One Song - "Can You Feel It" by The Jacksons
Episode Date: July 31, 2026How do you follow “I Want You Back” when the world still sees you as kids? Diallo & LUXXURY dive into “Can You Feel It,” the record that helped transform the Jackson 5 into The Jacksons. They ...explore the musical legacy of the whole family, Randy’s lead-vocal moment, the way Michael’s entrance changes the energy of the song, and the massive music video that pointed toward Thriller. Then LUXXURY breaks down the soaring strings, gospel-inspired vocals, and huge arrangement behind one of the Jacksons’ boldest records. Songs discussed: “Can You Feel It” — The Jacksons“Back Stabbers” — The O’Jays“Blame It on the Boogie” — The Jacksons“Centipede” — Rebbie Jackson“Dancing Machine” — The Jacksons“Do What You Do” — Jermaine Jackson“Hard” — Rihanna“If You Feel the Funk” — LaToya Jackson“T.S.O.P. (The Sound of Philadelphia)” — MFSB“Show You the Way to Go” — The Jacksons“Stars on 45” — Stars on 45“Tell Me I’m Not Dreaming (Too Good to Be True)” — Jermaine Jackson“Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” — Stevie Wonder“Wake Up Everybody” — Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes“White Rabbit” — Jefferson Airplane“Can You Feel It” — Mr. Fingers (Larry Heard)“Also sprach Zarathustra” (“2001” Theme) — Richard Strauss“Can You Feel It” — Southern University Human Jukebox Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Gorgeous, lush, lush, strings.
Let me tell you something, this is black classical music.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, we've always thought about jazz in those terms, but like, when you think about the drums and the, we're talking about the percussion, the bass, the guitar, and then you bring in those vibes and the keyboards, but now you've got freaking strings this lush and crazy.
Like, I feel like I'm on the tram at Universal Studios.
Like, this is insane.
Luxury.
In our last episode, we watched five.
brothers from Gary, Indiana, become one of the biggest groups in America. After the success of their first Motown single, I Want You Back, everything was pointing in one direction. But success can change a family and a family's dynamic.
That's right, D'allo. This is part two of our Jackson family story. Last week, it was 1969, and the Jackson Five was introduced to the world. But today, it's 1981. They are older. They've changed their label. They've even changed their lineup and their name, the band name, that is. They're trying to prove that they're more than just a kiddie act.
Right, they're writing, they're producing, they're making records on their own term, and all the while,
little Michael is becoming bigger than the group itself.
And the song we're talking about today is one of the biggest records of their career.
It infuses disco with gospel, it's an arena anthem, and it's got some science fiction in it.
That's right. If you look around, the world's coming together now to talk about one song,
and that song is Can You Feel It by The Jackson's.
Can You Feel It? Can You Feel It? I'm actor, writer, director, and director, and so.
sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle.
And I'm producer, DJ, songwriter and musicologist Luxury,
a.k.a. the guy who whispers,
interpolation. And this is one song.
The show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres
and tell you why they deserve one more listen.
You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before.
And you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify.
While you're there, please like and subscribe.
All right, Diallo, tell me about the first memory you have of the song,
Can You Feel It by The Jackson's?
You know what's funny is, I don't know.
I think for the longest time, I didn't think of this as a Jackson record.
Growing up, if you asked me to name two records I associated with disco in my brain,
it was probably Stars on 45.
I've never four.
I love that song.
And can you feel it?
That's serious.
Yeah, no, seriously.
Those were the two that probably...
But you thought of them as disco songs as opposed to, like, a record by the Jackson family?
Exactly, because I don't even know that I was savvy enough when this was out to know the Jackson's
versus the Beatles.
Like I was still just very small kid listening to anything that kind of popped up on the radio.
But I will say this, I knew that every time it came on, it felt huge.
Like that opening baseline is, it sounds like something big is happening.
This is an arena rock song, arena disco, arena funk song.
Arena disco, I love that.
It's like a huge, epic, like, monumental song.
I know in researching this episode, we learned that that feeling that we get from that opening
baseline is not accidental.
Every part of this record was designed to make you feel like,
something larger than life was unfolding.
100%.
I want to return the question to you.
What's your relationship with, Can You Feel It?
So I have a confession to make, which is this is a song.
If there's an inner circle of songs that I, like, I worship and I've known my whole life and I've listened to and I adore.
And then on the outer, like another ring outside of that where it's like, I like, I don't think about them much.
The third ring would be like, I'm barely aware of its existence.
Honestly, I kind of, I know of this song in my mind because whenever I hear, probably it, fight me, by the way.
I'm about to say something very controversial.
Whenever I hear my favorite Rihanna song,
which is definitely hard.
So hard?
So hard.
From 2009.
Interesting.
That's crazy.
I hear it.
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Song is so sick.
I like that.
That's the best Rihanna song.
Come on.
And this is the part in Can You Feel It
that whenever I hear, I think of Rihanna.
I will be more explicit about the connection later.
on in the episode, but whenever I hear either of the songs, it makes me think of the other one
because of the shared connection that we'll be talking about shortly.
And I love this podcast because I don't think I would have ever drawn a connection between
the opening bars of so hard with, can you feel it? And yet I totally get it.
All right, let's get into it because, you know, I think most people want to go straight from
I Want You Back, straight to Thriller. They miss an entire decade. You know, like, if they miss
some crucial years where the Jackson Five, go from me, the Jackson Five into being the Jackson's last
episode, we examined how the Jackson 5, via Barry Gordy's Motown label, took the R&B and pop
rolls by storm. And Michael, who was just a kid, delivered one of the greatest vocal performances
pop music has ever heard. If you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, please do that. I mean,
like, what are you thinking? Go back and listen to that masterpiece of an episode.
And luxury, can you tell us what happens to this group in the 1970s? I mean, basically the 70s
happened. So it's a bunch of hits and misses. They put out about a dozen records. Some are flops,
and some have huge hits.
Some are big flops,
and I think that everybody who's like a music lover,
you should actually go back and listen to the Jackson's albums
that maybe you missed,
because there's some really good ones in there.
But there are some that actually did really, really well.
We got Blame It on the Boogie.
Don't blame it on the moonlight.
Don't blame it on the good times.
Blame it on the Boogie.
Don't blame it on the Sunshine.
Don't blame it on...
We got Dancing Machine.
Dancing, dancing, dancing machine.
The robot dance.
Is that right?
The robot is the dancing machine.
Yeah, that's what's called.
The dance is called the robot, but the song that propelled it was the dancing machine.
Don't shut up, tell me more, but like metaphorical shut up, unbelievable.
You always want me to shut up.
I did not know this.
There's hits, there's misses, and there's lawsuits.
It's important to point out that in 1975 at this point, the Jackson Five have sold over 60 million records for Motown.
Insane.
But they're only getting 2.8% royalties.
So they're getting ripped the heck off.
And by the way, they're all splitting that 2.8% among the five, six, whatever, nine, you know,
I don't know how the brothers and sisters are splitting it amongst the non-playing and performing members of the family.
But they all have to split that less than 3% amount that very generously is doling out.
So they get an offer from Epic Records for 20% royalties.
And Joe Jackson signs that in June 1975, but they're still under contract to Motown as the Jackson 5,
which is why the name change happens in that year.
if they basically come to an agreement like, look, we get to keep the Jackson 5 name.
You guys can record for this new record label as the Jackson's, but that's why we have a name change in 1970s.
By the way, can I always say, I always like the fact that the Jackson's kind of looks like the Jackson 5, depending on how you draw the S.
Right.
It's kind of tricky, a little sneaky, 5 equals S, yeah.
Dead Mao 5, maybe, the origin right there.
Very nice.
Like you said, one of the first big changes is the name change and also the lineup changes.
Germaine stays at Motown.
the others leave.
Enter an opportunity for Randy.
Randy Jackson, the new youngest brother.
That's right.
But Michael, even though he is no longer the youngest brother,
he's still sort of the front man.
But Randy is, of course, the other vocalist in this song,
along with Michael, and of course the whole
the brother's doing the background vocals,
but he is the other lead vocalist.
And when I say the other lead vocalist,
he sure is treated like the other lead vocalist.
We will address that.
That is one of the funnier things that I noticed about this song.
Exactly.
But think about this for one second.
And one of the original voices of this group is gone.
It creates an entirely different band dynamic.
And Jermaine staying behind isn't just a business decision.
He's also married to Hazel Gordy, very Gordy's daughter.
So you've got contracts and family and loyalty and marriage all wrapped into the same moment.
So the brothers are having to grow in the public light, you know, with all these things sort of happening internally.
And also the sound of R&B at this time is changing.
They decide they have to change with it.
Let's talk about the evolution of the sound.
The Jackson Five are originally on Motown,
and Barry Gordy's label is known for songs
that are lean, focused, and discipline.
Every hook matters, every instrument has a job.
When we talk about the Detroit Sound,
we're talking about the Funk Brothers
who laid that foundation for so many hits
by Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, The Four Tops.
There's a musical language there.
That's right. This is the backing band
of the Funk Brothers you're referring to,
who were behind a lot of the recording sessions
for multiple artists at the same time,
similar to what the wrecking crew was doing in Los Angeles
for the Beach Boys, among others.
You know, you've got like Studio 1,
in Jamaica. It's a very common thing at this time to have one group of musicians who's
hanging out at that studio. Hanging out that studio. That's right. That's right. But with albums
like the soundtrack of Shaft and artists like Curtis Mayfield and the OJs, the sound of soul is
changing. After leaving Motown, the brothers began absorbing another musical language.
We're talking about Gamble and Huff, Philadelphia International, and MFSB, the house band
that hoped to find Philadelphia Soul the same way the Funk brothers had defined Detroit.
Think about records like the OJs, backstabbers.
What they do?
They smile and in your face.
Stalb us.
Bad stabbers.
They're smiling in your face.
Or Harold Melvin in the Blue Notes.
Wake up, everybody.
Wake up everybody.
No more sleeping in bed.
No more back to thinking.
Time for thinking ahead.
Look up everybody.
Where Motown Prize precision, Philadelphia embraced atmosphere,
grooves stretched out, the strings became a major part of the emotion.
These records didn't only ask you to move.
They asked you to be move and live inside the feeling.
And there was also a slickness.
And by the way, this is really the birth of disco, like, especially that slick form of disco.
There's always multiple strains of them.
If there was like sort of a dirtier or the South Soul version with a lot of percussion,
the Philadelphia version was strings and slick and clean and precise.
There are songs like George McCray that people will always point to as like proto-disco.
But that's super cheap with the wonderfully cheap drum machine and everything.
Hey, by the way, we're not using cheap pejoratively.
We're saying that, like, that's a great song.
And definitely by the time MFSB is recording songs like T-SOP,
which is not a coincidence,
it's used as the opening credit song for Soul Train.
Those are disco songs.
T-SOP, the sound of Philadelphia.
So it's that Philadelphia sound you were talking about right there.
Right on.
You know where else you can hear that evolution
in one of my absolute favorite Jackson songs.
It's show you the way to go, listen to this real quick.
Like, we're vibing out in the studio right now.
Let me tell you, if you listen to all five and a half minutes of that,
there's even a longer version.
Let me tell you, by the end,
they have done so much repetition,
but in a beautiful, lush and perfectly filly soul way,
that by the end, like, you're, it's almost like how you feel of,
like, the end of a rave, like,
They've built it up, and Michael's vocals just keep getting higher and higher and more intense.
It's just really one of my favorite songs of all time.
That's a great tune, and that's exactly, to your point, that is literally the MFSB.
That is the backing band.
It's Gamble and Huff, but it's literally the instruments are being played by the same people that played TSOP that other songs.
So it's like the Jackson's on top of, you know, MFSB is quite literally how the music is being made.
So good.
The sound of the production is very specific to how Gamble and Huff was making all of the records they were making at the time.
So I hear it in the sound of the snare.
I hear it in the sound of the hi-hat.
I hear it in the reaper being used for the strings.
It's really interesting that connection.
The other thing I love about show you the way to go
is it's the Jackson's starting to learn
how to be truly an adult band.
And without that chapter, I don't think you arrive at,
can you feel it?
By the time they make this 1981 record triumph,
the Jackson's are bringing all of these lessons together.
They're bringing the Motown discipline,
the richness and lushness of Philadelphia's soul,
and the freedom to make records by themselves,
on their own the way they want to make them.
All right, D'all, this might be the part of the episode
that I'm most excited about selfishly
because I'll be the first to admit
that I know the names of, I think,
all nine Jackson siblings.
I think I can name them all.
I'm not going to do it now.
We're going to get into that.
But I don't know much about them.
I know a lot about Michael Jackson,
a little bit about Jermaine,
and virtually nothing about Tito and beyond.
So I would love it if you can break down for me
the individuals behind this family band
and what makes each one of them special?
What's up with Tito?
Well, okay.
Tito played the guitar.
Germain was usually their bassist.
Randy played the drums.
By the time you get to Ken, you feel it,
all of them are writing or trying to write songs.
When you zoom out, this isn't just a successful group.
This is an entertainment ecosystem, I'd make the case.
The closest comparison I can think of is the Wayans family.
In that family, there are writers, actors, directors,
and a brother named Marlon.
With the Jackson's, there are singers, musicians,
and a brother named Marlon.
