Off The Wall: The Jacksonian Invasion

Although the he had closely watched this buildup from the outset its reaction following the invasion revealed that, until the end, it clung to the hope that the Union would not invade, based on the assumption that Moscow would conclude that the costs of invasion were too high. In response, Carter wrote a sharply-worded letter to Brezhnev denouncing Soviet aggression, and during his State of the Union address he announced his own doctrine vowing to protect Middle Eastern oil supplies from them. The head leader also enacted economic sanctions and trade embargoes against the Soviet, called for a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and stepped up its aid to the Afghan insurgents. In sum, these actions were Washington’s collective attempt to

Jones referred to this process as “Polaroids.” Each potential song was held up to see if it had the right qualities and how it fit with already-existing material. Jackson brought in at least a dozen self-written tracks, including album standouts “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin,’” “Billie Jean,” and “Beat It.” Rod Temperton, a talented British musician who was also a key contributor to Jackson’s previous album Off the Wall, composed over thirty potential songs for Jackson. Three made it onto the album Baby Be Mine, The Lady in My Life, and the title track originally titled Starlight. Other tracks were switched in the rotation later in the process, including the gorgeous Steve Porcaro and John Bettis-penned ballad “Human Nature, which Jackson described as music with wings. P.Y.T. was originally written by Jackson, but later re-worked by Quincy Jones and James Ingram into a funky Minimoog synth jam. The final result was an album that, as Jackson put it, had “no B-sides.” The material was strong from top to bottom. The public responded accordingly and “Thriller” led sales and airplay throughout 1983 and into 1984. Within 15 months, it became the bestselling album in the history of the music industry, shifting more than 22 million copies. It would also go on to win a record eight Grammy awards in 1984. The album seemed to cross every barrier imaginable: it appealed to black and white, young and old, middle-class and poor, American and beyond. Its unprecedented success perhaps seems inevitable today. Jackson had already been a star for a long time: in the early 1970s, he and his brothers achieved enormous crossover success as the Jackson 5, and his 1979 solo album, “Off the Wall,” became the bestselling album ever by an African-American artist. Yet in the early 1980s, radio was largely segregated, adhering to narrow programming based on racialized genres. MTV, likewise, was