Before MTV, his style was pure seduction
Michael Jackson once leaned against a lamppost, and the lamppost, doing the only sensible thing a lamppost should do upon contact with a megastar, lit up. So did the pavement when kissed by the soles of his wingtip shoes. In hindsight, the only word for this is sex. But I was 7. And at 7, you don’t know why you respond to something. You just do. Billie Jean was not Jackson’s lover, but Jackson was the most seductive man alive.
I responded to anything Jackson did that MTV aired. I even responded when MTV didn’t air something. Ask my classmates about the Great Cafeteria Pandemonium of ’83. I started a rumor that I’d seen a video for “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin.’’’ Hell broke loose. “Oooh, Wesley. You lyin’!’’ and I was. But that was the hold Michael Jackson had over me. “Thriller’’ spawned seven singles but only three music videos, and that felt like a crime.
Today, Jackson’s greatest videos seem more intriguing than great. “Billie Jean’’ is the first video-noir. “Beat It’’ is “West Side Story’’ courtesy of the “The Warriors.’’ And “Thriller,’’ with its ghoulish window onto Jackson’s self image, continues to be talked about with a kind of lazy, second-hand reverence. It’s the “Citizen Kane’’ of the MTV-era (but, no, John Landis, that doesn’t make you Orson Welles).
These videos had their innovations. And MTV was certainly better for them. But the purest crystallization of the Michael Jackson video experience happened before Epic Records twisted MTV’s arm to broadcast a black singer. He shot “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough’’ and “Rock With You,’’ both from “Off the Wall,’’ in 1979. Compared with his later production values, they look crude and homemade. But they’re the two most blissful things Jackson ever did in a music video.
In “Don’t Stop,’’ he is irresistibly handsome in a tuxedo whose sleeves are pushed up to his elbows. The giant bowtie could choke a T-rex, and the socks accessorize with his teeth. He’s like the groom after the wedding. (Michael, is this why we lose our minds when this song comes on during every reception?)
With kaleidoscopic action projected behind him, he looks so happy, a fact that is compounded once one Jackson becomes a synchronized three. By today’s standards, this is public-access stuff, but of the most seductive caliber. He’s. Dancing. Just. For. Me.
Ditto for “Rock With You,’’ which is even better. The fogged-up lasers reflect off his sequined disco-ball outfit and space boots: It’s Buck Rogers in the Studio 54th century. Those smooth, relaxed kicks and pelvic thrusts are out to captivate, and that smile is practically a commercial for the stratospheric upside of dentistry.
Watching him in both videos is all the more poignant knowing that by 1987 he would be all grabby, staccato gyrations. Jackson never danced with quite the same unshowy fluidity or teasing seduction. When this man says we can ride that boogie, no is not an option. WESLEY MORRIS 
