Michael Jackson: Songwriter

If, three months ago, you strapped me to a chair, tied a blindfold around my head, and forced me to answer the question, "Who wrote more of their own songs: Michael Jackson or Madonna?" I'm not sure I would have even been able to make a good guess. I'll never have to worry about this terrifying hypothetical scenario ever again: the correct answer is Michael Jackson. Hell, Michael Jackson didn't even need much help. Here is a list of some of the songs that only bear the songwriting credit "Michael Jackson." They are some pretty good songs and you might have heard them on the radio at some point:

"Don't Stop Til You Get Enough"
"Wanna Be Startin' Something"
"The Girl Is Mine"
"Beat It"
"Billie Jean"
"Bad"
"The Way You Make Me Feel"
"I Just Can't Stop Loving You"
"Smooth Criminal"
"Black Or White"
"Who Is It"
"Will You Be There"

How did he do it? Wikipedia doesn't give us too much detail regarding the melodic aspect of the compositions, mostly discussing the lyrical inspiration. But really, what I want to know is, how did this guy write those catchy, catchy hooks? Somebody knows, but it's obviously not somebody on Wikipedia. Perhaps Michael himself did not even know. As if it matters anyway. Below are some informative tidbits. The "Bille Jean" stuff, in particular, is even weirder than I thought it would be.

"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough":

Jackson claimed that when the melody of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" came to him, he couldn't shake it off. He found himself humming and singing it while walking through the Jacksons' Encino home. As Michael could not play, he had his brother Randy perform the melody on a piano in the family's recording studio.[3] When Jackson's mother, a devout Jehovah's Witness, heard the song, she was shocked by the lyrical content. Katherine pointed out that the title could be misconstrued as pertaining to sexual activity.[5] Jackson reassured her that the song was not a reference to sex, but could mean whatever people wanted it to.

So wait, how does "You know this ... force it's ... got a lot of power ... make me feel like a ... make me feel like a ... ooh!" not refer to sex? And yet somehow, because it is Michael Jackson we're talking about here, I believe him.

"Wanna Be Startin' Something":

"Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" was written, composed, and co-produced by Michael Jackson, and produced by Quincy Jones. It was originally written for his sister La Toya Jackson about her troubled relationship with her sisters-in-law, but Michael ended up recording the song and La Toya sometimes performs the song at her concerts.

"The Girl Is Mine":

The writing of "The Girl Is Mine" was completed by Jackson as he watched cartoons with Paul McCartney.[1] Producer Quincy Jones had initially told Jackson to write a song about two men fighting over a girl. Inspired, Jackson awoke during the night and sang the song into a tape recorder. He later said, "I sang exactly what I heard in my head, starting with the melody and the keyboard and the strings and everything. So, I just orally put it all on tape." Jones also asked the singer to add a rap verse. Jackson recalled, "Quincy called me up one morning and says, 'Smelly'—he calls me Smelly—'we have to have some rapping in this.'"[2]

So clearly Michael Jackson's idea of rapping is this:

Paul: Michael, we're not going to fight about this, OK?
Michael: Paul, I think I told you, I'm a lover, not a fighter.

I don't think Ice Cube had anything to worry about.

"Beat It":

Producer Quincy Jones had wanted to include a rock 'n' roll song, though Jackson reportedly had never previously shown an interest in the genre.[2][3] Jackson later said of "Beat It", "I wanted to write a song, the type of song that I would buy if I were to buy a rock song... That is how I approached it and I wanted the kids to really enjoy it—the school kids as well as the college kids."

"Billie Jean":

There are contradictory claims as to what the song's lyrics refer. Some believe that they are derived from a real-life experience, in which a mentally ill female fan claimed that Jackson had fathered one of her twins. Others, pointing to the fact that Jackson was an avid tennis fan, believed that the song was about tennis great Billie Jean King; however, King's sexual preferences since 1968 render implausible any contention that the song's narrator, who claims to have had both a romantic encounter with Jackson and a child resulting from that encounter, was modeled on King. Jackson himself, however, stated several times that "Billie Jean" was based on the groupies he and his brothers encountered while part of The Jackson 5.[1][2][3]

"Billie Jean is kind of anonymous. It represents a lot of girls. They used to call them groupies in the '60s." He added, "They would hang around backstage doors, and any band that would come to town they would have a relationship with, and I think I wrote this out of experience with my brothers when I was little. There were a lot of Billie Jeans out there. Every girl claimed that their son was related to one of my brothers."[4]

Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli promoted the theory that "Billie Jean" was derived from a real life experience the singer faced in 1981. The Magic & The Madness documents how a young woman wrote Jackson a letter, which informed the singer that he was the father of one of her twins.[5][6] Jackson, who regularly received letters of this kind, had never met the woman in question and ignored it. The woman, however, continued to send Jackson more letters, which stated that she loved him and wanted to be with him. She wrote of how happy they would be if they raised the child together. She pondered how Jackson could ignore his own flesh and blood. The letters disturbed the singer to the extent that he suffered nightmares.[5]

Following the letters, Jackson received a parcel containing a photograph of the fan, as well as a letter and a gun. Jackson was horrified—the letter asked that the pop singer kill himself on a certain day and at a specific time. The fan would do the same once she had killed their baby. She wrote that if they could not be together in this life, then they would be in the next. To his mother's dismay, Jackson had the photograph of the woman framed and hung above the dining room table of their family home. Afterward, the Jacksons discovered that the female fan had been sent to a psychiatric hospital.[5]

Jackson wrote "Billie Jean" with his female fan(s) in mind, and later stated that when he wrote the song, he knew it would be a success. "A musician knows hit material. Everything has to feel in place. It fulfills you and it makes you feel good. That's how I felt about 'Billie Jean'. I knew it was going to be big when I was writing it."[1][7] The singer explained that he was so absorbed by the song that, in one instance, he did not notice that his car had caught fire as he drove down a freeway with a friend until a passing motorcyclist informed him. Jackson noted, "The kid probably saved our lives."[1][7]

"There never was a real Billie Jean. The girl in the song is a composite of people my brothers have been plagued with over the years. I could never understand how these girls could say they were carrying someone's child when it wasn't true."

