Feb 28 2021
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4
When I was a kid Michael Jackson was ubiquitous. Just an absolute cultural juggernaut. I had a cassette tape of "thriller" and remember checking out books from the library about michael jackson and the jackson 5. I definitely can't separate his music from nostalgic childhood feelings. This album is where he truly established himself as an independent solo artist and where he found the perfect producer in Quincy Jones. I feel like this album and Thriller set a new template for pop music that is still being used to this day. Man this album starts so strong! The production is so clean and balanced. So busy and layered but not cluttered or overwhelming. Flows so smoothly. Got some of the best session musicians of the era on this album which I am acquainted with to an odd degree because of their association with yacht rock, (which this album has some crossover with). I can definitely appreciate some immaculate pop production, particularly from this era. Side 1 is a fucking ripper but I feel like the album loses a bit of steam on side 2 around the wings cover "girlfriend" and the ballad "She's out if my life" but I do like the Stevie Wonder penned "I can't help it" very much and "it's the falling in love" is yacht rock gem. More of a fan of "thriller" but this is still a very impressive album with some incredible songs.
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Jun 11 2022
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1
I accept that Thriller had to be part of the 1001. I get it. But this bad boy? C'mon. Give your head a shake.
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Jan 28 2021
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5
Funky funk funk funk. This is a disco masterpiece, obviously. It’s got R&B, Disco, Pop, a whole bunch of stuff. The bass playing and production is what really stood out to me. I don’t think I can really state the impact that this album made on popular music going forward.
Favorite song: Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough
Least favorite song: Girlfriend
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Jan 20 2021
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5
Bona fide classic, and the first album we've reviewed that I have on vinyl! [insert joke here about me saying "I have that on vinyl"]
Technically not a debut album, but in a way it kind of is. He started in the Jackson 5 and released a few solo albums in the early '70s, which mostly sounded like the Jackson 1. On "Forever, Michael" in 1975, his voice suddenly dropped to the range we recognize as Michael Jackson, but that album still sounds like a Jackson 1 project. With help from Quincy Jones, MJ pivoted to funky, disco pop, setting the stage for his growth into the most dominant force in pop music. The album's terrific--it opens with probably my favorite song he's ever made (first heard via Chris Tucker in Rush Hour 2 - "Ch'mon, Lee!"), and it's great all the way through. Also: there's a deluxe release with a couple demos, and the original demo for "Workin' Day and Night" is awesome. I like it better than the album version and think it's one of MJ's best tracks period. Check it out!
Favorite tracks: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough, Workin' Day and Night, Rock With You.
Album art: Iconic. Totally looks like a debut. Painfully '70s, in a good way. Michael doesn't look comfortable at all, like he's worried people with think he's a poser. At that time I guess he was a poser, going from Motown soul to groovy disco overnight, but it's like a guy at party who gets up "off the wall" to storm the dance floor and show everyone up. This is my favorite cover of all MJ albums.
5/5
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Jan 04 2022
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4
Various ballads and dance numbers addressed to anonymous women, but the real love affair is between Jackson and Quincy Jones. The comingling of their vocabulary of sighs, squeals, squeaks, grunts, groans, classical strings, fairydust synths and, of course, mesmeric drums is as essential to the music of the last 40 years as James Brown. Most ironic title: Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. There is no 'enough'.
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Jun 03 2021
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5
Fuck dude, how do you rank an album like this? It's so hard to isolate this album from everything that came out afterwards about Michael Jackson. There's no question that Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson were an absolute force when recording together. The first song is incredible; the album starts out at a sprint. The second song is a classic as well. From there it has a very consistent feel without being repetitive. A classic party album. It feels weird giving a known pedophile 5 stars, but here we are
5/5
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Feb 09 2021
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4
The first half of this album is very good but the last 4-5 songs weren't doing much for me. He's just so damn talented. Clearly not his best album but still a great listen.
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Apr 26 2022
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3
Not his best album. A few good songs, though. Some really bad ones.
3.5/5
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Jan 22 2024
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4
The groove on this one is so immense that I wanna put on platform shoes, flared skinny-fit jeans and a silk shirt, and boogie all night. Coming from a white, Scandinavian middle school teacher in his early forties, that is quite an achievement.
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Feb 15 2024
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1
great album - scum of a person
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Jan 20 2021
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5
How many times have I listened to this album in my life? Too many to count. I love this album, and I am convinced that this is the greatest disco/funk album ever made. How can something sound so 70's but at the same time be so timeless? Everyone who listens to this, no matter who, when or where will be grooving to this album, it's energy is infectious. The synths, the bass, the vocal delivery of MJ and lyrical composition is top notch. The songs are all the perfect length that don't overstay their welcome, which is something that disco and funk usually have a problem with. Every song on this album is iconic, along with the album art. This album feels like its at the crossroads between MJ's child career and future adult career that we all know and love, blending the best of each. This is my personal favorite Michael Jackson album, it may not have the more iconic hits that people think of when they think of MJ, but it makes me happy, its such a pure joy to listen to.
