Part of Off the Wall's sleek allure came from the panache with which it made the world into a carefree place where the lost threatening decision was what to wear. Off the Wall never questioned Jackson; he was a star, after all, and stars answer to no one. Thriller questions him plenty and from a couple of directions. Not only is the arena-rock translation of "Beat It" new to Jackson—its angry lecturer to a "macho man" scrapper takes place on a street far removed from his former glittering clubs. As Jackson growls and sobs his disdain for fighting, he could be defending his own unconventional masculinity.
Thriller's limning of male insecurity ("Beat It"), calculated chills (the title track), whacked out paranoia ("Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'"), and romances that bring legal suits ("Billie Jean") are new to his solo career. But in the looser company of his brothers, Jackson has uncovered fears too morose for the star—turns his solo career required. The two hit singles from Triumph, the album the Jacksons made following Off the Wall, tell a good deal of the story. "Lovely One" presented Jackson chasing a hopeless love to jagged, stuttered beat that had previously propelled his brother's "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" and his own "Don't Stop." Booted by menacing bass and a suitably baroque arrangement that succeeded in yielding chills, the nightmare of "Heartbreak Hotel" had Jackson jilted by his girlfriend and trapped by "every girl that I knew." And you thought the Al Green of "Keep Me Cryin'" had troublesome fantasies about victimization.
Jackson still retains enough of hi magical celebrity so that all his worst fears don't materialize. The title cut of Thriller admits to ghostly theaters in tones pulpy, if not strident, enough o recall "Heartbreak Hotel." But the shocks in "Thriller" stay on the screen of the move that Jackson and his date are revealed to be watching, just another excuse to huddle closer in the dark. Leave it to Quincy Jones to orchestrate this most cinematic section, complete with guest rap by Vincent Price. "Thriller" may still find Jackson too much of a celebrity to take his fears seriously, but his own "Billie Jean" catches him deflecting an old girlfriend's paternity suit. Jackson is never absolved or condemned: though he defends his innocence in the chorus, the rhythms trickily speed up and then ease back. Together with the convoluted unison singsong of "Wanna be Startin' Somethin'" and the anti-macho warning of "Beat It," "Bille Jean" suggests that Michael Jackson has more on his mind than blaming it on the boogie.
Thriller may charm us a notch less than the hermetically sealed Off the Wall, but what it's after is more rewarding. Its wariness is a blunt admission of the impossibility of sustaining its predecessor's non-stop party: God knows, after seven million copies sold, many performers would try. In upping the anguish—however hedged and glossy—lurking behind Jackson's effortless guile, this album aims to close the gap between his starry-eyed solo career and the worry he reveals when he lets down his guard in the company of his Crothers. So in this context, the contrived bankability of a Top 10 single like "The Girl is Mine," is depressing. With its cute "doggone"s and glazed tug-of-war between Jackson and Paul McCartney, the song is precisely the celebrity-mongering that Off the Wall was too classy to give in to.
Jackson and Jones's clout buys them commodities more useful than special guests. Toto may indeed be a dog of their own, but under Jones's tutelage, he stops barking long enough to lead Jackson through the snaky declaration of independence of "Human Nature." What else are session men good for besides doing what they're told? Similarly, Rod Temperton may stuff too many flashy effects—abrupt rhythmic turnabouts, boppish changes—into a song for his band, Heatwave, to handle, but his bright trifles ("Thriller," "Baby Be Mine," "The Lady in My Life") keep Jackson's boundless voice alert and occupied by maneuvering the songs' melodic twists. With made-in-the-studio textures that resonate and anonymous contributions that gather a life of their own, Thriller spotlights Jackson feverishly even as it forces him to direct the hired hands.
Those settings can only be afforded by stars, and that such expense seems necessary in a rough-and-tumble black-music field that has produced more lightning riffs than unreachable stars. Jackson knows that he has parlayed the near-novelty status of his youth into something solid—and not without a worrisome stall. When he and his brothers (expect Jermaine, who married Berry Gordy's daughter) ditched the then-declining Motown in the mid-'70s, their first few years at Epic, including collaborations with the declining Gamble and Huff cabal, weren't profitable enough to allow Michael his solo career. (Although the group must have learned something: the compact translations of R&B charges displayed on Destiny and Triumph nod to Philadelphia's irrepressibility as well as Motown's finesse.) Only when the band returned to prominence with Destiny's "Blame It on the Boogie" and "Shake Your Body" could Michael be indulged.
As Triumph proved, Michael's brothers ground him fitfully, pressing him to face down his odd fears. They withstand his dazzling star turns, but not without a fight. On Live, the in-concert double set recorded on the Triumph tour, it's Michael who, in a moment of mock rage, argues against performing a medley of the group's Motown hits. The songs are old, he complains, the choreography is old, the costumes are old. Lovable, professional brat that he is, he wants to play to new stuff, as promotional decorum dictates. Of course, he finally agrees to the medley and has a fine time with it. With the new chances Jackson takes on Thriller, though, the gulf between him and his brothers, between their grit and his glitter, narrows. The next time you see the group together on stage, I bet Michael accedes to "ABC" without a fight.