"Bad":

"Bad" was originally intended to be a duet between Jackson and musician Prince, although the plans were not followed-up on.[1] In Jackson's 1988 autobiography Moonwalk, Jackson discussed the concept of "Bad", elaborating that,

" 'Bad' is a song about the street. It's about this kid from a bad neighborhood who gets to go away to a private school. He comes back to the old neighborhood when he's on a break from school and the kids from the neighborhood start giving him trouble. He sings, 'I'm bad, you're bad, who's bad, who's the best?' He's saying when you're strong and good, then you're bad."[2]

In a 1988 interview with Ebony and Jet magazines (which was released on Hulu shortly after his death), Jackson said that he had gotten the idea for the song from a true story that he had read about in Time or Newsweek magazine.[3] Jackson stated that the story said that a student that went to school in upstate New York, who was "from the ghetto", had tried to make something of his life and planned to leave all of his friends behind when he returned from Thanksgiving break.[3] He added that the student's friends' jealousy resulted in them killing the student; Jackson stated that the student's death was not included in the music video.[3]

Shades of "Jenny From The Block"?

In conclusion: Michael Jackson was one talented dude. Although he did not write some of his most famous hits, he wrote many, if not most of them, and did so without a collaborator. I, for one, would like to hear some of those demo tapes.

Michael Jackson: Interpreter

So how about the King of Pop and his interpretive skills? Here are some of the more famous Michael Jackson hits that Jackson did not write:

"Rock With You" (Rod Temperton)
"Thriller" (Rod Temperton)
"Human Nature" (Steve Porcaro/John Bettis)
"Man In The Mirror" (Glen Ballard/Siedah Garrett)
"You are Not Alone" (R. Kelly)

You may be asking yourself, what in the world is a Rod Temperton, author of "Rock With You" and "Thriller" (as well as smaller Jackson hits from that era such as "Off The Wall," "Baby Be Mine," and "The Lady In My Life"), and where can I find one? Let me tell you. A Rod Temperton is a late 70s/early 80s songwriter and performer. You may have heard several of his songs even if you did not know they were his. As a member of the disco band Heatwave, he wrote R&B airplay staples "Always and Forever," "Boogie Nights," and "Groove Line." George Benson's crossover smash "Give Me the Night"? Rod Temperton. James Ingram and Michael McDonald's absurdly cheesy duet "Yah Mo B There"? Rod Tempterton.

Apparently there isn't much of a story behind "Rock With You," but here is what Wikipedia has to say about the title track to the world's best-selling, and therefore greatest, album:

"Thriller" was originally titled "Starlight",[1][2] contrary to other reports of the title "Starlight Love".[3] While the song was titled "Starlight", the song's hook lyrics were "Starlight! Starlight sun...", but after the song was changed to "Thriller" the hook was rewritten to "Thriller! In the night...".[4]

Temperton commented, "Originally, when I did my Thriller demo, I called it Starlight. Quincy said to me, 'You managed to come up with a title for the last album, see what you can do for this album.' I said, 'Oh great,' so I went back to the hotel, wrote two or three hundred titles, and came up with the title 'Midnight Man'. The next morning, I woke up, and I just said this word... Something in my head just said, this is the title. You could visualize it on the top of the Billboard charts. You could see the merchandising for this one word, how it jumped off the page as 'Thriller'.[2]"

While Temperton was writing "Thriller" he stated that he'd "always envisioned" a "talking section at the end" on the song, but did not really know what "to do with it", until deciding "to have somebody, a famous voice, in the horror genre, to do this vocal."[2] Jones' wife, Peggy Lipton, who knew Vincent Price, suggested Price for the vocal part, which Price agreed to do.[2]

As I wrote before regarding "Human Nature," "The song was written by former Carpenters lyricist John Bettis and Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro. That is some serious M.O.R. cred right there." Wikipedia goes on:

Initially, Porcaro recorded a rough demo of the song on a cassette.[1] Fellow Toto band member David Paich then gave the demo, along with two songs written by Paich, to producer Quincy Jones, hoping they would be included on Thriller.[1] Jones didn't like Paich's songs, but enjoyed the rough demo of "Human Nature" at the end of the cassette.[1] Jones explained, "All of a sudden, at the end, there was all this silence, there was: 'why, why, dah dah da-dum dah dah, why, why'. Just a dummy lyric and a very skeletal thing—I get goosebumps talking about it. I said, 'This is where we wanna go, because it's got such a wonderful flavor'".[2] Bettis, who had written lyrics for hits by The Carpenters and The Pointer Sisters, among others, was asked to add lyrics to the song. He completed the song in two days.[3] The producer asked if the song could be included on Jackson's album, to which Porcaro and Bettis agreed.[1] "Human Nature" was the last song selected for Thriller, ousting "Carousel" from the final track listing.

Sucks to be "Carousel." As far as "Man In The Mirror" is concerned, co-writer Siedah Garrett ended up being Jackson's surprise duet partner on "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." I remember thinking "Who the hell is Siedah Garrett?" Well, the answer is, "the co-writer of 'Man In The Mirror'!" Glen Ballard, of course, achieved everlasting pop immortality/infamy by co-writing and producing Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill.

Finally, "You Are Not Alone" brought together two men with notoriously boundary-pushing views on adult/child intimacy:

The song was written by R. Kelly and produced by Kelly and Jackson.[2] Kelly wrote the song after the loss of close people in his life.[4] Kelly was delighted to be able to work with his idol, explaining "I was psyched ... I feel I could have done his whole album. Not being selfish. I was just that geeked about it. It was an experience out of this world ... It's amazing to know that five years ago I was writing songs in a basement in the ghetto and now I'm writing for Michael Jackson ... I'd be a fool not to say it's a dream come true."[5] Jackson contacted Kelly to see if he had any material available. Kelly forwarded a tape recording of the song and Jackson then agreed to work with Kelly on the piece.[5] On the tape sent to Jackson, Kelly sung "You Are Not Alone" mimicking Jackson's vocal style, explaining, "I think I am him. I become him. I want him to feel that as well." Jackson found the interpretation amusing.

I would hope he did. In conclusion, through sheer force of his unstoppable star power, Michael Jackson turned each of these songs into works that may have originated at the hands of someone else, but would never again be thought of as anything other than "Michael Jackson songs." Except by someone obnoxious like me.

Madonna: Songwriter

OK, so Madonna is a "songwriter," but what does that really mean? Or rather, my first question is this: did Madonna actually write any songs by herself? Are there any tracks credited solely to Madonna and Madonna alone?

