A beautiful woman with long, tightly curled hair walks down a city
street in a tight black dress and high heels.
The scene catches Michael Jackson's eye and ignites Jackson's pulsating,
sexually charged 1987 track 'The Way You Make Me Feel'.
The single and accompanying music video
was used as a vehicle for Jackson to portray a more adult,
virile public image with its undeniable chugging locomotive groove and Jackson's
incessant hooting, hollering and crotch gyrating moves.
'The Way You Make Me Feel' stands today as an infectious signature track for Jackson
and continued the Bad album's groundbreaking chart success.
This is the story behind the inspiration, production and commercial reaction to one
of pop history's most iconic music releases.
Michael Jackson's 1987 hit The Way You Make Me Feel
the Inspiration.
No longer the cherubic, brown skinned moonwalker, everyone wanted to emulate.
Michael Jackson, now twenty nine years
old, had grown up and his Peter Pan image had worn thin in the public eye
By 1987
Jackson had gone from critic's darling
during the Thriller era to the media's biggest target.
His lightened skin and slimmed down nose caused many in the black community
to question his solidarity with them and his eccentric behavior.
feminised, appearance and lack of tangible female pursuits only added fuel
to the fire of his most damaging public rumor, one that irked Jackson
before. That, he was, in fact homosexual,
knowing this would be a glaring public issue during the conservative Reagan years and
the homophobic hysteria caused by the AIDS crisis.
Moving forward, Michael Jackson's team were keen to portray an artificial macho
demeanor for Jackson to shed his otherworldly image and attempt something
more relatable in order to make him appear more heterosexual.
Previous to the bad album,
Michael Jackson had sung about girls in songs like 'Rock With You' and 'PYT'.
But 'The Way You Make Me Feel' would be
the first song that displayed Jackson as an aggressive pursuer.
According to the documentary
'Bad 25', the song and subsequent video was intended to show another aspect
of Michael Jackson. In addition to his reputation as a lover with the track.
'I Just Can't Stop Loving You', him being streetwise in 'Bad'.
Michael Jackson's inner circle also wanted
to portray him as somewhat of a womanizer with the ability to pick up girls.
The production, 'The Way You Make Me Feel', was written by Michael Jackson himself.
Previously, Jackson wrote many of his hit songs, including 'Billie Jean' and 'Beat It'.
This is another example of one he wrote,
although it's not nearly as personal as many of his previous compositions.
He wrote this track after his mother,
Katherine, asked him to write something with a shuffling kind of rhythm.
In addition to writing the song,
Jackson also co-produced the track with Quincy Jones,
his longtime collaborator who also helmed his Thriller album.
Before the recording of Bad, Jackson had written over 60 songs
for the record with plans of releasing a three disc album.
But Jones later convinced Jackson to make 'Bad' a one disc LP.
Therefore, 'The Way You Make Me Feel',
as well as 10 other songs were selected for the complete album,
Quincy Jones has said this song is one of his favorite orchestrations on the album.
Lyrically, the song is very simple, but Jackson amped up its complexity
with his own signature ad libs, and Quincy added lots of little rhythms
and sounds to the track to give it texture.
The music video, in the short films
for the 'Bad' album, Michael continued to expand
the possibilities of the music video as an art form, working with high profile
collaborators to realize his artistic visions.
Acclaimed commercial director Joe Pytka made his mark on the music video
with films for both 'The Way You Make Me Feel' and 'Dirty Diana'
The Way You Make Me Feel was filmed in early September in 1987 on a Hollywood
soundstage that was made to look like a rundown, sketchy part of New York City.
The video was designed to show off a more
flirtatious and romantic, yet still edgy side of Michael.
However, it begins with Jackson as
an outsider, a stranger in both the worlds the video presents. In the full version,
the video begins with a group of men trying to pick up women unsuccessfully.
One of those men, Michael Jackson,
is told to go home and not to hang around with the other guys anymore.
Dressed simply in black pants, a white T-shirt and a long sleeved royal
blue shirt with a white sash tied in a bow at the front, Michael Jackson looked like
a backup dancer from a classic Gene Kelly musical. When Jackson starts to walk home.
An elderly man who is on the steps of his
building sits him down and confronts him, telling him to just be himself.
Jackson then notices a woman.
Played by model and dancer Tatiana Thumbtzen walking down the streets alone shortly
after Jackson stands in front of the woman while she's attempting to pass,
although she ignores him and keeps walking.
He grabs her attention by shouting
and then begins aggressively serenading her while also dancing.
Uninterested, she walks away and the director's camera
spins around Michael Jackson as he follows her.
