The red leather jacket, it's foreboding,
hard rock sound and the video climax, a macho knife fight, musical dance number,
but it was a critical departure for an artist that was up till this point
more known for bubblegum pop, disco love and an adult fascination
with Disney, giving his fans a glimpse
of Michael Jackson that had the potential to be bad and dangerous.
A cornerstone track of Michael Jackson's
iconic album Thriller Beat It, and its accompanying musical video helped
solidify Jackson as a pop music icon of the 1980s
career. Defining it was his first creative
treatment depicting black youth in the streets, as well as the first video
to introduce mass choreography with his use of synchronized dancers,
which became a trademark for the artist for many years to come.
Part of Michael Jackson's enduring legacy was his crossover success with mass
audiences, something that many Motown artists achieve.
But Jackson took to a new level beat.
It proclaimed a shift for black artists from traditional RB soul and funk
to a resurgence in rock and loosen the boundaries of pop music,
which was key to Jackson's rise to international superstardom.
This is the story behind the inspiration, production and commercial reaction to one
of pop history's most iconic musical releases.
Michael Jackson's 1983 hit Beat It.
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the inspiration beat.
It was produced by Jackson and Quincy Jones.
Jones encouraged Jackson to include a rock
song on the album to write something like My Sharona,
which was a huge hit for the nānak in 1979,
although Jackson reportedly had never previously shown an interest in the genre,
but eventually was encouraged when he infused it with other dance elements.
Michael Jackson understood that this song had potential to become a great crossover
hit for him, later saying, I wanted to write a song,
the type of song that I would buy if I were to buy a rock song.
I wanted the children to really enjoy it.
The school children as well as the college students.
The lyrics are about life on the streets
and gang activity, expressing Jackson's dislike of violence
whilst also referring to the childhood abuse he faced at the hands of his father.
Jermaine Jackson suggests that the song's inspiration was the Jackson family
experience of gang activity in Gary, Indiana.
From our front window, we witnessed about three bad rumbles between rival gangs.
Although Michael Jackson became a star at a young age and was schooled by tutors
his whole life, gangs and the streets where presumably
something Jackson felt very detached from for most of his life,
his interpretation of two gangs coming together to rumble,
we're likely to be based on the celluloid interpretations that he'd seen,
specifically 1961 West Side Story, which used gangs as musical art.
A scene where some gang members have
encroached on rival territory is the emphatic line beat.
It's
the final lyrics mainly focuses
on avoiding violence by deliberately walking away from a fight.
It is based on the introspection that goes on in every individual, but mostly men.
When they find themselves in a fight or lose situation.
The verses can also be categorized into two voices the good voice,
which only wants peace and the negative voice which wants you to get aggressive.
Michael Jackson was trying to reveal
the twisted view of bravery and cowardice in society to shed light on the point
that sometimes being brave means to let your opponent slap you on the other cheek,
even when you have the strength to beat him flat out.
The production.
After Jackson had written and recorded his
vocals for the track, Quincy Jones called Eddie Van Halen
from the rock band Van Halen to ask if he would play a guitar solo on the song.
However, Eddie was initially reluctant
to do the solo work on the track because he had a deal with his band mates
that they would never do any side gigs or solo projects.
But because his band mates were out of town, Eddie made the decision to go
ahead and do it on the downlow as a favor for Quincy, under the condition he would
not be paid or credited for the work because he didn't want other members
of Van Halen to find out about Eddie Van Halen recalled.
Everybody from the band was out of town,
and I figured, who's going to know if I play on this kid's record?
I didn't want nothing.
Maybe Michael will give me dance lessons someday.
When Eddie arrived at Westlake Audio
in West Hollywood, where the whole Thriller album was
produced and recorded, he got to work right away.
Although Michael Jackson was unavailable as he was working with Steven Spielberg
in a recording studio down the hall doing some voice work for an East Side project,
sound effects guru Bruce Cannon noted that when Michael was narrating,
he was very emotionally involved when he was reading the lines.
At times, he almost broke into tears telling parts of the story.
So as Eddie Van Halen was busy prepping his solo in Studio B.
, Jackson was in a puddle of tears lost in the world of E.T. in Studio A.
.
According to Eddie, he had the engineer restructure the song
to accommodate his solo, then blasted out into takes.
Jackson showed up after the second take
and was thrilled that Eddie cared enough about the song to rework it.