Favorite track: Rock With You
Least Favorite Track: She's Out of My Life
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Feb 01 2021
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5
I e joyed this album and would play it again!
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May 17 2021
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5
Phenomenal mix of funk, soul, disco and pop from the greatest performer of all time.
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Dec 09 2023
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3
Great disco album, so many good groovy songs. To be played in a social setting to get people dancing
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Jun 25 2024
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5
This is the only MJ album I owned. It's so great! MJ and Q at their best!
Such great songs and performances by MJ, with the tightest production ever. It's perfection. I can't stop smiling.
OK, second side is not as much fun. But it's still great, I Can't Help It had me swaying in my chair. The keyboard changes are so beautiful!
Oh, and in 1979, digital technology was in it's infancy. THESE ARE REAL INSTRUMENTS PLAYING.
I've not heard it in ages, what a treat! Can I give 10 stars?
Note to the persons rating the person, not the music: Great music needs to be acknowledge even if the performer is flawed. He was 20 here, before all the weirdness. He was wonderful then.
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Jan 22 2021
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5
Young king of pop, fun album, gets you in a good mood
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Jan 28 2021
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5
Michael Jackson’s best album, the funk, the groove, is truly incredible. Set the tone for music going forward.
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Feb 22 2024
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4
Too bad he’s a pedo.
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Feb 07 2023
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4
Mmmm this was good. Rock with You is also my favorite Michael song so extra points here. And before you all bring it up, no, Michael Jackson was NOT a pedo, he just happened to like spending time with young children and having sleepovers with them. I’d ask all of you to take a good long look in the mirror and truly answer this question: don’t we all?
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Mar 12 2024
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1
good album by and evil guy
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Dec 17 2023
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1
I don’t support this pedo
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Mar 10 2025
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5
ALL-TIME ALBUM TO DANCE TO! PIRE JOY AND GLORY AND MOVEMENT! A MASTERPIECE OF LOVE AND LIFE
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Nov 30 2024
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5
Let’s be real here. Everything that’s great with this record comes from Quincy Jones. Granted, this is probably Michael at his best. But all this timeless, symphonic, gorgeously produced music is entirely Quincy.
The first five songs are some of the greatest pop songs ever recorded. Find a human that doesn’t love Rock With You. It’s pure pop perfection.
I want to hate Michael Jackson as much as anyone. But Quincy Jones composed some of the best music in American history. This is a pop symphony.
5/5
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Nov 30 2024
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5
RIP Quincy Jones
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Nov 26 2024
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5
Pretty close to perfect. A great Quincy Jones arrangement, and not over-produced. Michael at his peak, before the parody began
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Jun 25 2024
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5
Well produced and fun dance grooved! He was the King of Pop but it’s more of a product of Quincy Jones.
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Jan 24 2024
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5
Own
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Jan 16 2022
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5
Genre: Disco
5/5
I mean, good grief. Imagine 1979: a DJ slaps the new MJ record on, and spins it in its entirety for a packed dance floor. The people must’ve lost their fucking minds.
MJ and Quincy Jones team up to make the blueprint for a Disco/Pop record, and a blueprint that Michael would take from himself later to make Thriller, a better album than this if you could imagine.
From top to bottom, this thing is loaded with BIG hits, smooth production, tremendous playing, and amazing singing from Michael. He floats on top of everything he performs on, and this is the first major leap in his solo career that showed the listening public that he was here to stay.
He may not have been The King of Pop yet, but this is damn close to anything else he made in the future. A top tier album. An essential listen.
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Nov 13 2021
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5
Probably my favorite Michael Jackson album. You can feel that he loved making these songs.
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Nov 10 2021
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5
One of the greats!
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Sep 28 2021
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5
I'm into soul these days and I should've dug deeper into Michael's discography.
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Sep 27 2021
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5
Well I'm not sure I've ever listened to a MJ album start to finish, so many bangers on this. I'm assuming MJ is now cancelled, but I do believe in separating the art from the artist and this album was very very good.
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Apr 15 2021
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5
Already heard it.
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Apr 10 2021
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5
Pues gran ritmo, canciones que hasta la fecha suenan de vez en cuando en dodne menos las esperas. A parte del famoso single don't stop till you get enough, me gustaron off the wall y sobre todo la ondita r&b de it's the falling in love.