The answer is yes. And they are all on her first album: "Everybody," "Burning Up," "I Know It," "Think Of Me," and most impressively, "Lucky Star." Exactly how she "wrote" these songs is hard to say, but no one seems to dispute it. Her then-boyfriend has some entertaining things to say about the recording process, however:

"She was unhappy with the whole damn thing, so I went in and sweetened up a lot of music for her, adding some guitars to 'Lucky Star', some voices, some magic. [...] I just wanted to do the best job I could do for her. When we would play back 'Holiday' or 'Lucky Star', you could see that she was overwhelmed by how great it all sounded. You wanted to help her, you know? As much as she could be a bitch, when you were in groove with her, it was very cool, very creative."

I'm sure it was. But clearly it wasn't that creative, or otherwise Madonna wouldn't have sought out so many collaborators. Either she realized she worked better with a songwriting partner, or she realized she needed the help. Hard to say. But let's take a look at the songwriting credits of some her biggest hits and find out who these mystery men were (and yes, they mostly appear to have been men):

"Into The Groove" (Madonna/Stephen Bray)
"Papa Don't Preach" (Madonna/Brian Elliot)
"Open Your Heart" (Madonna/Gardner Cole/Peter Rafelson)
"True Blue" (Madonna/Stephen Bray)
"La Isla Bonita" (Madonna/Patrick Leonard/Bruce Gaitsch)
"Live To Tell" (Madonna/Patrick Leonard)
"Like A Prayer" (Madonna/Patrick Leonard)
"Express Yourself" (Madonna/Stephen Bray)
"Cherish" (Madonna/Patrick Leonard)
"Vogue" (Madonna/Shep Pettibone)
"Rain" (Madonna/Shep Pettibone)
"Deeper and Deeper" (Madonna/Shep Pettibone/Anthony Shimkin)
"Secret" (Madonna/Dallas Austin/Shep Pettibone)
"Human Nature" (Madonna/Dave Hall/Shawn McKenzie/Kevin McKenzie/Michael Deering)
"Take A Bow" (Madonna/Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds)
"Frozen" (Madonna/Patrick Leonard)
"Ray Of Light" (Madonna/William Orbit/Clive Maldoon/Dave Curtiss/Christine Ann Leach)
"Beautiful Stranger" (Madonna/William Orbit)

All right, so the first question you probably have is, "Who is Stephen Bray?" And "Who is Patrick Leonard?" And "Who is Shep Pettibone?" And "Who is William Orbit?" Great questions all.

Let's start with Stephen Bray. According to Wikipedia, he is "an American songwriter, drummer, and record producer from Detroit" who "began studying music through private instruction in Detroit, and continued his education at Berklee College of Music in Boston." He also "owns and operates Saturn Sound recording studios and the Soultone Records record label" and "is married to movie producer Stephanie Allain, who produced Hustle & Flow and Black Snake Moan." Interesting. He also appears to have been one of Madonna's many former boyfriends.

So, OK, when Madonna and Bray wrote songs, who did what? In the '80s Bray said, "I've always kind of made the rib cage and the skeleton of the song already—she's there for the last things like the eyebrows and the haircut. She writes in a stream of mood really." Madonna's recollections seem to differ. In the Wikipedia entry for "Into The Groove," Bray's contributions are not clarified. Here's what Madonna had to say:

"When I was writing it, I was sitting in a fourth-floor walk-up on Avenue-B, and there was this gorgeous Puerto Rican boy sitting across me that I wanted to go out on a date with, and I just wanted to get the song over with. I ultimately did go out with him and the song was finished just before my last date with him, which I'm kinda happy that it did not continue ... The dance floor was quite a magical place for me. I started off wanting to be a dancer, so that had a lot to do with the song. The freedom that I always feel when I'm dancing, that feeling of inhabiting your body, letting yourself go, expressing yourself through music. I always thought of it as a magical place – even if you're not taking ecstasy. Hence that came to me as the primary inspiration for 'Into the Groove'."[3]

Yes, dancing can be fun, even if you're not taking ecstacy. Wikipedia goes on:

"She had written the song for her friend Mark Kamins' protégée, Chyne. Kamins made Madonna record a demo of the song, which he wished to modify later for Chyne.[4] However, Madonna believed that the song would be more suitable for her film Desperately Seeking Susan, and re-recorded it with Bray, making it suitable for the soundtrack.[4] When Kamins came to know about it, he was furious that Madonna did not have the courtesy to tell him that she wanted the song for a different purpose. He felt walked over by Madonna, who retorted: "I'm tough, I'm ambitious and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a bitch, that's okay."

We'll leave the "bitch" question unresolved for the time being here. Wikipedia says that "True Blue" was "originally written by Steve Bray" although Madonna must have had a strong hand in the lyrics as " 'True Blue' takes its title from a favorite expression of her then husband Sean Penn and to his very pure vision of love[2] and was a direct tribute to him." So I think we're safe in assuming that Bray wrote the music to this one. And Wikipedia doesn't tell us much about "Express Yourself" other than that it was "written and produced by Madonna and Steve Bray."

Moving on. Who was Patrick Leonard? I mean, here's a guy who continued to collaborate with Madonna as late as "Frozen." Somebody give him a medal. It sounds like he isn't much of anybody, although in addition to his work with Madonna he has produced Roger Waters, Elton John, Rod Stewart, and Bryan Ferry, among others. So what did he do, and what did Madonna do?

According to the Wikipedia gods, " 'Live to Tell' was originally written by Patrick Leonard for the soundtrack of Paramount's romantic drama film Fire with Fire, but after the company declined it, Leonard presented the song to Madonna.[1] She decided to use it for At Close Range, the new film of her then-husband, actor Sean Penn." And yet Madonna carries a co-writing credit. Hmm. Call me crazy, but it sounds like she didn't do shit. Same here:

"La Isla Bonita" was written by Patrick Leonard and Bruce Gaitsch. The song was previously written as a lament for the mythical Spanish island called San Pedro and was offered to Michael Jackson for his Bad album, who, according to Gaitsch, turned it down.[1] While working with Leonard on the True Blue album, Madonna accepted it in Jackson's place and re-wrote the song's lyrics, thus earning herself a co-writing credit.

So, again, Madonna tinkered with the lyrics but didn't really "write" the song. And Wikipedia doesn't tell us much about the writing of "Like A Prayer," "Cherish," or "Frozen." Why do I have the strange feeling that Patrick Leonard did a lot?

How about Shep Pettibone? Pettibone is a much less obscure collaborator than either Bray or Leonard. According to Wikipedia, he is

...a record producer, remixer, songwriter and club DJ, one of the most prolific of the 1980s ... His prowess at production and mixing led him to work with such artists as Madonna and George Michael in the late '80s during the height of these artists' popularity ... He was instrumental in bringing the early underground sound of house music into the pop mainstream by way of a hybrid sound (much to the dismay of some purists who preferred standard disco/dance and R&B). Though he was contemporaneous to others (such as François Kevorkian and Arthur Baker), he is certainly the most prominent DJ/Remixer to bridge the high Disco and House eras in popular dance music.

