Michael Jackson - "Off the Wall" (1979)

Rating: 8

Best Song – “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”

            First, a brief biographical note on me and Michael Jackson. Between the ages of four and ten, the only music I ever listened to was Off the Wall, Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous. I spent countless Saturday mornings watching Michael Jackson music video marathons on MTV and VH1. In short, me and the King of Pop go way back. This can potentially present some difficulties as a reviewer, for while these are ultimately my subjective opinions, I am also attempting to be ‘objective’ in the sense that I apply consistent standards to the albums I review. The conundrum I run into with reviewing Michael Jackson is that my favorite songs of his make me feel inexpressibly nostalgic in a way that goes well beyond what I view as their objective merits.

For although at a gut emotional level, I probably enjoy “The Way You Make Me Feel” as much as I enjoy just about anything else, it’s hard to avoid my analytical conclusion that Michael’s music is excellent by the standards of highly professional, corporatized pop music but is still highly professional, corporatized pop music which ultimately limits how good it can really be. Although I feel, especially as his career progressed, that more and more of his personal artistic vision started to come through (and unlike many pop singers, he did in fact have an artistic vision), the way his music is presented usually feels chained to pop convention unlike a more exploratory contemporary such as Prince. Thriller is something of an exception to this, but it also underscores the other major problem I have with Jackson, which is the filler. Again, by the standards of most artists played on radio, he looks consistent, but there are relative to major throwaways on every Michael Jackson album.

Ultimately, I look to find balance between these two different perspectives, since they both impact how I feel and react to the music. Thus, I suspect my ratings for his albums will be a bit higher than what most who have similar musical tastes to me otherwise would give them. But I’m not going to give them all perfect scores either.

So, Off the Wall. Like most reviewers, I start here because this was the first Michael Jackson album where he played a major part in the songwriting and overall musical direction. Although he certainly was not the only creative player on the album and probably had even more creative control as his career progressed, there is a marked difference in both sound and quality between this and his previous work. I haven’t listened to all of his early solo albums, but what I have heard was uninspiring, generic early 70s R&B and not really having anything to do with Jackson as an artist at all, so I quickly lost interest in being the rare reviewer to actually tackle them. The exception of course are the iconic Jackson 5 singles, but I have a strong suspicion that Jackson 5 albums weren’t much better either.

Yet here, Michael successfully made the transition that Justin Bieber will never make and emerges as a legitimate artist. Although the sound is instantly recognizable as late 70s disco-influenced dance pop, the songwriting is generally strong, and fairly consistent too. I’m sure that most have heard the singles “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Rock With You” and they are deserved classics. “Don’t Stop,” in particular, stands out as the most creative song here as well as the most uniquely Michael Jackson. Although its length instills fears of endless disco marathons, the guitar and horn-led groove is infectious and Michael’s falsetto singing endearing, if not exactly sexy. “Rock With You,” actually written by Rod Temperton, may be my personal favorite on the record, with a winning melody and vocal by Jackson.

What’s most impressive, though, both for a commercial pop album and what is effectively a debut or rebirth, is that Off the Wall rates as perhaps Jackson’s most consistent album. Although everything is basically in the same vein – either upbeat dance or mid-tempo ballads (mostly upbeat dance), it rarely feels too repetitive. It does follow a fairly predictable structure in that side one features the two big singles, followed by two good, but slightly weaker efforts (although it pains me to call “Workin’ Day and Night” weaker, as it rides the funky guitar/horn/falsetto triptych to almost as great effect as “Don’t Stop”). Side two opens with another strong single, the Temperton-penned title track, and then comes the clearly recognizable filler stretch before closing with another standout dance number (“Burn This Disco Out”). But even the filler stretch isn’t that bad, though perhaps mediocre. It helps that Jackson had enough clout to enlist Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney as songwriters (though McCartney’s “Girlfriend” is actually a cover). Wonder’s “I Can’t Help It” is hardly one of his best (likely why he gave it away) but is at the same time quite strong for a designated filler tune, adding some smooth class to the second side.

Really, there’s nothing bad here. “She’s Out of My Life” comes close, but is saved by the famous legend (famous to me at any rate) that Michael couldn’t sing the song without bursting into tears and indeed he does sound like he’s starting to sob at the very end of the recorded version. Although I will spare my readers from me delving into the various biographical implications of this, it does add some intrigue to what is otherwise a fairly generic and not very memorable ballad. But otherwise, Off the Wall is impressively consistent and certainly has to rank as one of the best commercial dance-pop albums of its era. That said, Michael would of course move on to greater things and apart from maybe “Don’t Stop,” his personality had yet to fully imprint itself on his music, apart from his unique androgynous singing style. This music is all about dancing and having a good time, and nothing more, and believe it or not, he would go on to make music with more emotional weight.