Michael Jackson -- Thriller

 

A couple of years ago, I posted Ray Parker Jr.'s "Ghostbusters" as a Halloween Reminiscings of Youth piece, so I figured that it was time for this one as well. Now I am well aware that Halloween is not a statutory holiday but merely an observed fun tradition but I'm still going to continue our KKP tradition of coming up with something spooky on the 31st or thereabouts.

I've known Michael Jackson's "Thriller" more for the epic video of around 15 minutes in length than for the original single that was released in the United States in January 1984. Never bought the album "Thriller" in my youth so the video was my introduction to the song by Rod Temperton which was produced by Quincy Jones.

The video was released in early December 1983 and the hoopla surrounding it was incredible to say the least. Even now, I don't think music videos that are a quarter of an hour in length are all that plentiful so you can imagine how the excitement was like back forty years ago. After all, this was the King of Pop Michael Jackson doing a horror-based music video with all of the special effects trimmings under the direction of John Landis of "Animal House", "The Blues Brothers" and "An American in Werewolf in London" fame, and yep, some of "Thriller" was inspired by that final movie. Anyways, folks were really excited to see the world premiere of the video on MTV, and we here in Canada were able to view it as well, probably via MuchMusic. 

Because of the plot line of the werewolf and MJ taking home Ola Ray being interwoven into the song and dance, I'd say that "Thriller" could have even been called a very specific mini-musical around one tune, and man, that was some choreography. Now if zombies ever dance again anywhere in media, they would have to follow Michael. Of course, I can't ever forget Vincent Price's appropriately ghoulish narration and his gleefully evil laughter at the end.

Once the single came out, I remember that "Thriller" kept getting onto the top of the request charts for weeks upon weeks. Putting aside all of the Halloween sound effects, Price, and even Temperton's lyrics, the song is just one funky disco song released years after disco was supposed to have been exorcised from pop culture. The musicians supporting the song were all top-notch: Jerry Hey, Gary Grant, Larry Williams, and Bill Reichenbach on horns (all who have played on Japanese pop albums, too), along with Temperton and Greg Phillinganes on keyboards.

In Canada, "Thriller" the single made it up to No. 3 while hitting No. 4 in America. The countries where it actually topped the charts were Belgium, France, Portugal and Spain.

Now, what was coming out as singles in December 1983?

Yutaka Ozaki -- Juu-go no Yoru （15の夜）

Tatsuro Yamashita -- Christmas Eve

Warabe -- Moshi mo Ashita ga （もしも明日が）

Michael Jackson -- Rock with You

 

"Thriller", "Billie Jean", "PYT", "Human Nature", "Beat It"...the list goes on for the Michael Jackson hits which I've enjoyed over the years. But there is one song by the late King of Pop that still hits me with those fine feelings of yesteryear and it's truly a reminiscing of youth.

"Rock with You" was released on November 3rd 1979. That combination of the opening rat-a-tat-tat drum and then the spacey synthesizer has been my ASMR trigger for my ROY moment all these decades, and the way that Jackson just purrs those opening lines truly emphasizes that one line in Rod Temperton's lyrics: "Relax your mind". Despite that title, the song is cool and cooling.

The song was called a disco tune in a year when that very word was most likely being partnered with another word  to become one of the more famous pop cultural catchphrases of disdain, but being someone who never really had an issue with the genre, I do enjoy the funk, soul and AOR of "Rock with You". It's all great but my favourite part of "Rock with You" along with the intro is the middle section which starts with "And when the groove is dead and gone..." when the Seawind Horns led by Jerry Hey and those romantic strings come rolling in. I can imagine an epic scene flying over a major city during sunset when that middle part comes in.

And the amazing thing is that it's probably one of Jackson's shortest songs at just three minutes and change. But Jackson, Temperton, all of those amazing studio musicians and producer Quincy Jones spun some wonderfully shimmering gold with "Rock with You" as it hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and even finished 4th on the yearly version of the chart.

One more observation that I had was before I saw the video for "Rock with You", I hadn't remembered seeing Jackson for several years since his time with the Jackson 5 in the early 1970s when he was just this little kid, and most of my sightings of that group was through their Saturday morning cartoon on ABC. So to see this really lanky happy young man in the sparkling suit appear in front of a laser beam and rotating fog was quite the thing.

Anyways in making my usual search for what was also coming out in Japan at the same time, I discovered that quite a few classics did come out at around the same time as "Rock with You". 

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Technopolis（テクノポリス）(October 25th)

Miki Matsubara -- Mayonaka no Door （真夜中のドアー）(November 5th)

Crystal King -- Dai Tokai (大都会）(November 21st)

Yellow Magic Orchestra -- Behind The Mask

I don’t wanna talk about it (Let’s talk about it).

Actually, Yellow Magic Orchestra is a silly name, admitted Ryuichi Sakamoto to Daily Telegraph in 2011. But he liked it. “It’s half way between black magic and white magic, and we’re Asian musicians, so yellow is about right, no? And we liked the idea of an orchestra with only three people. I was the composer and the brains. They called me the professor.” 

For a professor it was difficult to suddenly meet screaming teenage girls wherever they played. It didn't help that in the beginning of 1980's artists were required to wear make-up and Sakamoto was supposed to sing his own songs. “It was very hard to adjust,” sighed Sakamoto, “because I never wanted to be centre stage. I love to be anonymous.”

Anonymous, or better… behind the mask?

Behind The Mask, the probably most famous composition by Ryuichi Sakamoto, was in repertoire already during the first YMO live recording at Yubin Chokin Kaikan in October 18, 1978. The ticking sound of the song fitted perfectly to Seiko quartz watch commercial that made it known before it was officially recorded.

When we look closer, the song is almost ridiculously simple, as pop classics often are. However, the chords Sakamoto used [F-Db-Eb-Cm] were not common at all and gave the tune an ambiguous character. It’s an ambient composition with many sides and many possibilities. During the next decades all the possibilities were mapped by various artists.

Haruomi Hosono (細野 晴臣) raises his hands up. “We didn’t recognise at all that it was to become a classic! We considered it a failed production.” The recording for album “Solid State Survivor” took five days. In his book Hideki Matsutake revealed that the recording was made in the following order: 1. Base, 2. Arpeggio, 3. Kick (MOOG III-C), 4. Snare and hi-hat (Yukihiro Takahashi 高橋 幸宏), 5. Melody, 6. Vocoder (Ryuichi Sakamoto 坂本 龍一).

English lyrics to the song were written by Chris Mosdell. Sakamoto already had the melody line when he asked poet and lyricist Mosdell to write lyrics. He based it on the imagery of a Japanese traditional Noh mask, combined with a Yeats poem The Mask. On Mosdell homepage is stated "Having recently seen Yeats’ Noh play At Hawk’s Well in Tokyo, Chris sat down and wrote lyrics based on a premise that was similar to that of the poem. But he gave the wearer of the mask an inert nature, in keeping with his image of a depersonalized society in a technological time."

(Tokyo Dome 1993)

I like the above 1980 Nippon Budokan version most, because of Akiko Yano’s cute little crouches. Unfortunately we can’t see much of them, because video director couldn’t resist brand new editing technology, and he using it a lot. Something against radio junk, I suppose. Stylish shirts, though.

The next chapter was the most surprising one. Michael Jackson used his magic touch and wrote additional lyrics to the beginning of song. The reason was simple: his producer, famed Quincy Jones, loved the track. During Jones' trip to Japan he was introduced to the song by Kuni Murai, the president of Alfa Records. "Jones thought it was a perfect vehicle for the new album of Michael Jackson that he was producing, so he took it back to Los Angeles and presented it to Michael", Mosdell remembers. Jones and Jackson turned the techno piece into a funky R&B disco hit.

Behind The Mask was supposed to be released in Michael Jackson’s album Thriller in 1982. As you recall, Thriller still is the most sold music album in the history. However, Michael Jackson’s Behind The Mask never progressed further from demo version.

We will never know what really happened,  The known “facts” have some discrepancies. One theory says Michael Jackson requested 50% of credits, copyright and royalties for his massive input of 10 extra lines. YMO refused. Another story claims that the track was already completed (questionable) and YMO wanted to review it, but Michael refused. On the other hand there is indeed a thematical and conceptual dissonance between Behind The Mask and the rest of the songs of Thriller. It is easy to see why Behind The Mask was shelved.

Actually, making Thriller was a mess. "After editing the final cut I took Michael home, and he went to sleep on the couch," said Jones to Rolling Stone magazine. "Three hours later we went back to the studio and listened to the acetate. Biggest piece of shit in life! We were horrified. So we took two days off, then spent the next eight days remixing. One song a day. We put those babies in the pocket." During these circumstances there was no time to pay any attention to the over 100 candidate songs. They were too busy trying to salvage the damn album.

Michael Jackson’s Behind The Mask remained unreleased till his death. The unreleased tapes were dug out from Sony’s vault and published in 2010 as a posthumous album “Michael”. Instruments were added to demo and thus the world heard for the first time the Michael Jackson version. Please note that this is definitely not the Jones/Jackson version, if it ever was finished in the first place. It's more a "Bad" Jackson with dry sounds.

So, after the Thriller sessions, there existed an unused song with Michael Jackson lyrics waiting for somebody to pick it up. That one happened to be Greg Phillinganes, a keyboard player and a trusted session musician. Rumours have said up to this day that it was Michael Jackson himself who was singing backing vocals on Phillinganes’ version. Arrangement is pure Michael Jackson: a sharp dance hit that was seen rising on European charts in summer 1985. Greg Phillinganes’ version must be the closest idea to how MJ’s Behind The Mask had sounded like, if it ever was to be included on Thriller.

It is very suitable that this video shows the Japanese issue of Phillinganes’ album. Does it really say “Super Premium Black” on cover?

The story doesn’t end here. A chap called Eric Clapton was recruiting musicians to assist him during his “August” album session and the following world tour in 1986. Here comes to the picture a keyboard player from Los Angeles called Greg Phillinganes, who happened to play one of his recorded tracks and Clapton became interested. Clapton was recovering from his addictions and wanted to announce in his album that he is back and open to modern sounds.

The following clip (sorry but the clip has been erased by YouTube; I've left something else in its place) features a real All-Star Band. Jools Holland (keys), Mark King (bass), Phil Collins (drums), and Eric Clapton (solo guitar). You can never guess that the song is Behind The Mask. No, I am serious. During all these transformations a Sakamoto techno piece had become a funky R&B hit, and Clapton recreates it once again into something new: a solid and angry rock number with stinging guitar solos.

See how the world goes around.

So, what was left to Sakamoto? He re-recorded Behind The Mask in 1987 with Michael Jackson’s added lyrics. In the next century Sakamoto went acoustic and shaped his old song into a mixture of classical concert music and jazz. His live concerts in Seoul in 2011 were delivered to 288 000 viewers via Ustream. The lucky viewers who weren’t lagging or pulled off line had an opportunity to hear this arrangement for two pianos. It’s a Behind The Mask by Debussy.

The mysterious mask has been wandering from hand to hand amongst musicians for decades and it has appeared in multitude of magical shades, yellow, black and white. We still don’t know who or what is really behind the mask, but perhaps it’s not an important question at all. As Yeats said in his poem "O no, my dear, let all that be; What matter, so there is but fire, In you, in me?"

Heaven must be pleased.