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Jan 21 2021
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5
Disco-y! Interesting to see some early thriller influences too
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Feb 11 2021
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5
Hell yeah
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Mar 17 2021
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5
Highlights - Don't Stop..., Rock With You, Off The Wall, Burn This Disco Out
I've always appreciated the sonic clarity of Michael Jackson's work, his ability to craft truly toe-tapping melodies, his incredible vocal range...His foray into his solo act truly got off the ground when he partnered with Quincy Jones for Off The Wall. Don't Stop.. and Rock With You require no explanation, these are assured classics. It's worth noting that this album was made for record playback in mind, as such, the eponymous Off The Wall kicks off the B-side with unsettling laughter and transitions into a solid banger with a feel-good chorus. Burning This Disco Out closes out the second side with a funk-filled send off that'll have you dancing and flipping back to Track 1 over and over.
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Feb 27 2021
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5
Masterpiece.
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Jan 15 2021
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5
Solid Michael Blackson produced by Quincy Jones. Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough will always be a song to grove to. Don’t sleep on the song Get On The Floor, the bass line is amazing. I even find myself enjoying the cheesier songs lime Girlfriend.
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Jul 20 2021
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5
Excellent early Michael before he really hit his stride. 9/10.
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Jan 20 2021
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5
love it
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Apr 23 2021
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5
This is one of my favorite albums of ALL TIME. I'd rank it higher than Thriller. But I had to give them both 5s.
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Mar 04 2021
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5
Bangers
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Jan 20 2021
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5
The King
Don't stop til you get enough, Rock with you, It's the falling in love, Burn this disco out
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Jan 15 2021
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5
Awesome. It does sound like all of 80s smooth jazz ripped this sound off, though.
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Jan 28 2021
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5
Absolutely stellar, what a boppin album. Besides Girlfriend, you got ya head bumping along with every track, and it's all memorable as hell. What more to say? This is THE way to breakout into stardom (as a solo act, I guess).
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Feb 13 2021
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5
Love love love this album
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Jan 17 2021
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5
Pretty damn good
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May 18 2021
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5
Just a great album front to back. Always have loved the song “Off The Wall”
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Jan 20 2021
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5
Michael Jackson Goodness. Bop after Bop
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May 01 2021
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5
Video show
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Feb 04 2021
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5
Perfection
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Dec 19 2020
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5
Classic grooves, all time great album
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Oct 30 2020
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5
un 9,2
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Jul 20 2024
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4
No. 218/1001
Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough 4/5
Rock With You 4/5
Working Day And Night 4/5
Get On The Floor 4/5
Off The Wall 4/5
Girlfriend 3/5
She's Out of my Life 3/5
I Can't Help It 3/5
It's the Falling in Love 4/5
Burn This Disco Out 3/5
Average: 3,7
Another really good album by the King of Pop. He hasn't completely found his own voice after Jackson 5 yet. Because of this I think Thriller and Bad are superior.
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Jul 04 2024
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4
tbh didn’t know Mike jack hit like this
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Jun 29 2024
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4
Very good start, not so familiar with the last songs. Funky disco sound was good
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Jun 28 2024
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4
It’s the king of pop! Always great vocals, a couple of well known bangers and a few funkful tunes. Super fun album!! High 4
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Jun 25 2024
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4
Classic pop album. Funky and classic, reminds me a lot of disco.
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Mar 18 2024
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4
Hard to believe he was only 20 when he recorded and released this album. Legendary artist, legendary album!
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Jan 30 2024
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4
Although the songs are a bit weaker than on "Thriller" later, he wasn't such a weirdo at the time so he gets the credit. A classic of disco production, with some charmingly awkward bits (Macca's song is a bit cheesy; the cockney-inspired pronunciation of "help" is bizarre).
This is one of Howard's faves I believe
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Mar 25 2025
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3
Okay, I liked this a lot more than Bad. Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough is a great opener and incredibly funky, and overall this album was musically much better than Bad.
But I don't know what it is - after a while Michael Jackson just does not click with me anymore (it's probably his annoying hee-hees and oh-ahs) and the whole album gets a lot less enjoyable.
Overall: the first half was pretty good, but the second half was quite a drag.
Favourite song: Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough
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Feb 13 2025
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3
Good album. Love Michael Jackson but can only listen to a certain amount of disco pop before it gets boring for me. However, all the songs are bangers.
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Nov 30 2024
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3
The first two tracks on this album are bangers. The rest? Not so much. Three stars for the first two tracks.
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Oct 02 2024
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3
How come no one just told Michael to just stfu with those autistic noises
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Jun 25 2024
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3
Some signs of what Michael would become, but a bit too much generic-sounding disco here. I do wish I had listened to this before “Bad”.
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Mar 25 2024
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3
There’s a circle I can’t square with some of the immensely popular artists on the list like the Beatles or Michael Jackson.
Do their albums truly qualify as records “you must hear before you die” when they are so ingrained in popular culture that it would be shocking to find someone what has never heard a beat of their music?
