Six Degrees of "Off the Wall"

Has there ever been a cooler artist in the world than the Michael Jackson who made Off the Wall? Sure, the Michael of Thriller surpasses all mortal understanding, but that's not the same as cool. Cool is releasing an album on your 21st birthday that sounds so deep and rich and focused and nuanced that it seems like the work of someone with twice as many years' experience as even the decade-long veteran Michael had at that point. For that reason, many figured the album had to be producer Quincy Jones's doing. But writing many of the standout songs as well as fixing its groove and singing most of the parts himself, apart from his brothers: this was Michael's baby all the way.

Of course, Jones certainly played a part. He brought in simpatico British soul songwriter Rod Temperton of Heatwave, hired Louis Johnson of the Brothers Johnson (whom Jones produced) to lay down some of the snakiest bass of any R&B album, subcontracted the strings to Ben Wright and the horns to Jerry Hey, and helped Jackson work his way toward one of the greatest vocal performances in history. Jackson doesn't sing a false note on Off the Wall — not pitch-wise, not emotionally, and certainly not rhythmically. Jackson caresses the beat with every phrase, nowhere better than on "Rock with You," which he sings ballad-suave and disco-savvy at precisely the same time. He's so easy and free throughout that he practically floats, yet "Get on the Floor," "Workin' Day and Night," and the epochal "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" are pure Latin-tinged funk, however smooth the presentation.

Off the Wall was disco's artistic peak, but felt lean enough to play out even after disco "died." The lean bounce of "Rock with You" and "Off the Wall" show up in everything from the Neptunes' early-'00s hot streak to the icy disco synthscapes beloved of Norway house artists. Even more importantly, Off the Wall wrote the template for the coming-of-age pop debut, the way an artist who has been following orders turns is made over into an auteur. Lots of folks have done it since, but no one has done it better.

A former teen idol who shot to fame fronting a slick, super-professional five-piece boy band hires savvy producers to help him realize his vision of himself as a credible solo artist that still sells to the girls who loved him when. This was Justin Timberlake in 2002, when he made his break with *NSync, and as Michael Jackson had in 1979, Justin hired an arsenal of proven hitmakers; this time, it was Timbaland and the Neptunes, who split the tracks, and went to town on a handful of the spriest grooves we saw in the decade's first half. "Rock Your Body" has a title and groove both similar to Michael Jackson's "Rock with You," but Timberlake comes on more like Michael's great rival Prince, winking, "Bet I'll have you naked by the end of this song." He led one of the funniest call-and-responses pop radio saw all decade in "Señorita." He made "Cry Me a River" into prime pop psychodrama. And just to prove he still loved the kids, he included this line on "Nothin' Else": "You're out of this world/Except you're not green."

Michael Jackson was an omnivorous student of soul singing, but one vocalist who left a bigger mark on him than many is Jackie Wilson. Listen to those big, strident, soaring high notes on "Baby Workout," or the way he wrings all the excitement he can — which turns out to be a tremendous amount — out of "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher & Higher," one of the most joyously surging records ever cut. Of course, by taking on the compositions of a young Detroiter named Berry Gordy Jr., Wilson made Jackson's career possible in far more tangible ways as well. But beyond helping midwife the Motown sound, Wilson's unabashed mix of hardcore R&B with pop standards such as "Danny Boy" and working with the likes of Count Basie's big band (here represented by a tremendous remake of the Impressions' "For Your Precious Love") presaged the way Jackson would aggressively pursue crossover from R&B to other forms of music.

Michael Jackson's brand of disco, from the Jackson 5's "Dancing Machine" (1974) forward, was always suffused with a certain airiness: that lightheadedness is a connecting tissue to the more synth-driven and string-drenched Italodisco that followed in the footsteps of Giorgio Moroder's production for Donna Summer and Music Machine. That's the music Portland, Oregon's Glass Candy looks back to, but it's worth mentioning that the standout track on Beat Box — their album from a late 2007 West Coast tour — is "Rolling Down the Hills," which sports a crispy synth line, juicy horns, and snappy drums that Jackson and Quincy Jones might admire.

Sonically, ESG's bottoms-up minimalist funk seems a world away from Jackson's lush, streamlined, synth-and-strings fantasias — though you can hear something of the percussion breakdowns of an Off the Wall track like "Get on the Floor" in an ESG cut like "Moody." But there's a direct line from the young Michael and his brothers (plus other family offstage) making a band work and the Scroggins sisters in the Bronx, piloting a lithe groove machine whose occasional clunkiness just gave the funk extra angles. Though Scrogginses Maria, Renee, Valerie, and Deborah harmonize very nicely (see the tight group vocals on "My Love for You"), and there's a sweetness to the material reminiscent of the girl-group era, vocals are never the point in ESG's music: big sister Renee has the kind of happily unpolished lead delivery that gives the music its post-punk feel as much as the spare bass and drums.

The Scandinavians have a very holistic attitude toward what constitutes "disco," and Hans-Peter Lindstrøm especially so. Take "Limitations," from his defining 2006 album It's a Feedelity Affair — the plucked guitar, coolly strutting beat, and alert bass call to mind long shots of warehouses being staked out by bickering cops in 1984-vintage buddy cop movies. Even so, most everything on Feedelity harks back to that time frame with a sense that there's still a lot left to discover — and if it's sometimes kind of kitschy, that's even better. Exhibitin A: the song titled "There's a Drink in My Bedroom and I Need a Hot Lady" — that goes for nearly 11 minutes. But Lindstrøm's grooves don't kid around, be it the grunting bass of "Cane It for the Original Whities" or floating synths and gently insistent snare snap of "I Feel Space," whose spooky qualities were presaged by the opening of Jackson's "Off the Wall" all that time back.