“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” – Michael Jackson
(Words/music: Michael Jackson, available on Off the Wall, Epic 1979)

I desperately wanted to write about someone else tonight, but I’ve been surrounded by Michael Jackson’s death between Twitter, the pop radio stations playing him non-stop, and even MTV briefly playing videos tonight.  It’s next to impossible for me to think about anything else tonight.  I try my best to keep the focus on the songs and my personal reactions to the songs, but tonight it’s hard not to think about Jackson’s place in popular culture.  Maura at Idolator says that it’s “very tempting to say that Jackson was something of a mirror of the past 40-ish years of popular culture, from his family’s band’s beloved singles in the ’60s and ’70s to his boundary-breaking solo career that followed to the celebrity-spectre existence,” but I’m not sure that does Jackson justice entirely.  Jackson helped to push popular culture by expanding the boundaries of popular music and the reach of a pop star.  He might have made a dozen more singles that sounded like “I Want You Back” and still remained popular, but he never seemed content to rest on his laurels.  Instead, Jackson kept thinking bigger.  Soon, his singles nearly burst at the seams with different sounds.  He almost single-handedly turned the music video into an artistic statement by employing film directors and calling in famous friends for cameos.  And even as recent as a few years ago, Jackson still outshined an entirely slew of contemporary pop stars.  “Billie Jean,” his finest single, was also, in the words of Freaky Trigger’s Tom Ewing, “a disquieting, troubled record.”  Sure, these quirks gave way to a man with serious personal and legal issues later in life, but Jackson’s shortcomings shouldn’t diminish his role in pushing popular culture to new heights.

“Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” was essentially the adolescence of Jackson’s musical career – the period between his beginnings as a child start and his ascendaency atop the musical world in the early 1980s.  During this time, Jackson stepped out on his own, left behind the vintage Motown sound that made him famous, and made a dance record.  Maybe it’s the clarity hindsight affords, but all of the elements that would catapult Jackson into becoming the world’s most recognizable entertainer are in this song – a terrific and charming vocal performance, an overriding sense of joy, and a musical arrangement that took a few risks.  It’s not as edgy as some of his later singles, but it marked a steep departure from his Jackson 5 days.  It’s also immensely satisfying to listen to now, and if the song comes up on shuffle and gets past that opening “woo,” I’ve committed myself to listening to the whole thing.  I may not be a Jackson aficionado, but I’m overcome with joy any time I hear this song.

More on Michael Jackson: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm