Songoftheday 9/14/13 - You gotta be mine 'cause you're so fine I like your style, it makes me wild...

The Jacksons with Mick Jagger - "State Of Shock"
from the album Victory (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #3 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 11

Today's Song of the Day is by the classic pop/R&B family group the Jacksons, who began their journey as the Jackson 5 in Gary, Indiana, where it took two tries to get Berry Gordy to sign them to Motown (the first, brought in by Gladys Knight, didn't go because Berry didn't want to have another kid act for labor reasons). The man who arranged their second attempt and first real "audition", Bobby Taylor, helped them with their first recordings on the label, but when it came time for their first album to be released, Gordy enlisted all his "big guns" for the production and songwriting, as well as changing their "story" with ages and how they came to be signed changed. But the core of brothers Jackie, Tito (on guitar), Jermaine (on bass), Marlon, and Michael, was intact during their Motown stint.

In 1969 they exploded on to the music scene with their first single, "I Want You Back", the first of four consecutive #1 hits out of the gate. After that came "ABC", "The Love You Save", and the ballad "I'll Be There", and within a year they were the biggest pop group in America. However, after brothers Michael and Jermaine had burgeoning solo careers of their own, the Jacksons never regained the momentum they had at the start. Although they got a brief "second wind" with the early disco hit "Dancing Machine", which topped the soul chart and went to #2 on the pop chart, their sound became mostly outdated. With Gordy unwilling to update their sound to evolve with the music of the day, their pop success turned into a string of respectable but moderate top-40 hits, until they decided (save, Jermaine, who at the time was married to Gordy's daughter) to leave the label for CBS Records in 1975.

Younger brother Randy filled Jermaine's shoes in the group, and their first single as "the Jacksons", "Enjoy Yourself" brought them back into the pop top-10 in 1976. Its follow-up, "Show You The Way To Go", became the group's first and only #1 single in Britain. In 1979 they rode the crest of the disco wave with another top-10 single, "Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground)". That same year, Michael released his groundbreaking coming-of-age album Off The Wall, which spawned four top-10 hits including two #1 singles. Coming back to his family, the Jacksons released what I think was their best work, Triumph, though it failed to send a single to the pop top-10.

Then came Thriller.

That album changed everything in music, but also the dynamics of the brothers, who reunited with Jermaine at the TV special commemorating Motown's 25th anniversary, but were immediately upstaged by Michael's iconic performance (with "moonwalk") of his own "Billie Jean". But despite these differences, the other brothers knew which side their bread was buttered, and took a backseat to Michael in recording their 1984 album Victory. With all six brothers on board, the first single from the set was actually a toss-off from Michael's Thriller that was originally intended as a duet with Queen's Freddie Mercury. With the Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger now on board, with only Marlon and Jackie doing background vocals and Tito, Randy, and Jermaine no where to be seen, "State Of Shock" (written by Michael with guitarist Randy Hansen) was meant solely as an "event record" to gain hype for the upcoming album, though apparently they couldn't get themselves together enough to film a video for MTV...

"State Of Shock" returned the Jacksons to the top-5 on the pop chart for the first time in nine years, and went to #4 on the R&B chart as well. The extended version peaked at #3 on Billboard's dance club play chart, and it even spent a couple weeks on the Rock Radio chart, topping out at #42. In Britain, Mick's home, it was a little less successful, stalling out at #14.

It even managed to help Mick's career; it was his first solo credit outside the band, who were between albums at the time.

It would be the group's final top-10 hit. Probably everyone got "burnt out" from this obvious attention grab (I never was a fan of the track, though of course it's more tolerable now).

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


Here's the original demo version with Freddie Mercury...

Up tomorrow: a reggae-pop star is in love with the rock.