Well, OK, but what kind of a songwriter was he? Wikipedia doesn't tell us much about "Vogue" other than that Madonna and Pettibone wrote it as a quick B-side, but "after presenting the song to Warner Bros. executives, all parties involved decided that the song was too good to be wasted on a B-side and that it should be released as a single." Smart decision. No details about "Deeper and Deeper," "Erotica," "Rain," or any of the other material from Erotica, which, it turns out, appears to have essentially been co-written by Pettibone.

Like Pettibone, William Orbit was already a significant dance/electronica producer before he teamed up with Madonna:

Madonna began working on Ray of Light in May 1997, meeting with Kenneth "Babyface" Edmonds, whom she had previously worked with on her 1994 album Bedtime Stories. The two wrote a couple of songs together before Madonna decided the collaborations were not going in the musical direction she wanted for the album. According to Edmonds, the songs "had a 'Take a Bow-ish' kind of vibe, and Madonna didn't want, or need, to repeat herself."[3] After abandoning the songs she had written with Edmonds, Madonna turned to musician Rick Nowels, who had previously co-written songs with Stevie Nicks and Celine Dion. The collaboration produced seven songs in three days, but did not display the album's future electronic musical direction.[4] Instead, Madonna took her collaborations with Nowels and Leonard to British electronic music musician William Orbit. Madonna had been a fan of Orbit's work, and loved the "sort of trancy, ambient quality" he gave to the songs he worked on.[5] She began working with Orbit after he had sent her tapes of musical snippets he was working on, which were usually eight or sixteen-bar phrases and stripped down versions of tracks that would later be heard on the album. Madonna would listen to the samples over and over again until she would be inspired to write lyrics. Once she had an idea about the lyrical direction of the song, she would take her ideas back to Orbit, and they would expand on the original music ideas. The album's title track "Ray of Light" was the only song on the album that Madonna did not have anything to do with creatively, and the last track, "Mer Girl", was the only other song where Madonna did not compose the music along with her collaborators, writing only the lyrics.[3]

So, she sort of wrote some of the music, some of the time, in sort of collaboration, with somebody. I give up.

Or do I? Maybe these one-off collaborations will shed some extra light on the topic:

"Papa Don't Preach":

[True Blue's] first track "Papa Don't Preach", was written by Brian Elliot, who described it as "a love song, maybe framed a little bit differently".[2] The song is based on teen gossip he heard outside his studio, which has a large front window that doubles as a mirror where schoolgirls from the North Hollywood High School in Los Angeles regularly stopped to fix their hair and chat.[3] The song was sent to Madonna by Michael Ostin, the same Warner Bros. executive that discovered "Like a Virgin".[4] Madonna only contributed with some minor lyrical revisions, making "Papa Don't Preach" the only song in the album that she did not have a strong hand in writing.[4]

"Open Your Heart":

"Open Your Heart" was originally a rock 'n roll song with the title "Follow Your Heart" and had been written for singer Cyndi Lauper by songwriters Gardner Cole and Peter Rafelson, although it was never played to her. The Temptations were also considered for the song. Their manager Benny Medina decided that they wanted to record the song after all, but upon hearing that Madonna had already recorded it, changed their mind.[1] The original title according to Cole, was from a local health food restaurant called Follow Your Heart in Canoga Park, California. In Fred Bronson's book The Billboard Book of Number 1 Hits, Cole explained,

"Peter and I usually write very quickly. It's usually a day or two a song, but for some reason this didn't really hit us as a hit song. We didn't give up on it. We just kept working on it over the course of a year. Thank God we did ... It was the first song that was cut on the True Blue album. It made me nervous as a writer, because a lot of times the very first song that gets cut doesn't make it in the long run. But the song ended up making the album, which really opened up a lot of doors for me."[1]

Cole's manager Bennett Freed was working with Madonna's management and they were looking for new material for her album. Three of Cole's songs were chosen for reviewing including "Open Your Heart". Despite the fact that it did not fit exactly with the choice and genre of songs Madonna was singing at that time, she nevertheless accepted it. Madonna recorded "Open Your Heart", altered the lyrics thus earning a co-writing credit, and along with Patrick Leonard added a bassline underneath the song which turned it into a rock-dance track rather than the original rock 'n roll genre.

So in conclusion: Madonna may have composed many of her own lyrics, but it appears that she almost exclusively relied on collaborators for her (very catchy) melodies. So she is not quite a songwriter in the sense that Paul Simon or Stevie Wonder are songwriters. Which is not to say that Madonna is somehow not talented, or that she rode on the coattails of other, more talented, musicians and took all the glory for herself. It takes a certain kind of talent to pull all those different elements together (music, lyrics, arrangement, vocals, production) and make a memorable hit song out of it all. If she didn't have that talent ... I don't care who she was working with. She wouldn't have lasted two albums.

Madonna: Interpreter

She may have sang "Holiday," but as an interpretive singer, Madonna was probably no Billie Holiday. And yet, particularly early in her career, an interpretive singer is precisely what she was. Here are some of the major Madonna hits that Madonna did not write:

"Holiday" (Curtis Hudson/Lisa Stevens)
"Borderline" (Reggie Lucas)
"Like A Virgin" (Billy Steinberg/Tom Kelly)
"Material Girl" (Peter Brown/Robert Rans)
"Crazy For You" (John Bettis/Jon Lind)
"Dress You Up" (Andrea LaRusso/Peggy Stanziale)

Those are some pretty big hits right there. Indeed, who are these people? Let's start at the start.

"Holiday":

In 1983, Madonna was recording her eponymous debut album with Warner Bros producer Reggie Lucas, after Sire Records green signaled it when her first single "Everybody" became a club hit.[2] However, she did not have enough material for the album.[3] Lucas brought two new songs to the project and John "Jellybean" Benitez, a DJ at Funhouse disco was called to remix the available tracks ... It was Benitez who discovered a new song written by Curtis Hudson and Lisa Stevens of the pop group Pure Energy.[4] The song, titled "Holiday", had been turned down by Phyllis Hyman and Mary Wilson, formerly of The Supremes.[5] After the vocals were added by Madonna, Benitez spent four days and tried to enhance the commercial appeal of the track before the April 1983 deadline.[3][5] Just before it was completed, Madonna and Benitez took the tape over to their friend Fred Zarr's apartment in Brooklyn.[5] Zarr added a piano solo in the intermediate section of the track.[4]

So let's hear it for John "Jellybean" Benitez and Fred Zarr. Unfortunately, there is no Wikipedia hyperlink for Curtis Hudson, Lisa Stevens, or even Pure Energy as a group. It turns out that one of the greatest pop songs of all time was apparently written by a bunch of nobodies. Albeit nobodies with royalty checks that are probably larger than my yearly salary.

