Thriller: The Musical Life of Michael Jackson
Nelson George
Language: English
Pages: 256
ISBN: 0306818787
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The Lives of Erich Fromm: Love's Prophet
J.M.W. Turner: Standing in the Sun
Kennedy and Nixon: The Rivalry That Shaped Postwar America
the record probably wouldn’t have meant as much when it was released if Van Halen hadn’t played the solo on it. As a young music critic at Billboard, I reviewed Van Halen’s first headlining show in New York, a gig at the steamy rock venue the Palladium, on East 14th Street. Lead singer David Lee Roth, with his long, swinging hair, athletic body, and splits, was the visual center of the band and was crucial to its MTV appeal. But Eddie’s quicksilver fingers and inventive solos created sonic
Michael. Parents like the ones sitting behind me getting loudly drunk and spilling beer on my shoes enjoyed the spectacle of it, though the only non-“Thriller” material they seemed to know came during the Jackson Five medley. They were looking for family entertainment; a little sentiment, a little fantasy, a little dancing, a little nostalgia, a lot of glitter. As the first show of a large tour, the Kansas City, Missouri, date felt like “a glorified rehearsal,” with the tempos on several songs
contrast with Kansas City was stark. There he seemed a fairy prince off in the distance, far removed and detached from his subjects and even the show itself. In Jersey he walked the waterfront with a chip on his shoulder, moving and singing with real blood in his eye. This was particularly true of the show’s first half, when even during “She’s Out of My Life” he threw in some break dance movements, signifying that on this night all sweetness must be cut with funk. It might have been that Jersey
album. No Rod Temperton songs made the album. Nor is there any song as genre busting as “Beat It” or as intense as “Billie Jean.” What is on Bad are songs with magnificent melodies (“I Just Can’t Stop Loving You,” “Liberian Girl”), cinematic in conception (“Smooth Criminal”), and smartly funky (“The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Another Part of Me”). The secret hero of Bad is singer-songwriter Siedah Garrett, who sang the female part on “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and co-wrote the song that would
It’ movie.” Furthermore, the site stated, “a few scenes were selected in which Michael Jackson smiled and showed that in spite of being in a dire state, he was still the greatest star in the world.” Having been in scores of edit rooms over the last ten years, I know “This Is Not It” is likely more right than wrong. Any edit of 110 hours of footage into under 2 hours of film could yield dozens of different versions. Moreover, any version of the documentary financed by the promoters of the London