To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Thriller, Michael Jackson sat down with Ebony for what the magazine is calling his first print interview in a decade (Rolling Stone is told the special Thriller re-release will be coming out early next year, not in December, the month that would mark the album’s true birthday). We scoured the profile for fascinating nuggets and uncovered MJ’s new favorite artists and the story of Off the Wall:
- Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg call Jackson “Smelly” in honor of the word MJ — who doesn’t swear much — substitutes for profanity.
- As he approaches age fifty, Jackson assumes he won’t still be entertaining at eighty: “Not the way James Brown did, or Jackie Wilson did, where they just … killed themselves. … I wish [Brown] could have slowed down and been more relaxed and enjoyed his hard work.”
- Jackson says MTV has told him they wouldn’t exist without him, even though the network initially refused to air his videos due to his race.
- Jackson’s recording career began after The Wiz because that’s where he first met Jones. Jackson says he rang up Jones after it wrapped: “I’m a shy person, ESPECIALLY then, I used to not even look at people when they were talking to me, I’m not joking — and I said ‘I’m ready to do an album. Do you think … could you recommend anybody who would be interested in producing it with me or working with me?’ ” Jackson recalls. “[Jones] paused and said, ‘Why don’t you let ME do it?’” The result? Off the Wall.
- Jackson has studied composition since he was a child and notes “It was Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most.” He says the Nutcracker Suite composer inspired him to sculpt a pop album where every song is a hit — an album that eventually became Thriller.
- Jackson directs and edits everything himself: “I have five, no six cameras,” he says. “When you’re performing — and I don’t care what kind of performance you are giving — if you don’t capture it properly the people will never see it. It’s the most selfish medium in the world. You’re filming WHAT you want people to see, WHEN you want them to see it, HOW you want them to see it, what JUXTAPOSITION you want them to see.”
- Jackson thinks Ne-Yo, Chris Brown and Akon are “wonderful.”
- The only cure for the ailing music industry is “just phenomenal, great music. Just reaching the masses. People are still searching,” Jackson says. “There’s not a real musical revolution going on right now, either. But when it’s there, people will break down a wall to get to it.”
- There are no concrete tour plans in Jackson’s future, despite the fact that he’s working on a new album with Will.i.am and Kanye West. Jackson says he doesn’t care about doing long treks, but loves that touring “sharpens one’s craft beautifully.”
- Discussing the world at large, Jackson says he is “very concerned about the plight of the international global warming phenomenon” and says we have to fix the problem now. But he doesn’t follow politics. “We don’t look to man to fix the problems of the world, we don’t,” he explains. “They can’t do it. That’s how I see it.”
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- Portions of Album Content Provided by All Music Guide © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC.
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