"Borderline":

Wikipedia doesn't tell us much other than that it was "written and composed by producer Reggie Lucas" - the producer of Madonna's debut album. Maybe it does sound a little too harmonically complex for a young Madonna. By comparison, to learn that she wrote "Everybody" is not especially shocking.

"Like A Virgin":

"Like a Virgin" was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Steinberg explained that the song was not only not written for Madonna, it was not even written for a female singer but was inspired by his personal experiences.[1]

"I wasn't just trying to get that racy word virgin in a lyric. I was saying ... that I may not really be a virgin — I've been battered romantically and emotionally like many people — but I'm starting a new relationship and it just feels so good, it's healing all the wounds and making me feel like I've never done this before, because it's so much deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt.[1]"

Or it could mean you feel like you're being fucked for the first time. Either way it works.

In mid-1984, Madonna met up with producer Nile Rodgers at the then Power Station studios in New York.[3] Rodgers initially did not want Madonna to record "Like a Virgin", as he felt that the lyric 'like a virgin' was not a terrific hook, according to him it was not an all-time catch phrase.[1] Madonna did not care about the song either, after hearing the demo, she thought that it sounded "really stupid and retarded". Later, Madonna had second thoughts, "It's weird because I couldn't get it out of my head after I played it, even though I didn't really like it. It sounded really bubble-gummy to me, but it grew on me. I really started to like it, [...] But, my first reaction to it was, 'This is really queer.'"[4] Rodgers credits Madonna with recognizing the song's potential, he later said: "I handed my apology to Madonna and said, 'you know... if it's so catchy that it stayed in my head for four days, it must be something. So let's do it.'" Hence the song was finally recorded.[1][4]

Steinberg reflected on the recording process and commented that: "When Madonna recorded it, even as our demo faded out, on the fade you could hear Tom saying, "When your heart beats, and you hold me, and you love me..." That was the last thing you heard as our demo faded. Madonna must have listened to it very, very carefully because her record ends with the exact same little ad-libs that our demo did. That rarely happens that someone studies your demo so carefully that they use all that stuff. We were sort of flattered how carefully she followed our demo on that. It was the perfect union, I knew it from the first day in the studio. The thing between us, man, it was passionate, it was creative. [...] Madonna was sometimes temperamental during the recording, everyone told me she was a terrible ogre, but I thought she was great.[5]"

Well, she's got one vote in her corner at least.

"Material Girl":

According to Wikipedia, Peter Brown is an artist, songwriter, and record producer who popularized the ARP Synthesizer and helped found House Music in the '70s. His song "Do You Want To Get Funky" became "the first gold 12" single in history." I guess a lot of people wanted to get funky. Here's what Brown had to say about a slightly more famous creation:

"We were trying to write a song for her and we were brainstorming for some musical direction that seemed to suit her. I was driving home when I started humming the chorus to a song. I could hear the whole thing in my head as if it were a finished record. It was all there in a flash, music and lyrics. Living in a material world, living in a material world. It is the one and only time a song has come to me like that - like a gift from heaven. I remember forcing myself to sing it over and over while I made my way home so as not to become distracted by something else and forget it completely. When I got home I quickly played and sang it into a recorder to lock it in. There was her song."

And there was your songwriting career.

"Crazy For You":

John Bettis bears the noble distinction of having written the lyrics to both a major Madonna song and a major Michael Jackson song ("Human Nature"). Jon Lind is responsible for Earth, Wind and Fire's "Boogie Wonderland" and Vanessa Williams' "Save The Best for Last," a song that will forever give me the depressing junior high school dance creeps. But who could have predicted that behind the seemingly banal surface of "Crazy For You" there lurked an epic artistic struggle?:

The ballad was released as the first single from the soundtrack of the 1985 film Vision Quest, a coming of age drama about a wrestler played by Matthew Modine.[1] Producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber, and music director Phil Ramone was aware of the then unknown Madonna, who was just signed to Sire Records. Ramone took her for dinner at his house in Carolwood Records, where she played some of her music videos. Ramone and the other Warner executives present there, were impressed by Madonna's self-possession and fishnet-crucifix style.[2] So they decided to test her voice in a New York studio. Peters was impressed with Madonna and assigned Joel Sill, an executive in charge of music at Warner Bros. Pictures, to handle the recording of the two songs for the film.[2] Sill sent the script of the film to Bettis and Lind.[1] After going through the script, Bettis wanted to write a song about the situation, where the main characters – a young boy and a girl boarding at a house – dance together at a nightclub.[1]

He elaborated,"We were noodling around and 'Crazy for You' was something that Jon was singing over that section of the song. It was really descriptive of the scene in the film. [...] After that, I was out on vacation out in the desert and [Sill] called and said Phil Ramone was in love with the song and wanted to cut it on Madonna. [Laughing] 'Borderline' was out at that time and I said, 'Excuse me? This is for Madonna? Really? Can she sing a song like this?' Jon and I were surprised at the choice of artist at the time, if you want to know the truth."[1]

After Sill let Bettis and Lind know that Madonna was singing the song, some time elapsed before either of them heard anything from Warner Bros. Records. In between, they went to one of the recording sessions and were not impressed with the process of recording the song.[1] Bettis commented, "We went to one of the sessions, and to be honest, that particular session did not go all that well. [...] Jon and I were depressed about the way the song had come out. We heard nothing else about it and we were a little nervous that the song was going to be dropped from the picture."[1] Bettis went to England to work on the 1985 fantasy film Legend with music producer Jerry Goldsmith. It was there he received a call from Lind, who informed Bettis that a new version of "Crazy for You" was recorded and was made ready for a single release.[1] Bettis was surprised and went over to Lind's house, where he warmly received the new recorded version of the song. It had a different arrangement from the demo version, and the arrangement was done by composer Rob Mounsey who rearranged the original track and added the background vocals. Bettis said: "We owe a big debt of gratitude to [Mounsey]. He really made a hit record out of [the song]."[1]

Yes, Rob Mounsey, without your tireless sacrifice, where would we be? In a world without "Crazy For You"? No, I can't even think of it.