In a sense, they’ve become so essential that they are inessential - it should go without saying that you know at least some of their music, because being able to avoid it is almost impossible.
I guess what I’m saying is that I usually don’t gain much new insight from hearing a record like this. I know who Michael Jackson was, lived through his heyday and this record didn’t move the needle on my opinion of him in any way.
It’s Michael Jackson. It sounds like a Michael Jackson record. Sure, there are songs here that aren’t mainstays in popular culture, particularly in the back half, but that’s probably for a reason…they’re not that memorable and don’t do enough to differentiate themselves from other, similar sounding music of the time.
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Oct 03 2022
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3
Pretty good. Some songs i enjoyed but it all kinda sounded the same.
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Mar 17 2025
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2
As people born with sickle-cell trait have a natural resistance to malaria, so I seem to have been gifted with a good degree of immunity to disco and funk era Michael Jackson.
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Mar 17 2025
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2
C tells me this album was seared into her brain because it’s what Coach Cortez used to teach her PE class the Square Dancing unit in 6th grade
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Jun 03 2024
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2
I kind of hate this album. It sounds empty and cheap in all of the worst ways.
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Jan 30 2024
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2
Today I only listened to this and the PC Engine soundtrack to "Double Dragon II: The Revenge"; listen to the latter. Off The Wall plunges after the first two tracks, which themselves are pretty fab. I'll mumble "rote late-disco" and get back to the Double Dragon II OST.
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Oct 19 2023
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2
Two fantastic songs. Lots of unremarkable discopop
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Oct 07 2023
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2
It was alright? Sort of blended together by the end. First two tracks are classics for a reason. The groove throughout was good. Just sort of forgettable to me.
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Sep 16 2023
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2
Meh.
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Sep 08 2023
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2
It was fine. Pretty repetitive, but ok to listen to. 2.5/5
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Jul 23 2023
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2
Disco Michael Jackson. It's wedding music.
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Jul 13 2023
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2
Really funky start followed by a load of dross. So much talent, so little taste.
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Apr 19 2024
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1
imagine being a child and getting raped by someone, then the rest of your life people say you've got to listen to his music before you die.
fuck this perv
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May 05 2025
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5
A beautiful album. Joyful, incredible well produce and play.
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May 02 2025
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5
Legendary groovy and sexy
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May 02 2025
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5
Great album. Wasnt in love with it at first but after listening to it a couple times it definitely is one of the best discopop albums out there. 5/5
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May 02 2025
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5
Another classic album, my personal favourite Michael Jackson album as well.
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May 01 2025
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5
Michael Jackson simply does not know the meaning of the word 'miss' as everything he makes is pure funk. I had already heard half the album before, considering it's a pretty damn popular album and I love his music. I'm glad I gave the full album a listen to as the tracks I hadn't heard before were still great
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Apr 29 2025
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5
A classic. But also crazy how 1001 albums would rather feature every problematic male artist before they dare include a woman
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Apr 29 2025
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5
mciahlwr jackoan
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Apr 28 2025
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5
really good production, each track sounds crisp, his singing is great.
favorite songs, Dont stop till you get enough, its the falling in love.
4.8/5 great album.
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Apr 28 2025
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5
masterpiece
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Apr 27 2025
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5
I think this is in the territory of 4/4.5, but I'm pushing it over the top as I think it's merely being overshadowed by Thriller. It's a bit cliche 80s pop, but it's arguably only cliche bc MJ mastered the sound. The album, too, is full of bangers either way.
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Apr 26 2025
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5
Bad was good, but this is better!
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Apr 19 2025
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5
Already listened ❤️
Peak Michael Jackson
Fire production + vocals
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Apr 17 2025
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5
Funky AF. Wish MJ didn't go so loopy.
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Apr 16 2025
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5
Don't know why this is always treated like the black sheep in the big 3 that is this, thriller, and bad. To me it goes above and beyond anything Jackson ever did before or after.
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Apr 13 2025
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5
Great soul album.
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Apr 04 2025
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5
What can I say? one of his best albums! This one I happened to know already. A happy revisit of very good music.
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Apr 10 2025
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5
Фанк, соул, диско, немного рока и джаза. Музыка захватила!
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Apr 10 2025
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5
Love the first three songs. All so good and great for energy
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Apr 07 2025
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5
oh my gosh i’m just handing out 5’s left and right but i mean come on it’s michael jackson did he touch kids, probably, was his music amazing, hell yea, but didn’t he touch kids, yes.
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Apr 07 2025
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5
I own this album on vinyl and absolutely love every track. One of the best albums ever. I listened to this twice, five stars easily.
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Apr 05 2025
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5
Fantastic album, clearly set the tone for all the albums to come from the king of pop
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