Everyone finds their lane, and before it's all over,
Germaine gives you do what you do. Oh, I love that song. Why don't we do what you do,
what you did to me? What you do when you did what you did to me. That's like Smoky Robinson.
That's so good. Yeah, but it's also got a little bit of Montel Jordan, like it's very vague what the do's and the U's are. So it's like,
anybody can relate. He also did anything could have been done to anybody else.
He also did one of my favorite disco tracks. Tell me I'm not.
dreaming. Letoia gives you, if you feel the funk, Reby gives you one of our favorite
centipede. And I mean, Janet comes through with an insane catalog. So if you have and go back
and listen to our two-part episode with Jimmy Jam where we talk about the control album.
In summary, this is not about one superstar. It's about one family building one of the deepest
catalogs in popular music. I mean, to be fair, we've got like Janet Jackson with Janet Jackson's
catalog and then one and done for Latoya, one and done for Revy. Is it kind of like that?
That's what we do at one song. We marginalize. I mean, come on. I'm sure they've had wonderful
lives together, but musically speaking, it's sort of an uneven balance across the nine siblings.
That's true. I just think that, you know, at the end of the day, a lot of people don't realize
that the Jackson started off. A lot of them start off as musicians. Like, they're not just, you know,
they're not just singing. They're not just dancing. They really came from that Motown College,
if you want to call it that, where you had to do basically,
everything.
I think you were the one who said that most families have to figure out who's bringing
dessert to Thanksgiving.
The Jackson's are figuring out who's bringing the platinum records.
One of my favorite things about watching old performances are like when Marlon suddenly breaks
off and starts doing his old thing.
The rest of the brothers are, you know, they step back and they're like, all right, Marlon,
you go ahead.
Everybody knows that's Marlon's moment.
And a lot of people don't know this, but to illustrate this point, it's Jackie who co-writes,
can you feel it?
If Bobby Taylor was one of the unsung heroes of I Want You Back,
I think that Jackie becomes one of the unsung heroes of this episode.
Absolutely agree.
And I love that it's Jackie, the oldest brother,
helping write the biggest statement that the band as brothers together
had made to that point with the brother who was becoming on his own,
the biggest entertainer in the world.
So bringing him back into the fold to remind everyone,
including maybe the other family members,
that we are brothers, we're a family together.
All right, we're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, we're going to peel back the layers on this song.
We're going to hear each wonderful instrument individually.
We're going to hear those crazy vocals from Randy and Michael.
And we'll answer the question, was the baseline riff influenced by a famous San Francisco hippie band?
Check it out.
We'll be right back.
All right, welcome back to one song, and let's get into the stems.
Luxury, where do you want to begin?
Let's start with that dramatic intro, which we all know and love.
Let's listen to it in the original version, and then we'll talk a little bit about it.
Okay, so my first thought, listening back to that, that's so TV sting.
That's just a little.
That's to hype you up right before the show's guys on television.
It sounds just like, and now the ABC movie of the weekend.
Tonight on the CBS Saturday Night Movie.
Absolutely, that's why there's a lot in this song baked into the song and into the video that we're going to talk about.
that to me feels like an infusion of, we mentioned arena.
It's a visual, stage, spectacular event, but it's also television and live.
It's not a movie, it's television specifically.
It's television.
It also feels like Emerald City.
It's like, you know, the king has arrived.
Yes, on the fanfare.
It's a lot of fanfare.
It's a total fanfare.
That's why it's just vocals and horns.
There's even more fanfare coming later on in the discussion.
But for now, let's listen to a little bit of the vocals that comprise that intro broken down.
isolated. There are a few layers in the stack. Let's listen to them separately and then I'll bring them
together. So this first one, I think, is Randy.
Can you feel it? Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
Mm-hmm. At the end there, that falsetto, it could be blended with Michael, or it could just
sound like Michael. I think that's just Randy's false. It could just be Randy's, because they're
brothers. Yeah. Okay. And then there's the stack of BGVs, the rest of the brothers.
Can you feel it? Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
It's a little distorted in it, a little in the red.
It's a little bit.
But, you know, what's crazy is we don't think of any of the Jackson's as having like that sort of command and baritone.
But it was obviously there.
There's something called the Adults Choir in the Credits.
It doesn't have names listed.
But in addition to the brothers, there's a bunch of other singers.
So I'm not sure who they are.
In addition to the brothers, there's a bunch of others.
There's a bunch of others.
And there's a third group of others.
So we've got Randy, possibly Michael.
Definitely all the brothers and possibly some enhancements from, you know, ringers.
Yeah, from the outside.
Sure.
And last but not least, we have a children's choir, and they sound like this.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
And they're just in unison.
They're not harmonizing.
But when you put all three of those together, it sounds like this.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
What's crazy, first off, I feel like there's, is there any Michael falsetto in there?
Well, that's what I was saying.
I kind of, in that first.
stem, it's Randy, you can tell distinctively when he's not in falsetto mode, that it's Randy.
Falsetto, by definition, it's...
The tone of falsetto is harder to have individuation.
Absolutely.
It kind of just sounds like a man singing high, a lot of ways.
But I heard in their distinctive Jacksonness and possibly, Michael, possibly Randy.
Possibly.
And by the way, after you hear those children, now I hear them very prominently in the mix.
And one thing that comes across is that, like, the song's going to talk.
about the whole world coming together now.
This sounds like the whole world coming together.
Absolutely.
You hear age range.
You hear vocal range.
Sounds like the world coming together.
It's so fun also that this exists because it feels very much like, and I can't back
this up with facts.
There's no interview where this was like...
Why start now?
For the first time ever in 133 episodes, who needs corroboration and citations?
Throw them out the window.
Academia?
Who cares?
I do think, though, that they probably completed the song.
And there was kind of a vibe, like I was saying before, about arena, about
preparation. To be clear, this is definitely the song that they started their live shows with.
So there's an idea of tension building and excitement and introness in a live experience.
So it felt a little bit like they made this intro to the song very similar to how you would have
that CBS presents, you know, three second thing that's exciting musically and then the show begins.
It feels very much like that's what this is a sting to tease the song that you're about to hear
anyway if you don't do anything differently.
If you're about to take the stage at the forum,
Right.
This is what you want to hear coming out of the speakers before the lights come up.
100%.
And it's very exciting to this day.
Speaking of Epic, I mean, like, I always felt like this song would have been right at home,
like, at the beginning of the old 1970s Flash Gordon movie, which we should also do an episode about
because that's like Queen and a director's vision and a complete wonderful mess.
I've still never seen that.
You've still never seen that version of Flash Gordon.
I love the soundtrack as a queen fan, but I've still never seen the movie.
It's insane.
Yeah.