"Dress You Up":

"Dress You Up" was the last song to be included on the Like a Virgin album. Producer Nile Rodgers had initially asked songwriters Andrea LaRusso and Peggy Stanziale to write a chic-styled song for Madonna.[1] However, the writing took time, since both LaRusso and Stanziale were busy with other projects.[2] When the lyrics of the song was submitted, Rodgers rejected it as there was no time to compose a melody and record it for the album. However, Madonna liked the lyrics of the song, and persuaded Rodgers to include it on Like a Virgin.[2]

And when Madonna likes a song, it goes on the album.

So what's the verdict?

1) Some of the most famous pop songs of the '80s were written by some very obscure people.

2) Even though she did not write these songs, Madonna certainly made them her own. So much so that no one would even dare to think of the possibility of their having originated from the talents of anyone else. No one ... other than Little Earl, that is.

Madonna And Michael Jackson: Songwriters?

A little while ago, Yoggoth and I were talking about Madonna and Michael Jackson (as we are occasionally wont to do), and he asked me if they wrote any of their own songs, and if so, which ones. In a moment of crippling ignorance, I had to admit that ... I ... didn't quite know.

What do any of us know? Well, we all know that Madonna and Michael Jackson were singers. We all know that Madonna and Michael Jackson were dancers. We all presume that Madonna and Michael Jackson didn't play any musical instruments; they certainly didn't appear to do so in concert. But what about Madonna and Michael Jackson as songwriters? The public perception is quite muddy. When people talk about Madonna and Michael Jackson songs, the question of songwriting doesn't really come into it. They sang their songs; they're their songs.

And yet every now and then I have taken a look at the songwriting credits on the backs of Madonna and Michael Jackson albums. What I've seen has raised more questions than answers. I thought I would consult the Wikipedia gods once and for all to finally settle this burning issue.

So what did I find? Well, it turns out that Madonna and Michael Jackson, as I suspected, did not write many of their biggest hits, particularly early on in their careers, although they did indeed write the majority of them. Michael Jackson appears to have written, or at least co-written, most of his material from Bad onwards, and Madonna appears to have co-written almost all of her material from True Blue onwards.

Well, what does "co-write" mean? Ringo Starr supposedly "co-wrote" "Photograph" with George Harrison. Come on, we know who really did the writing there. Did Madonna and Michael Jackson write the lyrics, with someone else writing the melody? Or did Madonna and Michael Jackson write some of the music and some of the lyrics? Did they ever solely write the music? And how do you write the music for a song if you don't play a musical instrument? Do you just sing it, and someone else writes down the notes for you? How the hell did this work?

With someone like Elvis Presley, for example, it's easy. Elvis was not a songwriter. He did not write songs in any way, shape, or form. He relied on other people for songs his entire career (he could, however, play the guitar and the piano quite proficiently). Indeed, there once was a time when popular singers rarely, if ever, composed their own material. Look at Frank Sinatra. Not a songwriter. Then came The Beatles. Suddenly it became de rigeur for singers to also be songwriters. Otherwise you were Joe Cocker.

And yet, dance-pop is one genre of popular music where a premium is not exactly placed on songwriting ability. Whitney Houston and Paula Abdul, for example, did not write their own material. I know, you're crushed. But how many casual '80s pop fans have ever realized that George Michael wrote all of his own material? No one thinks of George Michael as a "songwriter," but there you go. At least no one thinks of him as any more of a songwriter than they do Madonna or Michael Jackson. He was a multi-instrumentalist as well. I've heard he was quite proficient on the penis.

Indeed, what about the "instrument" question? Under the "Background Information" section of Madonna's Wikipedia entry, there is a category called "Instruments" which are listed as "Vocals, guitar, percussion, drums." So Madonna can play guitar? Really? Or can she play guitar in the same sense that I can play guitar? In the section called "Musical Style," there is discussion of her as a "musician" and a "songwriter" with a "gift for hooks," but no mention of any instrumental ability whatsoever.

On his own Wikipedia page, Michael Jackson's "Instruments" are listed as "Vocals, piano, guitar, drums, keyboards." But in the "Musical themes and genres" section, we finally get a decent answer to the songwriting question:

Unlike many artists, Jackson did not write his songs on paper. Instead he would dictate into a sound recorder, and when recording he would sing the lyrics from memory. In most of his songs, such as "Billie Jean", "Who Is It", and "Tabloid Junkie", he would beatbox and imitate the instruments using his voice instead of playing the actual instruments, along with other sounds.

Hmm. So there you have it. I can imitate instruments using my voice as well. Maybe I should be a songwriter too?

Part of the process of becoming an obsessive Beatles fan is studying the ancient lore of "who really wrote what." Sure, any idiot can tell you that all the songs are officially credited to "Lennon/McCartney." But only the true nutjob can tell you that McCartney wrote "I've got to admit it's getting better" and Lennon wrote "It can't get much worse." Ever since my indoctrination into hardcore Beatle fandom, I've been fascinated by the creative process behind the seemingly self-generated hit songs of our time. At some point, somebody had to actually sit down and think, "Gee, can 'holiday' really rhyme with 'celebrate'?" Therefore, in this brief series I will attempt to take a look at Madonna and Michael Jackson as both songwriters and interpreters.

This may ultimately end up being the most informative blog series of all time.

Into Which Groove?

All this Michael Jackson talk has led me to revisit the work of some of his 80s dance-pop contemporaries, including arguably his chief chart rival: Madonna. True, Michael Jackson did get a 13-year head start on Madonna, but they actually are (or were, rather) the same age, and Madonna has also been more prolific. After 1982, Michael Jackson managed to release about four albums, whereas Madonna has released about twelve (does the Who's That Girl soundtrack really count?). It also must be said that, despite Kaballah and Swept Away and her attempt at rapping on "American Life" and whatnot, she is probably a little more in touch with reality than MJ ever was.

Which brings me to the matter at hand. I am trying to decide which version of "Into The Groove" I like more: the original version or the mix on the Immaculate Collection. They each have their strengths and weaknesses. The original simply starts with the beat in full throttle, whereas the Immaculate version starts mostly a capella, backed by brief snippets of organ, before the beat finally enters. Although I respect the Immaculate mix's attempt to shake up the immortal "And you can dance! (you can dance!...you can dance!)/For inspiration (inspiration... inspiration)" intro, ultimately I think I prefer the intro as it appears in the original mix. With the original intro I get the sense the track may have already been "grooving" for hours and hours on end and the engineer serendipitously stumbled into the control booth, fresh from a nice snort of coke, thought to himself, "Wow, I've got to get this on tape!" and finally managed to press the red button. It gives the opening a sense of in medias res. On the other hand, because the Immaculate mix intially holds the beat back, when it finally enters, it has a heavier impact. It's like Chinese water torture, trying to decide!

Some further evidence to consider. The original mix is more spare and lean, while the Immaculate version is bathed in that "Q Sound" effect which sort of blurs everything together. The original mix also has a few extra "Now I know you're mine"s which were edited out of the Immaculate version - but then again, were they really needed? I'd say the original mix has the edge, aside from the not-so-insignificant absence of the Immaculate version's hot latin salsa piano solo. Regardless, in either version, the song is like the catchiest creation of Satan's most evil spawn (and I'm not even going to get into the matter of the extended mixes on You Can Dance).

Indeed, as lengthy and rewarding a career as Madonna has had, with some latter-day singles that are almost perfect for what they are, I have to go out on a limb here and say that her earliest period is her best. Although "innocent" is not really a word that many people associate with early Madonna, I feel there is a certain innocent quality to "Holiday," "Borderline," "Material Girl," etc. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think part of Madonna's initial appeal was that she did not have a conventionally strong singing voice. She was like a throwback to the early 60s girl group singers such as Little Eva or Ronnie Specter or Rosie and the Originals, who sounded like they were plucked from a Brooklyn street corner and thrust into a studio for the very first time in their lives (in fact, Little Eva, of "Loco-Motion" fame, was Carole King's babysitter).

But right around "Papa Don't Preach" Madonna suddenly decided that she needed to be a "serious" singer and that she needed vocal training. Nonsense. To call her voice "Minnie Mouse on helium," as one critic did, is to dismiss its very character. Listen to the way she sings "tonight I want to dance with some-one e-else!" The purity of the entire universe is in those notes. I also love the way she sings "Touch!...my body," as if she were stroking herself right there behind the microphone. But compare that to Prince, who probably would have just sang, "Touch my penis" and made it all too explicit. That's what I mean by "innocent." If Madonna was horny, she was horny in more of a guileless teenage girl sort of way than an experienced prostitute sort of way.

Also I am convinced with early Madonna that there was very little pretense toward creating "art" whatsoever. "Into The Groove" was probably intended to be completely, totally disposable. According to AMG, it was never properly released as a single in the US. They were making a forgettable B-side! But the public can spot a winner. At any rate, I know that she can't go around at 50 pretending she's still 25. But depth hasn't exactly become Madonna. The irony is that she probably came off deeper when she was trying to be irredeemably shallow.

Michael Jackson: A Cosmic American Perspective

When the performers who say they "never would have existed without you" are Usher and Justin Timberlake, your legacy might be in trouble. Now, I'll admit that Michael Jackson did release about ten or eleven really great songs over the course of his career. Among my collection of famous "mixes" is a Michael Jackson mix. Not many artists have been able to leave behind at least 80 minutes of memorable music. But I wouldn't put him up there with artists who've released album after album of challenging, gritty, eclectic work. He's Michael Jackson! Let's not get carried away here, people. I think the passionate outpouring of admiration emanating from the music world has more to do with the poor state of the current music scene than with the strength of Michael Jackson's discography itself.

Allow me to illustrate my point with some comments from the internet. In his appreciation, Stephen Thomas Erlewine writes that "[his] sudden death gives us all an opportunity to appreciate the enduring genius of his art but to realize that we have no musician that speaks to all of us…and that we haven’t for some time now." In other words, "Man, I wish I could be reviewing Thriller for the first time rather than Miley Cyrus' new album!" But if Michael Jackson really did speak to "all of us," I don't know if he did it in a very interesting way. What, exactly, did he say? "Mamma-say mamma-sa mamma-mamma-sa"? Rob Sheffield in Rolling Stone waxes a little more grandiloquent: "But in 1979, with Off The Wall, he invented modern pop as we know it." That may be true, but what if I don't happen to be much of a fan of "modern pop as we know it"? If you ask me, Michael Jackson happened to be making pretty good music at a time when mainstream music was rather iffy. Sure, Thriller deserved its commercial success, but what else were people going to buy? Sheena Easton?

Chuck Eddy writes on the Rhapsody blog, ""He was easily the greatest dancer of the past three decades, probably the greatest singer, and quite possibly the greatest songwriter." You mean the guy who didn't even write most of his own songs? And how much do you think Chuck Eddy actually knows about the world of dance? Yes, he was talented, and yes, he just died. But maybe do a little research first, eh Chuck?

Some of the commentators on the AMG blog do a decent, if excessively nasty, job of deflating this bubble. Here's "Mark":

"Michael Jackson. Yawn. Guy could really sing and dance in his prime. Great entertainer. Not a musician. Sold a lot of records. So did Milli Vanili, Wham, the Backstreet Boys, NKOTB, and countless others including today’s crop of Idol wasteoids. The media tore this guy up mercilessly for years and now they exult him and you all lap it up. Sheep. Most of those quotes above are disgusting beyond words. I wonder how many of those were written by people who even remember when Off the Wall or Thriller came out. I suspect many articles have been written by 20/30-somethings who for some reason look back longingly at the 80s as some sort of golden era. They weren’t. They sucked. And Jackson was a big part of that suckiness. I graduated from HS in ‘85. I know. No one took this guy seriously back then and they sure shouldn’t now that he’s gone. It’s sad when anyone passes on. But let’s keep it in perspective here folks. It’s really embarrassing. A third of the world doesn’t have clean drinking water. Cry for them."

And here's "hopjunkie":

"Mark is pretty much right even if a little too brash. Jackson was a huge, mega-selling pop star. He influenced major pop trends of his time and made lots of people very rich. However, I think if you really are honest, it’s true that it was the production and spectacle that made this guy’s career - not the songs...Liking pop music is no crime and it can be fun. But let’s not confuse Jackson with a serious artist and let’s definitely NOT overlook the freak show of his life and the possible damage he inflicted on innocent others."

So for a week now I have been witnessing music critics try to wring deep insights out of music that I don't think is particularly deep. And yet there some songs that I find quite compelling.