He is persistent in his pursuit of the woman and continues to gyrate,
thrust and grab himself while being cheered on by his friends
Thumbtzen then takes refuge within a group of other females as the male
and female spectators start making remarks and jeering at each other.
Michael Jackson's sister, La Toya, is featured as one of the female friends.
Having previously appeared in the music video for his single With Paul McCartney.
'Say Say Say'.
In the final video, Tatiana became sexual prey and Michael is chasing her.
The car becomes a sexual symbol, a hidden place where everything can happen.
Jackson had apparently handpicked her
himself out of 200 women who applied to play his video ingenue.
One of the reasons he chose her well, because he wanted a girl to whom he felt
a real sexual attraction with speaking about the subject.
Jackson said, quote, "That's why it is my job to cast the girl,
because it is my job to think they are cute".
Jackson then eventually leads a silhouetted synchronized dance routine
with several other male characters backlit by a soft blue light.
The video ends with Michael eventually winning the woman over and embracing her
while a fire hydrant sprays out water behind them.
The video was choreographed by Jackson
and longtime collaborator Vincent Patterson,
even though this was an expensive video with a high production value.
It was important for Jackson that it looked gritty and natural.
This was done by the documentary style
of it, as part of his use of hand-held moments, made the audience feel like they
were seeing Michael Jackson's dancing skills in real time and also a real
sexually charged interaction between him and Thumbtzen. For additional authenticity,
Jackson featured two real American gangs as extras, one of the gang's members being
part of the Crips from Los Angeles, California.
Much like in his 'Beat It' music video, where a host of rival gang members were
featured in the video's climactic face off.
After the five day video shoot wrapped,
Michael Jackson flew immediately to Japan, begin his first leg of his Bad World tour.
On September the 20th, 1987,
after performing in Osaka City, Japan,
Michael returned to the hotel to watch for the first time the director's cut.
For the short film of 'The Way You Make Me Feel'.
The version with a long introduction did not please Michael much.
Therefore, he sent instructions for the director to refine the video
totaling nine minutes and thirty three seconds to a much shorter edit today.
This shortened edit is the most common
version of 'The Way You Make Me Feel' music video.
The release, Epic Records released
'The Way You Make Me Feel', as the third single from Michael Jackson's Bad album.
On November the 9th, 1987, the single climbed to number seven
on the Billboard Hot 100 the week of December 26th.
After charting with the top 10 for five
weeks, the song peaked at number one on the Hot 100 on January 23, 1988.
'The Way You Make Me Feel' became the 'Bad'
album's third consecutive single to reach number one on the Hot 100.
The music video received a nomination at the 1988 MTV Video Music Awards ceremony.
The video, alongside Jackson's 'Bad' video,
was nominated for best choreography, but lost to Jackson's younger sister
Janet's video for her single 'The Pleasure Principle'.
Michael Jackson performed 'The Way You Make Me Feel' at the 1988
Grammy Awards, during which Jackson wore his signature
outfit and black fedora while performing a dance routine with four other dancers,
which was also staged and choreographed by Vincent Patterson.
Jackson's video.
Love interest, Tatiana Thumbtzen, also appeared on stage during the televised
performance and later joined Jackson on his Bad World tour.
However, after only a few shows, Thumbtzen states that she was fired
from the tour by Jackson's manager, Frank DiLeo,
after an incident during one of the performances in which she
approached Jackson and kissed him on stage in front of an audience of thousands.
From then on, singer Sheryl Crow filled
in for Thumbtzen as she was already on the Bad tour singing with Jackson.
'I Just Can't Stop Loving You'.
She told Rolling Stone in 2010, quote, "there could be some nights where he was
checked out, but some shows he'd pulled me in really tight and it was overwhelming,
not in a sexual sense, but because of the metaphysical energy he possessed".
'The Way You Make Me Feel' was a popular
track for Michael Jackson's subsequent tours.
And Jackson's last public performance
of the song was at the 30th anniversary celebration in 2001
at Madison Square Garden. When one night, he performed the song
as a duet with Britney Spears.
Britney's appearance was originally cut from the broadcast because of her contract
with HBO, but was inserted for a reair of the special on CBS in November 2001.
Michael Jackson had apparently admired Britney Spears from afar for years
and would talk to friends about how sexy and beautiful the young star was.
It has been said that the televised performance was set up as a way
for the King of Pop and the newly crowned Princess of Pop to finally meet.
Britney Spears was a fan and has fond
memories of their brief interactions with each other.
I didn't really realize what had happened until I got off the stage and I was like,
I just performed with Michael Jackson, man.
It's just really an amazing experience
for me, because 'The Way You Make Me Feel', that's the song that I performed with him.
It's one of my all time favorite songs.
So it was it was awesome.
It was really, really amazing.
I was very honored that he wanted to do this.