Eddie told CNN he was a musical genius with his childlike innocence.
He was such a professional and such a sweetheart.
Rod Temperton, who wrote the title track to Thriller, recounted a mystery blaze
broke out in the control room as Eddie played his guitar solo.
Eddie was playing in the monitor speakers literally caught on fire.
Recall Temperton, the speaker caught fire.
And we're all thinking like, this must be really good this.
The technicians had to race
into the control room with fire extinguishers and put it out
the entire process.
Her Van Halen took two hours start
to finish and the recording of the solo itself took 20 minutes.
The rest, as they say, is musical history.
Later on, when his band mates found out
about it, they were the exact opposite of man.
They actually told him he was a fool
for not asking for a commission when he agreed to do it.
I was a complete fool.
According to the rest of the band, our manager and everyone else.
I was not used.
I knew what I was doing.
I don't do something unless I want to do it.
Ironically, to add insult to injury, when Van Halons 1984 album rose to number
two on Billboard's Hot 100 for three weeks in March 1984,
it was only held off the top position by Jackson's Thriller,
which was holding the number one position 18 months after its initial release.
The music video Michael Jackson financed, the music video submitted himself
at a cost of 150000 dollars after CBS refused to finance it
initially, Billie Jean director Steve Baron was scheduled to direct it
with his and Jackson's original concept for the video to be set on a slave ship.
However, Bob Giraldi,
who later directed the infamous Pepsi commercial where Jackson's hair caught
fire, he was also asked by Jackson for a video concept.
At the time, Giraldi was an established
commercial director but had never directed a music video and was only chosen
by Jackson because he really liked a commercial he had directed.
Bob Giraldi said in the book, I want my MTV, everybody says.
But it was taken from West Side Story.
It's not true.
I had no idea what West Side Story was.
My inspiration was the streets of Paterson, New Jersey, where I'm from.
I listen to the song over and over and realized it was about all the Italian
hoodlums I grew up with, everyone trying to be tougher than they are.
But really, we're all cowards at heart.
Jerrold's gang concept eventually won out
as it reflected the original genesis of the song.
The music video was filmed in March 1983
on Los Angeles's Skid Row, mainly on locations of East Fifth Street.
The second video released for the Thriller album.
It was choreographed by Michael Peters,
who also performed alongside Vincent Patterson as one of the two lead dancers.
The video featured 18 professional dancers
and four break dancers, and despite some sources claiming
otherwise, Jackson was involved in creating some parts of the choreography
to add authenticity to the production, but also to foster peace between them.
Jackson had the idea to cast members
of rival Los Angeles street gangs, Crips and Bloods.
On the first day of shooting, things got a little tense,
so Giraldi had them shoot all scenes with the gang members finish that same day.
The complete music video premiered on MTV on the 31st of March 1983 and became one
of the most popular and memorable videos from the MTV era.
Jackson became the first black artist to get regular airplay on the network when
Billie Jean went into rotation and when the video for Beat it was delivered.
Both videos went into hot rotation for the entire summer of 1983.
The release, but it was released on February 14th,
1983, following the successful thriller chart performances of The Girl Is Mine
and Billie Jean, Frank DiLeo,
the vice president of Epic Records, convinced Jackson to release Beat It while
Billie Jean was heading towards number one.
DiLeo, who later became Jackson's manager, correctly predicted that both singles
would remain in the top 10 at the same time.
Billie Jean remained atop the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks
before being toppled by Come On Eilene, which stayed at number one for a single
week before Jackson reclaimed the position with beat it for three weeks.
Both Billie Jean and Beat It occupied
the top five positions at the same time, a feat matched by few artists.
The song and music video for Beat.
It proved to be a massive success, critically and commercially.
The American Music Awards named the short film favorite pop rock video and favorite
solo video, and it took home two Grammy Awards in 1984
for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance and the prestigious Record of the Year award
shortly after its release.
But it was included in the National Highway Safety
Commission's anti-drug driving campaign, drinking and driving Kinchela Friendship.
Jackson collected an award from President Ronald Reagan
at the White House in recognition for his support of the campaign.
Reagan stated that Jackson was proof
of what a person can accomplish through a lifestyle free of alcohol or drug abuse.
People, young and old, respect that.
And if Americans follow his example, then we can face up to the problem
of drinking and driving, and we can, in Michael's words, beat it.
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