But the video for Can You Feel It?
Yeah, you just got to mention it.
Because if you've ever seen it, trust me, you've not forgotten it.
Like, it's so memorable.
If you go back and watch it now, it actually starts with, like, this, you know, this movie trailer voice.
And they have this very...
In a world.
He's like three-optive, deep, you know, vocal fry.
But they would never lose sight of the dream of a better world that they could unite and build together in triumph.
White Man from the Prairie.
Somebody else listened to the strings at the very top of it because it's got this...
which sounds very much like George Gershwin.
It's Gershwin.
It's American and Paris specifically.
100% American classical jazz influence from the early part of the century.
Totally 1920 style.
And then the video starts,
and I always thought that that video looked like part movie,
part advertisement for the live stage show.
Yes.
Like, if you look at it, it just looks like,
in a time before MTV is in charge of what the visuals of your song
is, the visuals of your song are, I guess.
This looked like what people thought a music video could be,
which is a trailer for, hey, go buy this album and come see us in concert.
In fact, it turns out, as Michael said in his own words,
the video was used as the video that opened their tour
in his mind in Michael's vision, because I believe he's given, you know,
kind of a special credit like he was sort of the...
They all did it together, but he did it a little more together than the rest of them.
Michael said he wanted it to be their own also-shrush,
Brock Jarosstra, the 2001 theme.
So I have seen that word many times
I've never tried to pronounce it.
He's trying, it says the Strauss theme
that famously opens 2001.
So Jackie and I had thought of combining the band sound
with a gospel children's choir feel
and not to gamble and huff because the song
was a celebration of love taking over
and cleansing the sins of the world.
So the idea was always epic and grand and cinematic.
And that's exactly, I think, what they do.
Very cinematic.
I mean, it's like some of the shots of, like, the people coming together from around the world.
They're so well shot.
They actually look like modern-day AI-generated images, some of them.
It gives me chills watching this footage for some reason.
But it's very, like I said, it shows you exactly where cinema was in the age of Tron and Xanity.
There are a couple of grids that look very Tron-esque to me.
I'm sure it's just cross-pollinating with my nostalgia, you know, part of my brain.
I don't know that it would be as effective on today's 15-year-old.
I don't think they'd be as like...
They'd be like, what am I watching here?
Emotionally taken as I am.
Why this old man got his mouth agape at the Jackson's?
Lots of fairy dust and a lot of like...
You did mention Xanadu, very Xanadu-esque animation stuff.
But it's exciting to the child that's still in me from that era.
There is perhaps no more epic way to open this song
than those vocals in that horn fanfare.
And a really fun thing for you, house music heads out there.
You've heard this a million times.
Maybe you didn't know where it came from.
In the live version,
You hear this.
Can you?
That is nice, my friend.
Which, of course, is from Fingers Incorporated, Larry Hurd.
Can You Feel It, in 1988, one of the most epic...
Chicago House.
Chicago House Classic.
Of all time.
Can you feel it?
That's Deep House Children.
That is Chicago House Children.
That is Chicago House Children.
It's deep.
Listen.
That court is deep.
It's jazz.
Come for the Jackson.
Stay for the Deep House.
This would not be a disco classic without the drums.
So what's going on with the percussion, my man?
That's it.
Basic Motown beat.
We got a little percussion behind it.
So you put them together and it's...
And then there's also a third layer, which are these drumsticks.
Literally, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
You don't have to move the other one.
And then put it all together.
That is pretty much running through the entirety of the five-minute 59-second song.
kind of makes a disco, but I'm going to say something here that's been said elsewhere.
I didn't come up with this.
In some ways, this percussion arrangement is decidedly undisco.
Yeah.
Like, they're trying to get away from some of the more traditional.
Like, if this was recorded, like just even a year earlier,
I guarantee you it would have sounded much more at home on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack.
Oh, straight up.
That's a Motown beat.
It's a Motown beat.
The snare on every bar, on every beat, one, two, three, four is Motown.
Totally.
It's pre-Disco.
Which, by 1980, if you're doing a Motown,
It's a throwback.
It's a little bit...
It's trying to step away from disco,
which by this point,
there's already been the disco sucks moment
in Comiskey Park.
You know, R&B always said
did not change that much after that moment,
but this desire for artists
to sort of get away from disco
and not be tagged with the disco label.
Like, these drums are a part of that.
Yeah, this is a little post-disco
by being pre-disco.
Yeah.
Because this is more of a 60s beat
than it is a 70s beat.
And it's 1981.
Honestly, you can put these drums
underneath some of our favorite post-punk songs
and they would be right at home.
Oh, the Iggy.
in the Stooges songs we talked about on the Donwez episode.
This would work on all that stuff.
They were almost like aggressive Motown drums.
Pretty sure this is Ollie Brown playing drums.
We've talked about Ollie Brown before.
He was also on the DeBarge episode.
Oh, wow.
Because he was on the song, I like it.
Go back and check out that episode for more,
including our breakdown where we mentioned his connection
to Ray Parker Jr.
He was with radio for a while.
And then he went on to form Ollie and Jerry.
And yes, that is him in Breaking.
There's no stopping us with John Claude Van Dam.
An extra in the video.
By the way, I think radio is slept on.
Can I just say radio has some great songs.
Jack and Jill.
That's right Parker Jr. before he goes solo,
go check out those radio albums.
Absolutely.
And then there's a couple more percussion layers
just to add some variety, again,
across six minutes of what would otherwise just be that.
So there's some foot stomps.
You know what?
I didn't know that I was listening to foot stomps.
I definitely heard the foot stomps.
I'll give you some context to where those foot stomps come in.
It starts in the second half of the.
verse.
Which we'll talk about.
This line.
Feel it in the air.
That's where the stomps.
The wind is taking it everywhere.
So the stumps come in there.
And last but not least, in the percussion there,
we also have handclaps.
Okay.
We have to talk about the handclaps.
Okay.
What do you want to say about the handclaps?
The handclaps.
I have no opinion about the handclaps.
Oh, I have a strong opinion about the handclaps.
Hot take.
This is my take.
Y'all is hot take.
And listen, I know a lot of you out there.
agree with me.
I feel like, you know, sometimes when you're watching a game and you feel like the
refs are like biased towards a particular team, I feel like these claps were used maliciously.
Oh, I know exactly what you're picking, yes.
To emphasize the star.
To emphasize one singer over another.
So Randy did not get handclaps.
He got the stumps, which are great.
The stumps are great.
Yeah, but they're not as good as the class.
But then when his older brother Michael comes in, these handclaps come in.
And I will say, we don't, do you know who did the.
the handclaps? I do not have...
