SMASH! With the sound of a ball cracking through a window pane, Dangerous begins. "One... two... three..." a few orchestra hits, then a crescendo... BLAM! The soundscape expands. A DJ's turntable scratches into the back-beat. We hear a dancer, breathlessly gasping for air, apparently busting moves in the studio, then Michael asking the world to come together, and JAM! The chorus hits. Within 60 seconds, a boy from Taita had become a dancer.

The music video that accompanied this track combined everything that was cool about the world. Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson (I was devastated that my name did not also share their 'MJ' initials... I was convinced that one needed them to make it big, I mean Magic Johnson also had the same combination...), Evil Dead styled camera moves, jump rope, silhouettes, basketball, SLAM DUNKS (which is what "Jam" is slang for in this sense), break-dancing, rapping, empty warehouses, larceny. As a youngster in 1991 there was no possible way anyone could top that amount of awesomeness.

A year or so later I was enrolled in a local dance school. For the remaining 12 months I watched, re-watched, and re-re-watched my few taped instances of The Moonwalk. I studied that move every afternoon. Jam would play in the background as I leaned up against the wall, arms outstretched, pressing my weight there, allowing my legs to achieve the weightlessness I thought was necessary to 'float' like my musical hero. Weeks passed, countless hours rustling the carpet, pilling it. I soon found out the best results would eventuate in the stretch of the kitchen that had linoleum, while wearing socks. Entire seasons passed, I still hadn't mastered it, I wasn't coming close. Then one night... it came to me in a dream. I suddenly understood. Magically. There was a formula to it. I had to use one foot as leverage, while the other moved. Then they swapped. It was so simple I couldn't believe it.

At dance warm-ups a week later, in a class filled with prima-dona 7-year olds, I debuted my newfound skills. While everyone else was stretching, mucking about, chit-chatting idly, I effortlessly glided from end of the room to the other. Jaws dropped. My dance teacher asked me to lead the remainder of that lesson. From that point onwards we shared choreography duties. Eventually she persuaded my folks that I needed private tuition, entries into competitions, exams.

That year I came third in a Lower Hutt dance-off, where I faced off against people twice my age. It was a day I'll remember forever. Typical weather, drowsy, like so many of my memories, nothing about the exterior of my city said "dance" but I did it anyway. Check out my look, pretty nuts for such a young kid, trouser-suspenders, sequined hat, parachute pants, a classic MJ pose, I had the image down. To top it off, I had the earnestness to look like I really meant every expression, every flick of the hand.

Jam was the song I danced to that day. I wish I had it on video, but because I don't I'll have to describe what I remember. It opened, as the song does, with a SMASH! I liked to think the song was punctuated with the "wham! bam! biff! sock!" moments from my favourite comic books. Consequently, the only appropriate way I could think of to open the song was a full-on knee slide from one side of the Lower Hutt Town Hall stage to the other. I had to wait in the wings for an eternity while some lame-oh ballet dancer pirouetted awkwardly from leg to leg. When she was cleared, I sprung into action, energy bottled up and ready to explode. 3 straight meters, from stage-right to stage-left, all on my knees, in a little under 1 second. Epic.

From there it was up, aggressive hand movements, fists flying, as my feet travelled the 'box step' (where you, essentially, walk the perimeter of an imaginary square). The New Jack Swing style was in full force from that point onwards. Have you heard of that genre? It's under-recognised as being a major influence on 90s music. There's an awesome montage available on Youtube for viewing. According to Wikipedia at the time of writing, the style "uses mellifluously soulful solo or harmonizing vocals sung over rhythms and "street" beats derived from urban musical influences." That brought out the best in me. Mid-way through the song I grabbed my hat, threw it behind me, moonwalked back to pick it up, put it on my head facing front-wards, turned it around again so it was facing backwards, then spun a 720-degree turn and rotated the hat to the sides. I then dropped to my knees and BLAM! the song ended. Massive applause, and a performance that I've yet to top. I was 7.

My winnings bought me a cassette of Thriller, from Deka (if I recall correctly, might be wrong) a little later that afternoon. Jam was responsible for a massive change in my life. It gave me inspiration to take on challenges I would never have thought possible to achieve. Made me get a basketball hoop for the next Christmas and then spend an entire year trying to score a goal with my back-turned (not realising MJ used a special effect in his video... ha...) The song taught me I could entertain. Most importantly though... it was damn cool. Still is.

In 1980, The Jacksons must've been feeling a little concerned; Jermaine had left the group; Michael's new solo album Off The Wall had announced, loudly, he was on a different career trajectory all by himself; and, to make matters worse, disco was already on its way out. They were going to have to adapt to survive, or just call it a day. Against all odds, they pulled off a comeback. Save for early 90s act Take That's revival a couple of years ago, I'm not sure I know of another boy-band that has ever managed such a feat. Triumph helped the group reclaim their #1 status on the charts and guaranteed a musical rebirth that would carry them well into the late 80's. A wickedly short album, it still holds up under scrutiny some 29 years later.

