Got to Be There is Michael Jackson’s debut solo studio album, released on 24 January 1972 by Motown Records. Recorded while Jackson was 13 and still part of the Jackson 5, the album was Motown’s bid to position him for a parallel solo career. It produced two top-five U.S. hits — the title track and a cover of Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin” — and reached #14 on the Billboard 200.
Genres: Soul
Off the Wall is Michael Jackson’s fifth studio album, released on 10 August 1979 by Epic Records. It marked his first collaboration with producer Quincy Jones, after the two met during the filming of The Wiz the previous year. Recorded between December 1978 and June 1979 at three Hollywood studios, it represented a clear break from Jackson’s Motown years and the Jacksons’ Epic output.
Jackson and Jones assembled an extraordinary cast of session musicians and songwriters. Rod Temperton, then of Heatwave, contributed three tracks including the title song and “Rock with You”. Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney each gave the album a song. Toto members Steve Lukather and David Paich played extensively, while Greg Phillinganes provided keyboards and arrangements that would define the Jackson-Jones sound for the next decade.
Four singles became U.S. top-10 hits: “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” (#1), “Rock with You” (#1), “Off the Wall” (#10) and “She’s Out of My Life” (#10). “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” won Jackson the 1980 Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal Performance, his first Grammy as an adult solo artist. Jackson, however, was deeply disappointed that the album was overlooked for Album of the Year, and reportedly used that disappointment as fuel for the all-encompassing ambition of Thriller.
Off the Wall has sold over 20 million copies worldwide. It transformed disco into something more sophisticated, blending pop, funk and post-disco soul, and proved that Jackson could carry a major adult solo career on his own. The album is widely cited as one of the greatest of all time and was reissued in 2016 alongside Spike Lee’s documentary film Michael Jackson’s Journey from Motown to Off the Wall.