MJ song in my opinion.
Number one is Purple Rain by Prince. I like Prince, but I think it's a bit disappointing choice for #1. It's not even Prince's best song IMO and to be honest I think it is a pretty generic power pop ballad, but oh well, each to their own.
I am also a bit disappointed that no song from Bad was selected. Man in the Mirror, Smooth Criminal at the very least.
But then we should never take such lists and rankings too seriously.
P.Y.T at #102
Human Nature at #36
Billie Jean at #13
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin' at #2
102 Michael Jackson“P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)”
EPIC; 1983
102
Listen on Apple Music
When it was released as Thriller’s penultimate single in the fall of '83, "P.Y.T." seemed fated for a life in Michael Jackson’s singles graveyard. Panned by the press as "fluff," the flirty pop-funk confection came at the tail end of the Thriller era and quickly became the lowest charting of the record’s seven singles (though, this being Michael Jackson, that still involves breaking into the Billboard Top 10). It never got the high-profile video treatment Jackson had gained a reputation for, and he didn’t even perform the song live in his lifetime, putting it in league with fellow Thriller back burner "The Lady in My Life". Even with a bit of star power, courtesy of Grammy-winning singer James Ingram who co-wrote alongside Quincy Jones, "P.Y.T." just couldn’t ever find the launching pad.
Even so, the single persisted as a fan favorite, for good reason: "P.Y.T." is one of Jackson’s most well-executed pop songs ever, from its irresistibly plush synth pads and rubbery bassline to the bridge’s famous call-and-response with a background chorus of P.Y.T.s (later revealed to be Jackson’s sisters, LaToya and Janet). It’s also the fastest song in Jackson’s catalog, perhaps providing a clue as to why he didn’t perform it, and other physically demanding songs, onstage. Yet in a 2009 interview with NPR, in which Ingram elaborated on the song’s recording sessions, he said Jackson danced furiously as he recorded, something he hadn’t seen an artist do before. "Michael came out of the studio sweating," he described. "There’s nobody that could do what he does." And he’s right: "P.Y.T." remains one of the best examples of Jackson’s irrepressible talent, capable of spinning even his filler tracks into gold. —Eric Torres
36 Michael Jackson“Human Nature”
EPIC; 1983
36
Listen on Apple Music
Though "Human Nature" has aged as well as anything from Thriller, it’s weird on numerous levels, one of which is likely to serve as an answer in bar trivia: It was co-written by the dude responsible for "Africa". Its weirdness is also contextual, because from this point forward, Michael Jackson’s blockbuster ballads were pleas to save the world or the children or the whales. And "Human Nature" wasn’t about a paternity suit or choreographing a gang truce or distrust of the media or being friends with Eddie Van Halen, Paul McCartney, or Vincent Price, which is what makes it such an outlier. It’s the rare song from Michael Jackson’s imperial phase that wasn’t explicitly about the experience of being Michael Jackson.
In fact, it’s impossible to picture Michael Jackson doing anything he sings about on "Human Nature"—being entranced by the skyline of New York City, seeing nothing but possibility in the future, having the wherewithal to make a casually cruel admittance to a one night stand while recognizing how it might serve as a greater truth about man’s biological impulses. But you get the sense that he wishes more than anything that this story could’ve been his and not that of a guy from Toto. While there’s no tawdry, tabloid subtext to "Human Nature", you can still understand why a song of such wonder and transparency feels so heartbreaking: Our everyday experiences were as alien to Michael Jackson as his were to us. —Ian Cohen
13 Michael Jackson“Billie Jean”
EPIC; 1983
13
Listen on Apple Music
We all know "Billie Jean", the song: Its insatiable hook and ribald bassline and Michael Jackson’s plaintive hics launched the pop star into a stratospheric realm of celebrity, decades ahead of reality TV stars and the 24-hour news cycle. Just as, if not more, important is "Billie Jean", the video. At the same time that Jackson’s gentle grin smiled out from magazine and newspaper covers all over the world, there were still racial barriers to breach at home in America. Directed by Steve Barron (who would go on to do A-Ha’s "Take on Me"), the video was among the first by a black musician to air on MTV. It’s absurd to imagine, 30 years on, at a time when videos by black artists set trends, help keep cable music channels afloat, and are the cache driving emerging digital platforms like Tidal and Apple Music. Jackson’s music united people all over the world in an unprecedented way, but it was his image—his smooth brown skin, the glossy Jheri curl and infamous toe stand—that made "Billie Jean" so crucial to the commodification of black artists in pop music, and a progenitor of a culture that thrives on "social media moments." —Anupa Mistry
2 Michael Jackson“Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'”
EPIC; 1983
2
Listen on Apple Music
"Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’" supports the weight of Michael Jackson’s transition from funky boy wonder to Thriller's omnivorous pop demi-god, builds a bridge between his precocious past and troubled future. Off the Wall had sealed Jackson’s solo stardom three years earlier, but it’s music for the end of adolescence rather than the beginning of adulthood. He stumbles over words, trips over his own two feet, floats on the vestiges of disco like he’s drifting through an amusement park lazy river; "She’s Out of My Life" is heartbreak as rendered by someone who’s experiencing it for the very first time. Fast forward to 1982: "Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’" is paranoid, sharp, angry, and cluttered, and it’s a window into both the righteous martyrdom and broad platitudes Jackson would come to lean on as his career progressed.
The song takes on a lot of musical heft too, mostly because it sounds like everything: lithe funk and disco like the kind Jackson made on Off the Wall, aggressive, mathy rock, African pop, experimental music. (Take a minute to listen to Jackson’s array of bizarre backing vocals and sounds—it’s more Laurie Anderson than "The Lady in My Life".) This extreme breadth is enabled by one of the greatest rhythms in pop history and one of its most agile vocalists, flitting in and around the song like a hummingbird. There’s a reason Kanye West, perhaps Jackson’s foremost contemporary disciple, chose to reference this song at the height of his foray into maximalism: Jackson had drawn up a blueprint for him almost 30 years earlier. That sheer size—that cavernous, yawning quality—is the ultimate legacy of "Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’". If you’re going to become the biggest star in the world, it helps to make the biggest song. —Jamieson Cox
http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/9700-the-200-best-songs-of-the-1980s/10/
I was a bit surprised that this time Billie Jean wasn't ranked as MJ's best as usual, but I do not complain because I think WBSS is a genius song that is often overlooked compared to Billie Jean or Beat It. It's such a uniquely MJ song in my opinion.
Number one is Purple Rain by Prince. I like Prince, but I think it's a bit disappointing choice for #1. It's not even Prince's best song IMO and to be honest I think it is a pretty generic power pop ballad, but oh well, each to their own.
I am also a bit disappointed that no song from Bad was selected. Man in the Mirror, Smooth Criminal at the very least.
But then we should never take such lists and rankings too seriously.