Dressed in head to toe white pinstripes,
spats and his signature fedora. A coin flip into a jukebox ignites
Michael Jackson's Hollywood gangster fantasy.
'Smooth Criminal', an infectiously
pulsating track thats beat and overall pace, speaks of its lyrical urgency.
The accompanying video becoming
the centerpiece of Michael Jackson's most ambitious film project,
'Moonwalker'. Showcasing the artist's love for classic cinema as well as his
formidable talents and ingenuity in dance, performance and video spectacle.
'Smooth Criminal' is often regarded as
embodying Jackson at his most electric, both physically and artistically.
Written by Michael Jackson and produced by himself and Quincy Jones,
the track was released as the 'Bad' album's 7th single on November 14th, 1988.
The song's distinct musical as well as
visual style, became a signal nature hit for the King of Pop,
becoming a main stay on the artist's subsequent tours and featured heavily
in Jackson's playlists, compilation albums and tribute shows.
This is the story behind the inspiration,
production and commercial reaction to one of pop history's most iconic music
releases, Michael Jackson 1988 hit 'Smooth Criminal'.
Here's the detail.
But before we begin, check out our new collection
available to purchase online.
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The Inspiration
Encouraged by his previous groundbreaking success with the single
and music video for 'Thriller', which paid homage to the B movie horror genre,
for his next album, Michael Jackson was looking to engineer
a track that would also lend itself to another cinematic masterpiece.
The artist quickly began drawing
inspiration from 1940s mobster movies and classic film noir,
creating the demo track 'Al Capone'.
Jackson grew obsessive and worked tirelessly
on the song, although he was frustrated with its overall direction and not 100%
convinced it had the commercial hook needed to become, what he hoped,
a defining track on his much anticipated album.
The early demo version evolved
and its lyrics matured, describing a narrator who finds
a bloodstained carpet, a body unconscious, and a woman being attacked in her apartment
by a smooth criminal, which had now become the track's title.
Many of the songs Jackson wrote were very
personal in nature, but this one tells the fictional story
of a particularly adept gangster, something far from his personal experience.
Much like in his track 'Beat It',
Jackson is not a participant in violence, but takes on the role of an onlooker.
Coming across the victim and asking her over and over,
'Annie, are you okay?'. A line inspired
by 'Resusci Anne', a dummy used in CPR training.
Which Michael Jackson took part in during the recording of 'Bad'.
Whereby trainees
learn to say, 'Annie, are you okay?', in order to determine
whether the patient is conscious and responsive prior to administering CPR.
First check for unresponsiveness. Are you okay? Are you okay?
Help.
During an interview with VH1,
Michael Jackson stated that the song's lyrical content wasn't recounting a single
incident but was just randomly selected phases he read in the LA Times and in other
crime reports, which, when put together he just liked the way it sounded.
The Production
During the recording of 'Smooth Criminal',
it was the studio engineer, Bruce Swedien,
who acted as the voice at the police chief, and the thumping sound
at the beginning of the track was created from recording Michael Jackson's own
heartbeat, which was digitally processed through a Synclavier digital synthesizer.
Quincy Jones recounts how involved Michael
was in spearheading the track and admitted that even once complete,
it was never a favorite of his and only agreed to it making the final album track
list because of Jackson's immense enthusiasm for it.
For a period, 'Smooth Criminal' became the working title for Jackson's album,
believing that the name sounded slick and would help Michael Jackson in his
pursuit for a more rebellious public image.
However, the decision was later
challenged, as executives considered the title too controversial,
as though glorifying organized crime and gang violence.
Therefore, a decision was made and the record was ultimately named 'Bad'
as a result.
The Music Video
Colin Chilvers directed Michael Jackson's self-funded musical epic 'Moonwalker',
which included the 42 minute Smooth Criminal music video.
Having worked on films like
'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' and 'Superman', Chilvers was inspired by the golden age
of Hollywood and wanted Jackson to pay tribute to the MGM musical.
However, Michael Jackson already had a concept for the music video that was
inspired by Cowboys and the Western movie genre.
But after he and the director watched 'The Godfather' as well as other classic
movies, Jackson agreed to change it to a 1940s gangster style. Quote,
I showed Michael a movie that I felt would fit the theme of the piece, 'The Third Man'.
He loved the look of it,
that sort of film-noir look recounted Chilvers in a later interview.
Michael Jackson also drew heavily
from Fred Astaire's 1953 musical 'The Bandwagon' with his white suit
and fedora, paying tribute to the iconic performer.
During filming, Hermes Pan, Astaire's longtime choreographer,
visited the set and praised Jackson's tribute to Astaire's costume and choreography
from the film, saying that Fred Astaire would have been very happy and proud
of inspiring such a wonderful person.