Part of the album's success centres on This Place Hotel. It's a dark, adult, song penned by Michael. On many levels, it can be read as a pre-cursor to the Thriller album, in subject matter, production techniques and instrumentation. Listen to the bass line and consider the similarities it shares the funk of Billie Jean; check out lyrics like "Someone said, welcome to your doom / then they smiled with eyes that looked as if they knew me. / this is scaring me!" and then ask if they wouldn't seem out of place in the song Thriller; consider the keyboard and horn tracks, which are hinted at in the later cut, Baby Be Mine, etc. In the context of Michael's wider career, This Place Hotel seems like yet another step he had to climb before being able to unload his defining classic. There was never a proper music video, but if you wanna view a fan-made one and hear the song, I guess this one's your best bet.


I first heard it as I walked down Lambton Quay in 2004. It was a year into the second accused child-molestation debacle. If memory serves right, it was also the first time the news media began reporting on his financial problems. At this point, I had reason to believe that I'd never be able to play some of my favourite music in public again. Imagine my surprise then, walking down the street, to hear the freshest pop imaginable being blasted from The CD & DVD Store. I did a double-take; I thought I knew everything The Jacksons had ever done... could it be a new MJ single?! I rushed to the counter and demanded they explain what the tune was, where it had come from, how much it would cost me to buy it. The bemused clerk let me know it was the just-released, The Very Best of The Jacksons and his boss had told him to play it. I snatched up a copy for $35 and bought some fresh batteries for my DiscMan. A few presses of the 'skip track' button later, I found what it was I desperately wanted to hear again: This Place Hotel. I don't think I listened to anything else for the rest of the day. It got programmed into 'repeat' mode on the train home from University. I just had... no idea... that The Jacksons ever were cool. The rest of the Best Of album's Disc 2 taught me how much I still had to learn about their collective histories.

Michael must've loved the song too - it was the only song to make the cut in both legs of his Bad tour, many years later. Check out this particular video on Youtube, it's my all-time favourite of his live performances. I honestly don't think there's a better clip of him and the band working at 100% energy. It opens with a bizarre spoken-word performance (which happened every night on the tour) , then we get the backing vocals from Streetwalker as Michael's silhouette dances, then... all hell breaks loose. The band are actually playing their instruments! Michael's actually singing! The back-up vocalists are all in tune! It's very rare to see Jackson having fun on-stage, so this one's well worth the watch:

Today's song defines Michael's sound. No other cut from his back-catalogue summarises it more succinctly. It honestly has a little 'something' from every era of his music. It has controversy, rap, a HUGE opening sound that would fill a packed Wembley Arena, an immecably sequenced beat, a gospel choir, kids chanting, rock guitar, innovative production techniques, "heee-heee"s, "hoo-hoo"s, synthesiser string, suprisingly mature lyrics, African-influences, his raspy vocals from '91 onwards, his clear vocals from '89 backwards, huge slap-bass slides, a pair of music videos that both created headlines for their innovative subject matter and A-list director, Freddy Mercury styled yelps, digital bursts of static, walkie-talkies and, finally, 'the Michael chord change' that indicates the beginning of a chorus.

If I were to write about each of these things, I'd probably be here for a month. 15,000 words wouldn't begin to cover this one. Lacking the time or the stamina for such an exercise (though if demand asks for it...) I'll merely say this: if I met someone who'd never heard a Michael Jackson song, this is the one I'd start with. Really, there's nothing left out, it is undeniably his. Perhaps that's what made it so much fun for the media upon release.

See, when it came out, a big fuss was made about the lyric "Jew me, sue me, everybody do me/ Kick me, kike me, don't you black or white me." It's a hard one to defend, and many spoke out about it. Whether or not the outrage was justified is hard to guage, but the singer was eventually forced to apologise many times over. Future versions of HIStory had a "sorry" message printed in it, but a select few weren't satisfied with this. He returned to the studio to re-record the offending line, with this newer version now saying instead, "Do me, sue me, everybody do me / kick me, strike me, don't you black or white me." Given his chequered past, it was an easy pitch for politicians and high-up members of the community to scream that Jackson was trying to subvert or modify the minds of the young and impressionable. I personally think that Michael should've been more aware of his brand, realising that he wasn't regarded as a lyrical genius by any stretch, and also that most of his audience was under-25. He probably didn't realise how much ill-will he was generating in adults by this point, not least because of the massive statue he'd adorned his album cover with...


When I first heard the song - Christmas Day, 1995 - I thought, mistankenly, that it was a cover of Another One Bites The Dust. You can hear why, right? It's a simple beat with a 'rap' in the old-school sense of the word over the top. Looking back now, I think it shares its musical lineage with the Billy Joel song We Didn't Start The Fire too. Part-history lesson, part-dance track, it's everything the music world doesn't realise it needs from pop music. Ha. In later life I danced many different performances to its crazy beats. Brilliant stuff. The only released footage (so far) of Michael's final rehearsal seems like his This Is It tour was gonna be an amazing one. Damned shame he never got to put on a few of the shows, because if this is anything to go by it would've rocked the roof of the o2 Arena: