Off the Wall – Michael Jackson

Epic, Quincy Jones, 1979

On 10 August 1979, Michael Jackson released the first album that presented him as a singer making adult pop, after the years he had spent in the family group. Off the Wall opens with a spoken line close to the microphone. Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough then comes in at a fast disco tempo, falsetto on the chorus, the drums holding one beat. The falsetto is high, and it stays with that tempo. Disco tracks, funk tracks and ballads share the record. The ballads sit with the dance songs. Epic put it out. Quincy Jones produced it. The partnership had started on the film The Wiz. This album is the first finished record that partnership made.

Jackson arrived with songs of his own: Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough, Working Day and Night, and, with Louis Johnson, Get on the Floor. Rod Temperton, from Heatwave, wrote the title track, Rock with You, and Burn This Disco Out. Each chorus is short, and it is built so it can be sung back. Paul McCartney sent Girlfriend. Stevie Wonder and Susaye Greene wrote I Can’t Help It. Tom Bahler wrote She’s Out of My Life, the ballad where Jackson’s voice breaks. Jones left that break in the take. Bruce Swedien engineered at Allen Zentz, Westlake, and Cherokee, Los Angeles rooms set up so the rhythm section sounded close, not huge. The strings sit above the bass and do not cover it.

Four singles reached the American top ten: the two openers, the title song, and the ballad. That run mattered because the four songs are four arrangements, not one arrangement copied four times. Rock with You is a slow love song. A drum machine and a quiet vocal share the arrangement. Off the Wall is the night-out track, slang in the lyric and strings in the band. She’s Out of My Life stays a straight ballad, with no joke in the last line. Between them, Working Day and Night complains about work and keeps a dance tempo, an old soul habit Jackson uses in full.