衛報：流行音樂史50大關鍵事件第23位 — 傑克遜開始為《瘋狂》專輯工作

 

來源：MJJCN.com / guardian.co.uk 編譯：Badthriller

衛報：流行音樂史50大關鍵事件第23位 — 傑克遜開始為《瘋狂》專輯工作

2011年6月14日 - 邁克爾•傑克遜的一生與事業極不平凡，吸引著人們從他人生的每頁篇章中梳理出指向下一頁的線索。你能從他對“傑克遜五兄弟”流行音樂震撼的貢獻中發現超級巨星獨唱生涯的靈光閃現，你能在他成為商業鉅子的日子裏察覺到些許的偏執妄想和自我仇恨。你能輕易聽出，他後期較為陰暗的個人作品就是某種結束的不祥之兆。

所有這些把傑克遜變成“流行音樂之王”的危險似乎不可避免，其實不然。1978年的他是一個尚未展開獨唱生涯的明星，取得一定的成功，但被重新納入傑克遜兄弟的機器，在那裏他參與創作了包括《你能感覺到嗎？》（Can You Feel It?）在內的精彩舞曲。這還不是弓上唯一的弦，提醒你一下：那一年他在摩城（Motown）著名的歌舞電影《新綠野仙蹤》（The Wiz）中飾演稻草人。評論對於他在《新綠野仙蹤》中飾演的角色還算手下留情，他們認為他還不像戴安娜•羅斯（Diana Ross）飾演的桃樂絲（Dorothy）那麼糟糕。要說起線索，傑克遜的螢屏處男秀竟是被綁在金屬十字架上掙扎著想要自由，周圍聰明的烏鴉則逗他唱著無聊的歌兒取樂。

在現實生活中幫了他大忙的是經驗豐富的音樂人、製作人昆西•鐘斯（Quincy Jones），他正是這部電影的編曲師。鐘斯與傑克遜相處融洽，當這個年輕人向他提出為自己製作下一張個人專輯時，鐘斯把他的名字打了出去。開始，對這張專輯的要求遠未確定：傑克遜的上張個人專輯《永遠的邁克爾》（Forever, Michael）發行於4年前，在美國榜上排糟糕的第101名。與鐘斯的合作當然希望能好一些。《瘋狂》專輯賣出2千萬張，足以令人印象深刻，可是你會記住的只是這個達到接下來《顫慄》（Thriller）專輯銷量的五分之一。無論時代如何變遷，我們可以更加肯定地說《顫慄》將保持史上銷量最高專輯的地位，但是《瘋狂》專輯一直被評論家視為傑克遜的代表作。

為什麼？30多年後仍令人印象深刻證明了這是一張多麼緊湊內斂的專輯。這張迪斯可專輯發行時迪斯可風頭已過，主角頹廢而庸俗的衝動日趨明顯。但《瘋狂》專輯是快樂的小盒子，一波又一波簡潔的律動歡迎著你不知疲倦。

這種約束感是鐘斯和傑克遜所有合作裏必不可少的一部分。歌手聲音裏的痙攣、喘息、顫抖幾乎貫穿所有歌曲，起了重要作用，製造出一種他竭盡全力要擺脫出來表達自己的印象。可是音樂中卻沒有什麼放肆減少傑克遜的渴望。在《顫慄》和《真棒》（Bad）專輯中，約束感開始凝結成《比莉•珍》（Billie Jean）、《犯罪高手》（Smooth Criminal）等歌曲中的緊張感，傑克遜聽起來完完全全陷入困境。在鐘斯建議傑克遜找到更新、更現代的合作者後，這種音樂的約束感開始消失：像是《莫斯科的遊子》（Stranger in Moscow）和《地球之歌》比傑克遜之前嘗試的東西更壯觀，但也更私人了。

可是，《瘋狂》專輯卻與傑克遜關係最大。傑克遜作為獨唱歌曲作者，《滿足為止》（Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough）詮釋了一切。歌曲開頭讓他先像個體內蘊含著能量的“驚奇漫畫”（Marvel comics）人物在掙扎，然後大爆發。這時，他不是流行音樂的彼得•潘（Peter Pan）,更像是彼得•派克（Peter Parker），一個受困的年輕人學習如何使用自己的超能力，《瘋狂》專輯上的每個情感似乎是第一次被感受到和表達出來。當傑克遜的聲音在迷人的歌謠《她離開了我》（She's Out of My Life）中響起時，這張專輯已然成功。

