Michael Jackson – ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’

The wonderful thing about Michael Jackson’s back catalogue is that every time you return to it, you can find a new favourite song. From the get-go, I was always big on histrionics, which meant that for me, The King Of Pop was all about the last three minutes of ‘Thriller’, the choir backing vocals heralding in ‘Can You Feel It’ or the near-preposterously good bass of ‘Bad’. But having taken the time to properly revisit, among other things, that best-selling record of all time, Jackson’s legacy has taken on a new fluidity. A lot of that has to do with the fact that I watched This Is It about three times, where you really get to see how much time and expertise Jackson invested into his post-Motown arrangements. Though Quincy Jones deservedly has received much of the credit for the sound of Thriller (which includes today’s song), it would be remiss of us to forget how involved Jacko was in the process, how incessant his attention to detail was and how, ultimately, it’s his voice that drove the whole thing home. All that focus on his dancing wasn’t for nothing, it’s amazing to watch how internalised all the unique fragments of his song and brought them to life with his body

It’s almost unbelievable to think that it’s been two years since Michael Jackson died. While American news media chase his former doctor to the end of the Earth, the music is probably the only positive counteracting all the noise, confusion and commerce. It was so moving to us that we broke our own rules for the only time in our four year history and wrote about MJ twice in two days. Whenever I’m in doubt about what to listen to, the answer is usually Michael Jackson. Hearing something like ‘P.Y.T.’ with fresh ears really drives home how much modern pop is indebted to him, particularly the risks he took with his vocal performance. For reasons unknown, I ended up interviewing David Guetta last week, and while I really wanted to turn the entire thing into a pisstake, what my editor said to me struck a chord; ‘Think of how he’s affecting to the way we consume music. He will probably end up being this generation’s Quincy Jones.’ It’s not a fair comparison but it does have its merits, mainly in that rotating through an endless rolodex of vocalists, Guetta, who clearly has his aesthetic nailed, is now on the hunt for his own Michael Jackson.

But that being said, he’ll never write anything like ‘P.Y.T’, only make thousands of Parisians happy when he drops it into his set at nightclubs. There’s so much stuff going on in this song that spills out of the speakers, the melding of Motown and robot-rock, of synths and strings, squelching bass and stride piano. Nothing tries to beat you over the head – even the chorus has multiple parts competing for attention beneath the melody. Most vitally, every single element, from the drum groove through to the little keyboard pitch modulation wiggles at the end of each phrase of the chorus, could be their own song. In fact, split them into stems and add 34 tracks of the same thing in different octaves and MIDI instruments and producers like Guetta could make their next album. But there’s no use hating on one guy to prop up another, particularly in the case of MJ who was evidently all about the love, which includes the concert for his fans that would ultimately be a contributing factor to what killed him. But this is how I choose to remember the man with the red jacket (seriously Kid CuDi, you’re fooling nobody); for his full-bodied range that extended beyond anybody’s imagination, for the balls to hold them while he sang and for the chromatic run at the Middle that’s still sexier than anything Rihanna can do with her legs or her attitude.

(Even if she is a PYT.)

Michael Jackson – ‘P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)’