Michael Jackson August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009

It’s a beautiful June evening in Brooklyn and word just broke about Michael Jackson’s passing. I saw the report and had to run across the street to top-up my phone and text Eleanore the news. The Spanish radio station at the bodega was telling the story, three cars went by with MJ songs playing.
“What!? How?!” Eleanore wrote back.
“Heart attack.”
We’ve been locked away writing songs for the past month. It’s a strange process, sometimes really difficult and challenging going deep into words and sounds and it’s funny the games you invent to try and unlock the ‘secrets’. MJ had the key, and there’s been more than a few times recently that we’ve both sat around listening to his records trying to dissect what It was.

I’ve always thought that just humming the bass line to ‘I want you back’ will put a smile on your face. That bouncing line descending around that high vocal is one of my very favorite moments in music. Like Stevie Wonder, doors were first unlocked for MJ at Motown. There, at the feet of some of the most talented songwriters and musicians the pop world has ever seen, the young boy learned. His childhood might have been lost in a sequined whirlwind of James Brown moves sliding across the stage from one side of America to the other but, along the way, MJ was absorbing. By the time he went solo, he was ready to unlock the kingdom.

Both ‘Off The Wall’ and ‘Thriller’ are still so mind blowing it’s almost supernatural. “It’s magic,” Eleanore said one night as the first woo broke open the tight clap and boom of ‘Don’t Stop.’ And it is, something of alchemy and conjuring a whole universe in sound. Both records are the product of two absolute geniuses. MJ and Quincy Jones were touching something that truly comes around once in a lifetime. The production is so staggeringly complete. Every space and frequency filled with instruments and parts that combine to perfectly frame the rhythm and melodies. Quincy knew exactly how to bring it all together but the brilliance, the inspiration, and magic was all there in Michael evidenced by the svelte production on his home taped demo version for ‘Don’t Stop’.

MJ’s later life was of course plagued by controversy as his eccentric behavior began to overwhelm his gifts. Now, in his passing, let’s hope that madness can recede and instead we can remember how incredible his music really was.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 19:30. It is filed under THITH Zine. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.