With Astaire passing away before ever
seeing the finish video.
Originally called 'Chicago Nights',
filming took place between mid February and April 1987 at Culver City, California,
and in the backlot at Universal Studios Hollywood.
Running way he overschedule, director
Colin Chilvers recalled Michael's drive to create the best work you possibly could.
Watching production dailies on their lunch breaks.
Michael would say, we can do better than that.
It was Michael's movie,
and he was going to do exactly what he felt he needed to do to make it perfect.
Vincent Paterson, who was a lead dancer in the music videos for 'Beat It'
and 'Thriller', co-choreographed the 'Smooth Criminal' video
with Jackson and Jeffrey Daniel of soul music group Shalamar.
Together, they visualized Jackson's second
most famous dance move, a gravity defying lean.
With Michael Jackson and the dancers leaning forward 45 degrees with their back
straight and feet flat on the floor, holding the pose before returning upright.
The lean moves the body center of mass further than it can support and appears
to defy gravity. With director, Chilvers, revealing, quote, the lean that we did,
obviously, that was a bit of a heritage
for my days of Superman because we had Michael on wires and fixed his feet
to the ground so that he could do that famous lean.
I fixed their heels to the ground with a slot so that they were locked into it.
If you look in the video when they come
back up from that lean, they kind of shuffle their feet back.
They were unlocking themselves from the support they had in the ground.
The Release
The standalone music video
for 'Smooth Criminal' premiered on MTV on October 13th, 1988,
becoming the centerpiece of Jackson's 'Moonwalker' film,
which was released on home video towards the end of 1988.
In the charts, 'Smooth Criminal' peaked
at number seven on the Billboard Hot 100, becoming the 6th top ten single from 'Bad'.
A disappointment for Jackson,
who had already achieved five number ones from the record
and I was hoping for yet another one.
However, 'Smooth Criminal' did become certified double platinum in the US and reached
number one in Belgium, Iceland, the Netherlands, and Spain.
Lyrically, the track received mixed reviews, with more conservative voices
outraged and fearing its video's impact
on children of the 80s. Quote, the message is clear.
Being a criminal is hip.
Michael gives crime status and respectability.
You should watch the video, then watch the many kids who will copy his
slick clothes and, possibly, copy his gangster behavior.
What is the message MJ's conveying, to whom he is conveying the message and why?
However, despite a minor public backlash,
the 'Smooth Criminal' short film became one of Michael's most celebrated visual works.
In 1989, it received 'Best Video' accolade at the Brit Awards,
the British Photographic Industry, the Broadcast Film Critics Association,
the People's Choice Awards and the World Music Awards.
The film also received three
MTV Video Music Award nominations, winning for 'Best Cinematography' in the video.
The style of clothing as well as
mannerisms Jackson portrayed in 'Smooth Criminal' were reused
in the numerous adaptations of the video game Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.
The song was also a highlight of Jackson's
live shows, the routine growing more elaborate over time.
As on the second leg of the Bad
and Dangerous tours, Jackson essentially reenacted the video with four dancers.
However, during the HIStory tour,
the rendition became more theatrical, with the artist dressed
like on 1930s Chicago gangster,
he would appear on stage with a prop machine gun and blast away six or so rival
gangsters, whose bodies were then dragged off stage to great applause.
The King of Pop also performed variations of the 45 degree lean popularized
in the video, often leaving crowds wondering how it was done.
However, on stage,
the dancers wore special shoes that could be furtively inserted into pegs
on the stage floor, then quickly removed to resume full motion.
In October 1993,
the technique was filed under
United States Patent Law by Jackson and two collaborators.
Although the patent was let to expire in 2005.
Since Jackson's death in 2009, retrospective reviews have hailed
'Smooth Criminal' as one of the best songs of Jackson's entire career.
In 2014, Rolling Stone ranked
'Smooth Criminal' number five on a list of Michael Jackson's 20 greatest videos,
as well as six on their list of the 50 best Michael Jackson songs.
Writing that it was, quote,
his best blend of R&B groove and rock edginess and a turning
point in his shift toward darker, harder-edged material.
In a retrospective review of the 'Bad' album, Newsweek wrote, quote
'Smooth Criminal' is a sleek, exhilarating action sequence of a song
that, unlike anything else in Jackson's catalog.
An urgent and inspired highlight,
'Bad' is at its best when it explores the darker, more paranoid side that began
to consume Jackson's life in the late 80s, and this song captures that impulse.
Entertainment Weekly wrote,
quote, if there was one song on Bad that truly captures the sense of artistic
freedom that Jackson felt after 'Thriller', it was this track.
This is pop music as suspense drama.
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