Songoftheday 4/9/13 - Where did you come from lady, and ooh won't you take me there...

Michael Jackson - "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"
from the album Thriller (1982)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #10 (one week)
Weeks in the Top-40: 9

Today's Song of the Day was the sixth top-10 single released from Michael Jackson's iconic Thriller record. After the ersatz duet "The Girl Is Mine", the paranoic drama of  "Billie Jean", the groundbreaking rock edge of "Beat It", the frenetic album-opener "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", and the gentle warmth of "Human Nature", it was time for another return to the dance floor. Originally a demo written by Jackson, producer Quincy Jones stole the title and co-wrote a different post-disco shuffler with James Ingram that rode its fluid bassline like a rodeo cowboy....

The ultra-funky "P.Y.T." surprisingly did better on the adult-contemporary chart (#37) than it did on R&B radio, where it missed the top-40. While the song did the best in Belgium, peaking at #6, it just missed the top-10 in England, and also stalled in the top-20 in Canada, France, and Holland.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


In 2008, as part of the string of remixes of Jackson's older songs, the original Jackson-penned demo of "P.Y.T." was transformed by will.i.am into a club stomper...

On Quincy Jones' 2010 self-cover album Q Soul Bossa Nostra, vocal-filter king T-Pain and white soul boy Robin Thicke took on the song...

The same year, the cast of Glee covered the song and put it back on the Hot 100, peaking at #58..

R&B singer Monica's top-40 soul hit "All Eyez On Me" samples the demo version...

T-Pain again appeared on a "PYT" track as a guest on Kanye West's top-10 pop hit from 2007, "Good Life", which samples the countermelody of the older single...

Up tomorrow: the evolution of a Cougar, deconstructed.