I am going to wager, and
you guys can tell us in the comments, but I'm going to put
myself out there. Questlow famously
has said on our show, he was like,
nobody has hands that
clap as loud as Michael. I think
these are Michael's handclaps. He was like,
if you go back and listen to the cat, like, Michael has
like, the way that he knew how to clap
and make that shit sound like
two gigantic boulders coming together,
I think that Michael supplied his own
handclaps, and those are those epic handclaps
that, to note,
only come in when Michael, when we get to Michael's part of the verse.
And perhaps it's a strong likelihood, I will suggest, on the record with no citations.
Once again, I'm going rogue.
I'm not part of an academic institution here, I'm punk rock guy in the musicology world.
I think that Michael may have done that like when the whole song was done and he was alone with the mixing engineer saying,
it needs something else.
All right, guys, take off. That was awesome.
I think we need one more thing to underline my vocal.
I'm going to get in there and clap.
Because there's so much instrumentation.
It's not just a handclaps, and I don't want to jump the gun here.
But if you go back and listen to the song,
and this is one of the reasons why we chose this song,
is that people on social media have noticed that at one point,
Randy's singing, and he's doing a great job.
He's doing a great job.
Michael comes in, and he gets these humongous claps,
and it just feels like everything goes up a bit.
And I just can imagine Randy's face in the studio like,
Poor Randy.
Hey, I didn't get a little claps.
Just add that to the checklist, though, because you're saying that reminds me that as I was watching the video, what's hysterical in that video is that they've added to the canonical recorded song, more sound effects for the video.
Because as we've just discussed, it was used at the live show before the concert begins.
So there's enhancements that are exciting, you know, effects sounds, special effects sounds.
And while Michael Jackson is singing, you don't really hear any of them.
But during Randy's parts, he is being drowned up.
by like bombs bursting in air and like, you know,
phew, pooh sounds.
It's hysterical when you watch the video
already aware of Randy not getting like the attention.
Oh my gosh.
Hey, just for our listeners, can we try something?
Can you play a sum of the verse where Randy is singing?
His vocal level is also a little bit under the music too.
Good song.
It's a good song.
I love this song.
It's a good vocal.
Now watch what happens.
I wonder what else is going to happen.
The guitar comes in.
Where did that guitar come from?
Randy was played with half a band.
We got clapped, we got guitars.
I think the vocal level is like three or four db higher.
Hey, turn them down, negative 1 dB.
It's, trust me, it'll work, it'll work.
Let's put some stomp, let's put some stumps in there too for him.
Why is Michael such a bully?
Such a bully.
We got stumps for Randy.
You can barely hear him.
Nothing else is going on.
Randy was probably trying to sing up.
Michael's like, you're, you're clipping, you're clipping, just sing.
Sing it the way you sing it earlier.
It's too loud, Randy.
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Now see Spider-Man.
We're faced with a threat.
That can be anyone on the biggest screen possible.
You got a couple of big.
I don't know if you're the real Spider-Man.
I promised that I would keep you safe.
Fine.
Spider-Man, brand-new day.
Now playing.
One thing about this song, the bass gets you going right out the top.
It's that groove first and then, you know, the rest of the production.
But tell us about the bass.
All right, let's talk about the rhythmic motif that's happening in this song,
which is almost the primary focus of the song.
It's across the whole thing.
I'm going to play it for you now,
and then I'll point out what it is.
This is being played by Nathan Watts on-base guitar.
Interesting how he goes between the octave up and down.
I'm not sure I was ever where he did that.
So that's the main riff.
And what's interesting about that is that it's a five-note pattern.
It's 1-E and a 2-E and a 3-E and a 4-E and.
Da, da, da, done.
It's five notes.
Mm-hmm.
So there's one 16th note thrown in there.
And when you isolate that pattern, I was like, God, that makes me think of something else.
And then I put my finger on it.
It's very...
Oh, can I make a guess?
Yes.
Is it White Rabbit?
Wow.
I hear it.
Now every time they play those notes, I'm going to hear it.
So it's literally the same baseline.
By the way, that's a brilliant discovery.
Let me see if I can loop it in real time.
Okay, let's listen.
When you look around
Yeah, that's what it is.
The whole world's tuning together now.
Yeah.
And by the way, not to sweat myself,
but I was looping that with my finger the whole time.
I was very impressed.
DJ Premier style.
That's not easy to do.
Not easy to do.
While singing?
100%.
Thank you.
I think I'm, I'm, 101% talent right there.
So right there, we have going back to Nathan Watts,
playing bass on Can You Feel It?
Let's listen again.
I never heard that drop.
It's a little, actually, now that I'm listening back,
there's a little bit of a variation.
That 16th note isn't quite, it may not be there at all.
It may be happening another instrument.
Let me just listen.
There it is.
So what's happening is it's in the guitar.
So when it's all combined, you're getting a motif.
You're getting all the notes, but not on one instrument.
No, but it's not all being played on the instrument, but the overall effect, I would argue, is you hear as the riff of the song.
And it's just a cool connection.
We ain't snitching.
So in White Rabbit, you're getting that same pattern or roughly equivalent.
And in both songs, he's essentially going between the root and the fifth, but played as a fourth.
So it's under that same.
It's the same note, the fifth of it, which is something that one does as a, a, is a,
as a bass player to kind of vamp.
It's a very frequent thing.
You hear it a lot in Latin music.
That's just the root note,
but when you add the fifth,
it gives a little variety,
but you haven't left the note
you haven't left the root note,
you're still kind of on home bass.
Yeah.
So there's kind of a way
that you can throw in notes as a bass player
to add variety,
but not like leave the tone center,
the key that you're in.
So that's happening in both of the songs.
But the last thing I want to add
is that I also hear in the white rabbit rhythm
In the drums, there's like the bolero rhythm, the bolero motif.
And it doesn't carry through to the Jackson song,
but there's something about all three songs that do feel a little connected to me
because it's a very hypnotic singular motif that runs throughout the piece.
So there's some interesting connections there.
That's awesome.
And that baseline is doubled on at least two keyboards,
possibly played by Greg Philan Gaines, possibly Ronnie Foster,
who we've talked about.
And Philan Gaines.
Frequent names that come up,
on the songs we've done on this show.
Michael just likes them.
See, now I'm all right here and connections.
Can I tell you what that sounds like?
What does that sound like?
Check this out.
The similar envelope on that synth patch.
What is that?
That's London Loves by Blur.
And if you love Blur, we just did two episodes about Damon Alborn.
So we are getting the same rhythmic motif,
the one, two, something, something.
One, dope.
With a big, with a filter on a cilor.
actually this other synth is pretty raw and unfiltered.
But in the mix, because there's a third one, I'll put them all together.
Here's the third synth.
That has more of a filter on it.
So I'll add the second one back.
And then here's the bass again.
So you're getting bass content from three different sources of base register.
That's why it feels like a train chugging along.
Because you've got all these different bases that are like nice, chunky bass lines.
You know, pushing you down the part of train.
Each one has a different tone quality and kind of fills in different frequencies.
But yeah, that's going on in the base zone.
So that's the main motif that goes throughout the song.
But of course, as we all know, it's broken up by two different things that maintain our oral interest, A-U-R,
one of which is what I'll call referred to as the Rihanna thing.
Okay.
So we'll get into that in just a minute.
And that sounds like this in the bass.
So that is the main variation in the bass, aside from the primary one.
And there's a second kind of lighter variation.
I'll play that for you.
It happens here.
But that's pretty sick.
Actually, let's isolate that a little more.
Let's get that a little more shine.
So I'll play that in just the bass guitar first.
I get a little bit of a pop there.
I'll play that in the actual song so you know what this is.
It happens again here.
So those two things, the Rihanna thing and this second thing, which we'll call maybe the B section,
give it some interest across the song so you're not just locked into that white rabbit motif otherwise in the whole song.
And I'm going back to the bass.
We just heard the isolated bass guitar play that.
And here are the synths playing it.
Once again, the band showing favoritism to Michael because it's big.
ending along where Michael wants to go.
Michael was in control.
I'm so sorry, man. I'm so sorry.
Poor Randy.
Tell us what's going on with the guitars.
All right, so we have four different guitar parts in this song,
and two names, one of which is David Williams,
who's also one Thriller, and possibly also Billy Jean.
And the other one might be Tito.
So I'll play the parts.
I'm not sure who is doing which one,
but here is the first guitar,
which is also doubling the baseline in addition to those three synths.
and adding that little 16th note that makes the whole thing kind of come alive.
I'll bring in the bass.
And some synths.
So we have four folks doing that main motif so you can't miss it.
And then there's a second guitar that's a little more rhythmic with some 16th notes.
I'll play that now.
A little chicken scratch.
A little Jimmy Nolan.
James Brown thing.
And then it goes into the Rihanna part, and then we go back.
The Rihanna part.
That's the Rihanna part.
So those two parts are going throughout pretty much the whole song,
just kind of keeping it live.
And then we have these little licks that start to enter about a minute and a half in.
Oh, wow.
I'll bring in some other guitars so you can hear the context.
Oh, that's great.
It's unexpected, too, where it lands.
It's surprising.
It's unexpectedly funky, honestly, for 1980.
And there's one more guitar on the very bottom layer with a little melody.
It's like a little motif, a little ostinado.
A little hook.
I'll bring them back one by one.
Here you'll be going on.
Here comes the last guitar.
So a lot of activity going on there.
By the way, a lot of this activity starts when Michael starts singing.
Can we hear just those guitars and Michael?
Sure.
And the claps.
And the claps.
Here's the only for Michael stuff.
Sounds like he's clapping in the studio, honestly.
Damn, man.
That's some funky stuff.
And it recalls Michael dancing with the guitars on I Want You Back,
and ABC a little bit.
Like, it's only about 10 years later,
so he knows what he's doing in the studio with that.
I'm already covered in goosebumps from what we've just heard.
But let's see what the keyboards are up to.
So we got at least three different things happening in the key.
from possibly four players, Philan Gaines and Foster,
I mentioned before, possibly Bill Wolfer.
And one of my favorites.
Gary B.B. Coleman on vibes,
which what I thought were Rhodes is credited as vibes.
So they sound very similar, as we've talked about on other episodes.
Maybe the Roy Ares episode.
Exactly right, exactly right.
Bring in the Rhodes slash Vives.
I'm not sure which.
So epic, right?
I'll isolate now what are either Rhodes or vibes.
I think they might be vibes because that's in the credits,
Gary B. B. Coleman.
To my ears, that is.
are roads, Fender Roads.
There's also a glistondo buildup,
which I think proves the point.
That's a keyboard.
I don't think you do that with vibes.
I'm not a vibes player,
but I'm not sure that I've ever heard of Vives player.
I don't know how you'd expect that.
The Vibes are going to find you.
The Vive community is going to come out on Moss.
And then there's this one more thing with kind of an effects thing in it,
which I'll play isolated,
and then you'll notice it in the, I'll play the mix afterwards.
That's just the sound of like the rumbling of like something about to happen.
Here it is in the full production.
Yeah.
So I'll put them all together, all those keyboards and glissondos and all the buildups.
It sounds like this.
Epic.
Let's hear.
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
So let's talk a little bit about what's happening there.
And this is for the music theory people out there.
I've got a genuine question about what's happening with those three chords.
Because something emotionally is definitely happening.
When you hear those three chords, we've been locked into F-sharp,
but when we go down to what's the flat six, something, we're like, whoa, that's surprising.
And the reason for that is that we don't really have a flat-6 in any key or mode
where there's a major third.
So I've been doing some looking around.
Question for the theory nerds.
It's one of two things.
It's either a scale, like an unusual one, and some of the ones I've seen thrown out there on the internet for a major scale with a flat sixth and seventh are Aeolian dominant or Mixalidian with a flat six.
Or it could be a key change.
But what I'm referring to, though, specifically is that these two chord changes, and I'll play them on my little piano here, just to be explicit.
Major key would be.
but what we have here
when you get to that sixth note
it's so you'd expect
those six and seven chords to be
but we're hearing
flat six
flat seven
and then back to major
the point is
it's surprising to have a
flat sixth
dun dun dun dun dun dun
those chords
really affect you a moment
because you've been primed by the major key and all the years of listening to Western music and also the rest of the song that the chords would not be
So there's one of two explanations
Sure just really quickly one of two explanations that it's it's because that we're in an unusual scale that allows for this flat six and flat seven or
We're just modulating twice that's a it's a key change does a key change key change key change key change
key change, that could be another explanation.
There's two points I want to make about that to.
One is just a reminder that music theory is generally useful as a way to try and explain something,
but there isn't a universality about it.
It's called theory for a reason, because you can theorize that this might be what's happening.
This could also explain it.
But the point of doing it isn't to kind of codify like, well, there's only one way this could possibly be.
It's just to point out that there's a lot about music that can be interpreted in different.
ways. And finally, what I want to say is that this is important only because there's something
that is emotionally affecting us in these moments. And we can't really put our finger on what it could be.
It could be a number of things, but that particular series of chord changes does something to us.
I was going to say, when we were talking about Frigian on a previous episode, we were like,
for whatever reason that makes you sort of like, oof, like it kind of hurts you in a good way.
Sinister was the word you used which I liked.
And I think that the Nause, NY State of Mind episode.
New York State of Mine.