奇怪的是，自從傑克遜2009年去世後，《瘋狂》專輯就成為了他影響力較小的專輯之一。也許是它太單純了。傑克遜的歌曲中與當代明星產生共鳴的是後來的歌曲，傑克遜在這些歌曲裏把名聲同時當作自己的職業和重擔 —— 這種態度和自覺痛苦的坎耶•韋斯特（Kanye West）相似。最後一張和《瘋狂》專輯明顯搭界的就是賈斯汀•汀布萊克（Justin Timberlake）還不錯的《情有可原》（Justified）專輯，這已大約是10年前了。就像它的靈感來源，那張專輯是一個男孩宣稱自己成年了，這種致敬抓住了《瘋狂》吸引人的情感精髓。

無論後來發生了什麼，傑克遜和他的導師鐘斯製作了流行樂中這張偉大的成年人專輯。

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jun/11/michael-jackson-off-the-wall

Michael Jackson starts work on Off the Wall

'Pop's Peter Parker': Michael Jackson circa Off the Wall Photograph: Lynn Goldsmith/ Lynn Goldsmith/Corbis
Michael Jackson's life and career were so extraordinary that it's tempting to comb each chapter for clues and pointers to the next. You can find flashes of his solo superstardom in his thrilling contributions to the Jackson 5's pop. You can detect hints of paranoia and self-hatred in his years as a commercial colossus. And it's all too easy to hear his later, darker solo work as presaging the end of something.

All of which risks making Jackson 's transformation into the king of pop seem inevitable, whereas it was no such thing. In 1978, he was an ex-solo star, modestly successful in his day but now re-absorbed into the Jacksons machine, where he played his part in creating marvellous platform-heeled stompers such as Can You Feel It?. This wasn't the only string to his bow, mind you: that year he could also be seen in Motown's grand filmic folly, The Wiz, playing the Scarecrow. The critics were kind to his role in this reimagining of The Wizard of Oz, which is to say they didn't think he was as godawful as Diana Ross's Dorothy. And speaking of clues and pointers, Jackson first appeared in the film lashed to a metal cross, struggling for freedom as wiseass crows make him sing inanities for their entertainment.

The man who helped him down in real life was veteran musician and producer Quincy Jones, working as an arranger on the film. Jones got on well enough with Jackson to put his name forward when the younger man asked who ought to produce his next solo record. Demand for the record was far from certain: Jackson 's previous solo album Forever, Michael had come out four years earlier and had hit a dizzying No 101 on the US charts. The collaboration with Jones managed rather better, of course. Off the Wall sold 20m copies, impressive enough even before you remember that was only one-fifth of the business its follow-up, Thriller, did. In an industry shifting away from individual sales, we can say with more certainty that Thriller will keep its position as the highest-selling LP ever – but it's Off the Wall that critics routinely hail as Jackson 's masterpiece.

Why? What's impressive more than 30 years later is how tight and self-disciplined the album is. It was a disco record released at disco's overripe peak, and it's by a man whose own decadent and kitschy impulses would become ever more apparent. But Off the Wall is joyously compact – shot after shot of lean grooves that never get a chance to wear out their welcome.

This sense of restraint is a vital part of all Jones's collaborations with Jackson . The singer's vocal tics – the gasps and shudders that punctuate almost every song – play a big role in this, creating the impression of a singer desperate to cut loose and express himself in movement. But there's never any excess in the music to undermine Jackson 's hunger. On Thriller and Bad, the restraint starts to curdle into tension on songs such as Billie Jean and Smooth Criminal, and Jackson sounds compellingly trapped. After Jones suggested Jackson find newer, more modern collaborators, this sense of musical restraint began to vanish: epics such as Stranger in Moscow or Earth Song were more grandiose than anything Jackson had tried before, but also somehow more private, too.

Off the Wall, though, finds Jackson at his most relatable. It announces itself – and Jackson 's arrival as a solo songwriter – with Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, whose spoken intro finds him struggling like a Marvel comics character with the power inside him, then giving it glorious release. At this stage, he's not the Peter Pan of pop so much as its Peter Parker, a troubled young man learning how to use his staggering abilities, and every emotion on Off the Wall seems like it's being felt and expressed for the first time. By the time Jackson 's voice cracks on centrepiece ballad She's Out of My Life, the record is already a triumph.

Oddly, since Jackson 's death in 2009, Off the Wall has been one of his less influential albums. Perhaps it's too innocent. The Jackson tracks that resonate with today's stars are later ones, where Jackson treated his fame as vocation and millstone simultaneously – an attitude familiar to the self-consciously tormented likes of Kanye West. The last record with an obvious debt to Off the Wall was Justin Timberlake's fine Justified, almost a decade ago. Like its inspiration, that record is a boy announcing himself – in pop terms – as a man, in an act of homage that gets to the emotional core of Off the Wall's appeal. Whatever happened afterwards, with this record Jackson and his mentor Jones made pop's great coming-of-age album.