A critic may be inclined to dismiss Michael Jackson's solo career, and yet his death still would have merited attention simply based on his Jackson Five legacy alone. There is, of course, no genre with more rock critic cred than prime-era Motown, and the Jackson Five appeared at the very tail end of the period. Lest you forget just how far back Michael Jackson's fame goes: he became a superstar while the Beatles were still officially together. Then there was the singing. I'm no expert on great singing, but he sang better as a child than most adult singers sing as adults. My personal Exhibit A:



How could he have possibly known what those emotions were like? He probably didn't. I guess his dad beat that singing out of him. And you know what? It was worth it.

Now onto the solo career. I've only heard Off The Wall a couple of times, and I remember it as consisting of two perfect songs ("Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" and "Rock With You") and a bunch of well-produced filler. Not quite sure why STE calls it "a visionary album...one that remains vibrant and giddily exciting years after its release"; I think he's being generous. I'll take Pink Floyd's The Wall instead. Those two songs are great, though. They are close to disco but rely a lot less on synthesizers. The horns and percussion all sound really snappy and organic. It is still weird hearing Jackson trying to be sexy considering all that followed. "You know this...force it's...got a lot of power...make me feel like a...make me feel like a...ooh!" Make you feel like what, Michael? Sleeping with boys?



I am now going to say something that will set the critical community on fire: I don't think that Thriller is a great album. Yes, it has many great songs on it, but that doesn't make it a great album. There is no overarching message, no unified feel. As Pitchfork's Tom Ewing writes, "Thriller is inconsistent in style, which gives it something to appeal to everyone, but it's oddly tough to listen to even the great bits sequentially-- its peaks are from different mountain ranges."

Let's go song by song: To these ears, "Baby Be Mine" and "The Lady In My Life" are OK. Not terrible, but close to forgettable, and no "greatest album of all time" should have songs close to forgettable on it. "P.Y.T." is enjoyable but not amazing and, in retrospect, kind of creepy. "The Girl Is Mine" is hit-worthy but not "peaking at #2"-worthy (which is what it did). "Wanna Be Starting Something" is pretty strong but always sounded like a poor man's "Thriller" to me. Then there is the title track, which is musically thrilling, but...the lyrics are cheesy! Michael had an audience of billions; what would inspire him to record a kitschy song about horror movies? It's a great single but my God, you'd think he'd just released "Let It Be." I'd say nearly the same thing about "Beat It." So Eddie Van Halen does a solo. I need more. Besides, am I really supposed to buy Michael Jackson as some bad ass street thug? I don't think so.

However, I think there are two songs on Thriller that actually manage to match musical strength with thematic depth. The first is "Billie Jean." At the time people might have looked at "Billie Jean" as Michael doing a little role-playing, but in retrospect I think we can say that Michael was not making any of it up. This is how he really saw his life - random strangers constantly coming up to him at all hours of the day, framing him for no apparent reason:

For forty days and forty nights
The law was on her side
But who can stand when she's in demand
Her schemes and plans
'Cause we danced on the floor in the round

At least he had the balls to put it into a chart-topping mainstream hit. And the production! There are all these little, ghostly Michaels shouting in the background every few seconds; I don't even know what they're saying half the time but it's very haunting. And the little film noir bit of strings at the end of every chorus! This song is as good as any pop song by anybody: The Beatles, The Beach Boys, Simon & Garfunkel, you name it.



The other song from Thriller with depth is "Human Nature." The song was written by former Carpenters lyricist John Bettis and Toto keyboardist Steve Porcaro. That is some serious M.O.R. cred right there. In fact, Toto basically functioned as the backing band on this track. And yet, even though he did not write it, Michael makes it his own:

Looking out
Across the nightime
The city winks a sleepless eye
Hear her voice
Shake my window
Sweet seducing sighs
Get me out
Into the night time
Four walls won't hold me tonight
If this town
Is just an apple
Then let me take a bite

I think this song is the sound of Michael Jackson just wishing that he could be a normal, anonymous human being for five seconds of his life. It's the sound of a deeply troubled young man who knows he won't be able to keep his inner demons at bay for very much longer. "Human Nature" is as close as Michael Jackson ever got to sounding like a functional, mature human being. After this it was pure regression. The song is even sadder in retrospect.



But again, the detailed production is what makes it hold up after all these years. Michael and Quincy spent time on "Human Nature," and it shows. They needed to spend as much time on "The Girl Is Mine" and "P.Y.T" as they did on this song if they wanted to say they made a truly top-to-bottom great album. Listen to all the fluttering synths and chimes and bells in the background - it's almost psychedelic! And again, he overdubbed his vocals in all sorts of weird, random places, so it's like a cascading waterfall of Michael Jacksons.

But for me (and, I suspect, many others my age), this music has an extra appeal because it reminds me of the very origins of my own life. It evokes, as much early '80s pop does, the first faint stirrings of existence, and as a result has a power that other, even better, music does not. It's lodged back there with hazy memories of E.T. and Return of the Jedi and other pieces of pop culture which I experienced in ways I can't even remember where, or how, but know only that I did.

Nevertheless, for me Thriller suggests a better album to come rather than a summit in its own right. It's like a Revolver without a Sgt. Pepper, a Talking Book without an Innervisions. Instead we got Bad, which wasn't bad but showed signs of laziness. The synthesizers on the title track and "Smooth Criminal" were not chosen as wisely as the synthesizers on "Billie Jean" and "Human Nature" were. He also forgot how to start a song dramatically. The best parts of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" and "Man In The Mirror" are the choruses; the intros are awash in bland keyboards and generic percussion. I think Bad is where Michael Jackson started thinking too hard about his position in the pop charts, rather than simply make music just for the sheer joy of it. I also feel like his singing at this point became overly affected. Just because the "hee hee"s and "shamon"s were distinctive doesn't mean they were necessary. But the bottom line is that, although the songs themselves weren't worse as compositions per se, he didn't bother to put as much effort into the sound. According to Wikipedia, engineer Bruce Swedien mixed "Billie Jean" ninety-one times. Ninety-one times! Now that's what I'm talking about. Here's more:

Jones had told Swedien to create a drum sound that no one had ever heard before. The audio engineer was also told to add a different element, "sonic personality". "What I ended up doing was building a drum platform and designing some special little things, like a bass drum cover and a flat piece of wood that goes between the snare and the hi-hat", Swedien later wrote. "The bottom line is that there aren't many pieces of music where you can hear the first three or four notes of the drums, and immediately tell what the piece of music is." He concluded, "But I think that is the case with 'Billie Jean'—and that I attribute to sonic personality.

So there you go. In the end, Jackson simply didn't bother to imbue his recordings with the same level of "sonic personality" as most of my favorite artists did. But he did do it every once in a while. And how many musicians can even boast that much?