Michael Jackson was a perfectionist when it came to music. All of his harmonies were startlingly gorgeous, and his singing was always outstanding. When you make albums like Off The Wall and Thriller, you’re bound to be the best at your craft.
But the crazy thing about the King of Pop is that he was never formally trained in music. He wasn’t particularly strong at any instruments, and you won’t catch him making any crazy notes to the engineer. So how did the music sound that good? Did his producers just have superpowers and he was the product of a great musical environment?
Not exactly. Sure, he was a massive beneficiary of the genius of Quincy Jones. But Michael Jackson also had uncanny instincts and was able to communicate exactly what he wanted out of a song. How? He would beatbox and sing every part he envisioned for a given song.
During the court deposition for a copyright infringement lawsuit for his song “Dangerous”, MJ meticulously broke down his process. He described the music as if it appeared to him in a special vision. “The lyrics, the strings, the chords, everything comes at the moment like a gift that is put right into your head and that’s how I hear it,” Jackson explained.
Michael Jackson Once Broke Down His Entire Song-Making Process, and It Proved His Musical Genius
For Dangerous itself, he depicted each element down to its sheer anatomy, from bass licks to basic chord structure. All he had to do was beatbox to prove his point.
“I’ll just sing the bass part into the tape recorder,” he said, breaking the song down piece by piece. “I’ll take that bass lick and put the chords of the melody over the bass lick and that’s what inspires the melody.” He then began beat-boxing in court.
It wasn’t just his work on Dangerous either. Michael Jackson applied this principle to his biggest hits too. Elsewhere in the court deposition, he shared how “Billie Jean” worked, showing just how deep the recording process could get.
“Listen, you’re hearing four basses on there, doing four different personalities,” he explained. “That’s what gives it character, but it takes a lot of work.”
Though he might not be the musical savant that Prince was, Michael Jackson applied his genius through the power of his ear alone. It serves as proof that you don’t always need to know how to read music in order to understand it.
Photo by George De Sota/Redferns
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