I think that, just a layman's opinion,
I think that when you hear these chords strung together like that,
it matches the cinematic scope of what the video is.
So like that, da-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
Sounds like bad stuff is happy.
Bam-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-l.
Like they end in a happy place.
But we've gone through some stuff.
It's the beginning, middle, and end, just like a story.
My friend, the reason why I can't wait to respond to what you just said
is because you freaking nailed it,
because another place we hear chord changes like that frequently
are in fanfares like this one.
You're about to hear literally the same chord changes.
And your emotions are about to happen.
Your emotions are about to get really altered by this.
Chord change.
The epicness.
Well, there were three acts there, right?
It was like, yeah.
Jum, jump, jump.
They were like, oh, and more discovery.
And then the end.
There was a journey in those 20 seconds.
That's the Universal Studios theme by Jerry Goldsmith from 1997.
It's only been from 97?
Before that...
I haven't been around since Dracula.
Well, what's interesting is in 1989,
so those chord changes are the same exact...
That's the flat six to the flat seven.
Or we're just modulating.
I think it's probably...
That feels like modulation.
I think we went to a new key,
and then we went to another key,
and then we came home again.
And we came home again.
But that was an epic journey,
and you just described it perfectly.
Three parts were like, da, da, da, da, da, what's going on?
We're going over here.
Then we're going here.
Now we're back home again.
And we're saved.
Exactly.
Feels like we're home and safe.
The 1989 version of the Universal Fanfare also has those core changes, but it's different.
Here's the 1989 Universal Pictures intro.
So we're home.
What's going on?
We're looking around.
They show you Frankenstein.
They show you psycho.
But we went somewhere?
Yeah.
I really want popcorn now.
I really want some popcorn.
It's amazing the effectiveness of these 20-second little audio snippets.
So it's that you made the perfect connection in terms of fanfare,
because these are three very brief audio snippets that take us on a journey in the case of Universal to get you primed for the movie,
just like this song is getting you primed for the show and getting you primed for the album.
It's really interesting how the same kind of musicalogical trick, so to speak, is used in all of them.
In a pop song.
Before we move on, I want to point out
in the Universal music, there's a lot of strings.
There are a lot of strings on this song, aren't they?
Oh, we have the same.
It's like French horrors.
It's the same thing.
But let's listen to the horns.
Can we hear a little bit of the horns?
Let's do it.
All right, so the strings and horns are all in one single track.
And all we know about them, we're not going to name all the players,
but we do know that the arranger is named Tom, Tom, 84,
aka Tom Washington.
He's done string arrangements with Earthwind and Fire.
He did Fantasy and September.
Oh, I was going to say.
That's nice.
Did he do you get fantasy?
This is the guy who worked with the emotions,
staple singers, Ramsey Lewis,
and he arranged the strings and horns that we're about to hear.
This is maniacally lush, is what I wrote down in my notes.
And you know I got to hear what they do when Michael comes in
because they're going to be like this pretty basic and Randy's part.
I can already tell.
Just let it play.
It's the same part again.
Now, I predict change.
I'm just going to bounce ahead for the take of time.
There's that part.
So there's the Rihanna Hard part again there.
The Michael.
Michael on it.
Michael got his own little fanfare.
I know, but you hear with that?
I don't think that's even a violin.
Maybe that's a cello.
And a bass in a bass.
Woo, that cello is doing some overtime.
Can we hear it out through the, to the,
to the chorus.
Gorgeous, lush, lush, strings.
Let me tell you something.
This is black classical music.
You know, we've always thought about jazz in those terms.
But, like, when you think about the drums and the, we're talking about the percussion,
the bass, the guitar, and then you bring in those vibes and the keyboards.
But now you've got freaking strings this lush and crazy.
Like, I feel like I'm on the tram at Universal Studios.
Like, this is insane.
Yeah.
It's very cinematic and very emotional and lush.
I just want to see the Jaws exhibit now.
So those are those wonderful strings.
And now for the horns.
All right.
And we've got a bunch, reads,
they're separated French horns, trombones, trumpets,
all the stuff you would hear.
He's got the whole Universal City Philharmonic.
This would be a John Williams production.
It could be Star Wars, Jaws,
any of the huge hits of the moment.
I mean, we know from off the wall that he saw all these movies.
Like he saw, he saw E.T.
and he wrote a song about it.
So he was definitely in the movies.
Okay, so I do have a question about whether some of these trumpets are actually trumpets?
Yeah, do they sound like?
Yes.
Here's one in particular, I'll isolate.
When I heard this, I was like, I don't think, I think they replaced a trumpet part that the trumpets didn't get.
Right.
With maybe fill in gains doing it on keyboards.
I'll isolate a trumpet part that I think they got by contrast.
Yeah.
You can tell there's something about the articulation.
and the sound.
There's a texture.
The texture,
the tonal quality,
these are real trumpets.
By contrast,
here's what the other part is,
which doesn't really sound as trumpety.
Huh?
It sounds like the cartoon king is coming.
It sounds like Mickey Mouse's Cartoon King is coming.
It's a little fast.
It's a little too fast for what a trumpet would play.
It's a little dinkier.
It's a little thin.
It's very thin.
So anyway,
I thought that was fun.
You don't hear the breath the same way.
hear the breath. And I wonder if the trumpet players went through their whole lives, not knowing that this little chunk of their part was probably overdue.
Again, I always got the sense that, like, as same as you, that Michael was in the studio long after everybody left.
He's like, I feel like he's too high there. Yeah. He was tweaking at the end. And here are some real trumpets by contrast.
It's really subtle. It's hard to sound. That's real. That one sounded like right in between.
A little more real, but it's still, if you told me that was a, you know.
It sounded right in between. Yeah, yeah. These sound real to me.
Because they're making mistakes too.
They're not perfectly aligned.
Totally.
Here's my hot take for the episode.
Maybe my second hot take.
I feel like you take the horns out of this,
the song might be a little better.
Really?
I love horns on R&B songs.
I love the fact that the same horns
that play duck tails are on thriller.
I like a good horn.
But these horns always sounded like a little much,
and I feel like everything else was perfect.
So if I was being the perfectionist,
I'd be like, Michael, I know you want to,
Trust me, the fanfare is there just right with everything else.
But once you take the song from the category of pop, rock, funk song,
which it certainly is also, and it's on a recording.
But when you put it in the context of epic, cinematic,
sort of comparing, like, in competition with the universal logo theme,
as we were playing before, kind of more in that category than it makes perfect sense.
The same exact orchestration,
down to the use of French horns and those chord changes,
or rather those modulations, I think,
they're very much movie trailer-esque.
True.
I think I'm more a fan of French horns
than I am of pure trumpets.
Oh, no, French horns are the sexiest horns.
Everyone thinks that.
And honestly, I feel like
they're the hardest in some ways to replicate
maybe on a synth from 1980.
They're the most special horns
that are in the orchestra, 100%.
That said, I was in a marching band
at a Black high school.
I know how big this song has always been
for Black marching bands.
And so in that sense,
I'm happy that the horns got their love.
We heard a little bit of the first verse from Randy and Michael.
And we've heard some chorus.
But let's start with maybe the second verse.
Let's give Randy his moment.
Here's Randy singing in the booth, an epic performance.
Let's hear it.
Every breath you take is someone's death in another place.
Every healthy smile is hunger and strike to another child.
And it should be pointed out, by the way, that Michael did insert himself into the section with the call and response vocal, which in between those little gaps, we hear this.
It's someone's death in another place.
He's like, I can't let you have.
I imagine, like, Randy's singing here and Mike's back here like, another place.
It's a little bit unnecessary, like backseat driving.
And then he does it again a few moments later.
Another child.
Another child.
But Randy's like, bro, I'm cool.
We don't need two people here.
In defense of Michael, look, we're having our fun this episode.
In Defensive Michael, he had just put out out the wall.
It was the highest-selling album by a black artist in history in this country.
It was the highest selling.
Who knew the thriller was even coming?
It would have made sense that he would have a big hand to play when it wasn't clapping,
a big hand to play in these recordings.
And he wouldn't let Randy forget.
who else was in the studio that day
singing lead on the song.
It's near this time,
near this time.
Can you feel it now?
So brothers and sisters show we know how.
Now, tell me, can you feel it?
Tell me, can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
Stop it in that studio.
Can you pause it before we go further?
Let me just give Randy's moment.
Great voice.
And there are other people out there
who are trying to sound like Michael
this period.
Yeah.
But Randy's got a great voice.
And I think that, you know,
I think it's cool that we're getting to talk about somebody else singing on a Jackson
song, who is not Michael.
And even if he's accompanied almost obnoxiously by his brother.
His brother's not going to let him shine too much, apparently.
And he's not getting the claps.
He's getting the stumps.
And he's not getting the guitar.
But still, Randy is technically on the track.
I think Randy did a great job on this track.
And so props to Randy for singing this moment.
But with no further ado,
I mean, you're talking about one of the greatest voices that we've ever had.
So let's hear what Michael does once he takes the mic.
No, tell me, can you feel it?
Tell me, can you feel it?
Can you feel it?
There's one other thing I keep noticing, too, is that Michael is anticipating his,
he's supposed to come in at the top of the next bar.
Yeah.
But he keeps coming in slightly early.
He's about to come in again.
Like, he's like about three or like four beats earlier.
Like he doesn't, he can wait a little longer.
But he doesn't.
He's like, here's, I'm going to start now.
I'm going to be a little early to the bar.
Let's hear what he does once he's done with the chorus
because these are some of the most dramatic singing riffs I've ever heard.
Woo!
Can you see what's going down?
Open up your mind.
Come on, man.
There's so much drama in his voice alone.
You want to hear that?
Who's that?
That's not Michael.
Might be Rand.
Might be Randy.
Did Randy come back in with a nice falsetto there?
That's Randy, yeah.
That's not Michael.
You're up, Randy.
Good God.
You almost showed up
your world famous brother
for one moment.
That's amazing.
He's like, look,
you're going to response my call.
I'm going to response
your call too, brother.
Who are killing their brothers
when death won't do.
Is there any more big parts?
Here's the very end.
That sounds like Michael beatboxing.
It's definitely Michael.
A little bit of Michael beatboxing.
Very early.
Proto beatboxing.
Yeah.
I like the talk in the background.
A little more, the tail end right here.
All the children.
He's telling me the guitarist what to do.
That's great.
Yeah, you're right.
Guitarist picked up that little riff there.
Or maybe vice versa.
Who knows which is the chicken,
which is the egg with that little more here there.
It's only been since we've been doing this show
that I can hear just how heavily influenced
with James Brown style is singing that Michael's doing.
He's doing that.
That's exactly, if you go back and listen to what we just played,
You can hear the James Brown in like the way that he's stretching bending his voice.
And that's kind of cool because that to me was always just Michael's way.
But I've said this for it.
This is my favorite period of Michael.
I would say from mid-70s to like, you know, thriller.
He doesn't, this is, I'm a Michael fan.
Please don't cover it.
He's not doing too much.
Like there's still a lot of like straight up like just singing the riffs.
are gorgeous, like how there's so much tension in him.
He's mastered his percussive repertoire,
his vocal percussive repertoire,
but he's got little bits and pieces up in there.
But there's so much tension in some of those riffs.
Like, you know, I'm not going to try and imitate it,
but go back and, like, hear how much tension and drama he's putting in.
We've talked so much about how the chords present this cinematic piece,
but there's cinema in his style of singing that is just,
it's once in a lifetime.
All right, luxury, now that we've heard this epic song,
how many more times can we say epic?
Tell us, how do the splits break down?
It's 50-50 between Michael and Jackie.
The two of them split it equally.
That's super cool.
So it really did come down to who co-wrote the song.
The two co-writers.
Did they split it 50-50?
It's 50-50 between the two Jackson brothers, yeah.
Michael Joe and Jackie.
Nothing keeps friendship together quite like 50-50.
Well, we hope you enjoyed our two-part episode.
Look, we started with The Jackson's with I Want You Back,
and then we sort of end where the,
Jackson's, they don't end by any stretch, but it is sort of a new beginning.
And it's the beginning of Michael truly launching into his own solo career.
That's right. Thriller is yet to come.
They'll come back a little bit later for the Victory Tour.
But by the mid-80s, the Jackson phenomenon as a brother band is kind of concluded.
Just the fact that they went out on that, you know, on that infamous tour and didn't perform many Jackson's songs.
They actually just performed a lot of Michael's stuff.
That's right.
You could argue that in retrospect, it's crazy to think that the Jackson's career
as a brotherly band together,
recording career at least,
was really less than 15 years back to back.
Longer than the Beatles, but not a whole lot of time.
Twice as long as the Beatles, actually,
crazily enough.
But they all have had some success,
and we just wanted to give the group flowers.
And people like Bobby Taylor and Marlin and Randy
and just give, you know,
some of the, we've explained now who Tito was.
Yeah, thank you. Now I know.
We've heard some amazing great songs in artistry
that I don't think we'll ever hear quite again.
So we hope you enjoyed that.
All right, luxury, help me.
this thing. I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and KCRW DJ every Friday night from
10 p.m. till midnight right after Henry Rollins, luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and
sometimes DJ, Diallo Riddle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. This episode is produced,
edited, and mixed by Eric Hicks. Engineering by Mario Savedra.
