Off The Wall

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.

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.

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

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

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'.

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.

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

Not his best album. A few good songs, though. Some really bad ones. 3.5/5

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

I e joyed this album and would play it again!

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.

great album - scum of a person

Phenomenal mix of funk, soul, disco and pop from the greatest performer of all time.

Great disco album, so many good groovy songs. To be played in a social setting to get people dancing

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.

Young king of pop, fun album, gets you in a good mood

Michael Jackson’s best album, the funk, the groove, is truly incredible. Set the tone for music going forward.

Too bad he’s a pedo.

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?

good album by and evil guy

I don’t support this pedo

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

RIP Quincy Jones

Pretty close to perfect. A great Quincy Jones arrangement, and not over-produced. Michael at his peak, before the parody began

Well produced and fun dance grooved! He was the King of Pop but it’s more of a product of Quincy Jones.

Own

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.

Probably my favorite Michael Jackson album. You can feel that he loved making these songs.

One of the greats!

I'm into soul these days and I should've dug deeper into Michael's discography.

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.

Already heard it.

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.

Disco-y! Interesting to see some early thriller influences too

Hell yeah

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.

Masterpiece.

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.

Excellent early Michael before he really hit his stride. 9/10.

love it

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.

Bangers

The King Don't stop til you get enough, Rock with you, It's the falling in love, Burn this disco out

Awesome. It does sound like all of 80s smooth jazz ripped this sound off, though.

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).

Love love love this album

Pretty damn good

Just a great album front to back. Always have loved the song “Off The Wall”

Michael Jackson Goodness. Bop after Bop

Video show

Perfection

Classic grooves, all time great album

un 9,2

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.

tbh didn’t know Mike jack hit like this

Very good start, not so familiar with the last songs. Funky disco sound was good

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

Classic pop album. Funky and classic, reminds me a lot of disco.

Hard to believe he was only 20 when he recorded and released this album. Legendary artist, legendary album!

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

The first two tracks on this album are bangers. The rest? Not so much. Three stars for the first two tracks.

How come no one just told Michael to just stfu with those autistic noises

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”.

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.

Pretty good. Some songs i enjoyed but it all kinda sounded the same.

I kind of hate this album. It sounds empty and cheap in all of the worst ways.

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.

Two fantastic songs. Lots of unremarkable discopop

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.

Meh.

It was fine. Pretty repetitive, but ok to listen to. 2.5/5

Disco Michael Jackson. It's wedding music.

Really funky start followed by a load of dross. So much talent, so little taste.

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

If you don’t like this album you can go funk yourself

Always loved this album as it was the one that united Michael with Quincy jones

Tons of fun.

Album #1 What a pull! An absolute disco powerhouse, with gems all over the record. The singles are notorious, and the deep cuts are just as entertaining. What a great fucking album from MJ.

I mean

GOLDEN. i can not listen to this with out groovin

Thank you Quincy Jones

Increíble el mejor disco de MJ una locura

Two forces of nature (Michael and Quincy Jones (RIP)) collide to change the trajectory of modern music was we know it. Overshadowed by Thriller, but rarely bettered.

Are you kidding? 5 stars. No question.

It's an interesting album. It did well in the charts, but compared to the NEXT album... it seems almost forgotten. But there's a lot of great stuff here. It's definitely one I listened to a second time. Quincy Jones' touch is all over the album, you can just hear it with every song. It was the start of a triumvirate of an albums for MJ, and it will be known as the peak of his career. "She's Out Of My Life" and "It's The Falling In Love" are probably the weakest songs on the album, but that's just because the other songs really stand out. Most artists would kill for songs like those 2. I don't know if this album is better than "Thriller", but it is definitely a great album. Recommended.

This is the album where Michael Jackson became a solo artist, fully freed from the Jackson 5. Don't overlook it just because it's disco or pre-Thriller. The first three tunes are funktastic disco perfection - just try not to rock to the beat. You know the big singles Don't Stop til You Get Enough and Rock With You but how was Working Day and Night not a single? The beats are ridiculous - so many lame but cool disco moves could've been done to those beats. The next two songs - Get on the Floor and the title track - start a little slow in my opinion but they pick up once the first chorus hits and especially in the bridges. Both are still disco gold. Then he goes in a slightly different direction for the next two with the Wings/Paul McCartney remake Girlfriend and She's Out of My Life. The former is still fun, just less disco (feels more like a song you'd hear on Thriller). The latter is a pop tear jerker (maybe more reminiscent of his Ben) but it is a very sweet song. Maybe my favorite on the album. He doesn't quite recapture the same disco steam when he tries to crank it up again for the last three songs (Burn the Disco Out gets close), but the songs aren't bad. Definitely better than a couple head scratchers on Bad (Liberian Girl, Speed Demon) and I gave that album a 5. So I'm giving this album a 5. All the more impressive when you think about how he was the king of pop - which was a different sound - but with this album he was also the king (or at least part of the royalty) of disco.

Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough // Rock with You // Off the Wall // Girlfriend // It’s the Falling in Love // 4.5/5

I teetered between a 4 and a 5- but when you listen to this album, you can’t help but dance. MJ at his musical finest.

A true classic

Everything that’s great with this record comes from Quincy Jones. This is a pop symphony. 5/5

Classic

He is the King

Always amazing

A classic.

Nikad nisam u cijelosti poslušao ovaj album, sad mi je drago da jesam Vrhunski album, ne znam šta mi se više sviđa na ovom albumu, od harmonije, groova, ovih opakih bass linija (pogotovo na synthu), vrhunska ritam gitara koja zna gdje joj mjesto u mixu, ovi topli lead synthevi, klavijature koje iz pjesme u pjesmu sve tako lijepo bojaju ili ovaj tako fini bubanj Dobro on pjeva, ali ja bi ovaj album bez beda poslušao i kao instrumental i ocijenio ga s istom ocjenom Čista petica, bez razmišljanja

Wonderful y

In light of the recent passing of Quincy Jones, it feels no more fitting than now that I would get an album like this. It’s hard to really express how much of a powerhouse duo those two were. And now that they are both gone, all we have left to remember them is their contributions to the music industry. And thank god this is what it is. I said to my friend recently that if any record were to be left on Earth after we are all gone as proof of human existence, it should be Thriller. I’ve decided today that Bad and Off the Wall belong in there as well to complete the trilogy. Many people forget this was not Michael’s first album, and obviously not his first venture into music. But it acts more as a debut than any other work he had released previously. The differences between this and Forever, Michael, the album the preceded it, are staggering. But it’s clear the four year gap was spent well. I’ve always tried to be realistic about the kind of talent that Michael really had. No, he couldn’t play any instruments. But the voice is just as much an instrument as any, and damn did he know how to use it. I challenge you to find another artist who put layering of his own vocals to use like this. These vocal harmonies are otherworldly. Also, can we talk about this production? Quincy must have been Midas incarnate, because he somehow simultaneously created three of the best sounding albums of their respective time periods. Some of the best bass lines you can find from the 70s, like on I Can’t Help It. As far as I’m concerned, the first half of this is near flawless. And the second leg is great as well, but definitely not as consistent. She’s Out of my Life might not be the most instrumentally compelling the song. But if you aren’t captivated and deeply touched by how genuine and beautiful his vocal performance is on that song, are you even human? Nearly brought tears to my eyes. Much like Led Zeppelin, if I grow to have kids in my future, they will know who Michael Jackson was. And I hope their children will too. Thriller was my dad’s first record at age 5, so clearly it’s been passed down through the generations. The impact these three records have had can never be undone, and I’m glad I got the chance to speak on each of them. Rating: 9/10

ahhhh.. one of my favorite albums of all time, since I got this album in 1979 - I know the whole thing by heart and can say nothing bad about it, it is imprinted in my DNA : ) He made this first solo album when he was just 20, bless his heart! and of course there is Rod Temperton and Quincy Jones all over this lovelovelovelove

DSTYGE is the first single I actually owned - a Christmas gift from my aunt and uncle. They also gave me please don't go by KC and the Sunshine Band. I listened to those singles constantly on substandard record player. But I loved them. Unaware of any cultural relevance of history. They just sounded good. And I owned them. A short time later I would go to Sears and purchase edited version of The Devil Went Down to Georgia - I'm gonna tell you once you done of a gun...they wouldn't sell the one with the naughty words. The point - this album feels like the before times. Before MTV. Before the slickness of the 80s. Its plenty slick but you can really hear the musicians. It's a long way from the Jackson 5 but just this side of something else. While not the colossus that is Thriller - I think this may be the better album. I feel better after listening to it - especially side one - just banger after banger. I was literally just humming Rock with You to myself a few days for no reason other than it's just in the ether of my brain. A heck of an album.

Fav song: Off The Wall The sheer class and production quality of this album is off the chain! Regardless of how you feel about Michael Jackson on a personal level you can't deny the absolute magnitude of musicianship that went into creating this album. The drum track alone on each song had me squinting - not to mention the bass player(s). Fantastic album, amazing musicians, great writing. A smash hit imo.