Michael Jackson - Human Nature : C/D?

this is one of those songs where you hear the original demo and almost wonder what jones and jackson heard in it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdy5i_44sQ

not that it's BAD, per se, it's still got a strangely alluring melody... but the details of the arrangement and vocal that jones and jackson added to it are essential IMO.

balearic!

a couple years back I was working on a song that was considerably harder and more complicated than a lot of my stuff and I showed it to a friend who teaches piano, I was especially proud of this alternating major/minor 7ths walkdown thing in the chorus and when he saw it he smiled and said "oh, yeah, Quincy Jones, right?" and showed me how the instrumental walkdown after the chorus in Human Nature -- which I think is a QJ interpolation on the Porcaro composition -- does the same thing, which really just leads to this beautiful smooth resolve. really fun revelation for me

Oh wow, I'd never known that the song came to MJ and Q almost fully formed. I thought it was collaborative from the start.

the melody is there but QJ and MJ added so many grace notes to the arrangement that it's almost a different song, no?

no, I don't think so - I mean, you're comparing a demo to a tracked, mixed and mastered song. pretty much any song at this level of pop has a similar "the demo is the chords and lyrics, in the studio it was brought to fruition" feel. the Toto version has a scratch rhythm track and a pretty "close enough for jazz" vocal - it's the blueprint, any arranger is going to hear a lot of possibilities in a tune like that. it's our good fortune that the people who caught it were a couple of the biggest musical minds of the century.

i take your point, but there are plenty of demos for soul/pop/r&b songs that are about 80% there... this is more like 50%.

given that QJ began his career in the days of R&B big bands, it's sort of incredible how well he took to layering synthesizers. although i think he arranges them a bit like horn charts here and elsewhere.

although QJ was always interested in new sounds... he uses moogs etc. all over his early 1970s records, and as far back as the early 60s he was doing some stuff with vocalese and musique concrete elements.

what the demo is missing is the 16th note riff thing. that's practically what makes the track. and it's such a toto/porcaro kind of thing that I'm surprised it's not there!

this takes a while to kick into gear but once it days

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eJPEwI-jXY

er, does

hahahaha the original post

Not as good as Baby Be Mine
― Andy_K (Andy_K), Tuesday, October 11, 2005 7:05 AM (10 years ago)

This is exactly the sort of thing I'd say (because I believe it) right before telling myself to just shut up.

I'd tell myself to shut up before believing that.

Also worth noting that Quincy called in John Bettis to rewrite the lyrics.

such a fantastic track. one of those that I can still listen to with pleasure and wonderment on Thriller (which was the biggest thing in my life as a kid !).
together with "startin' somethin'", "baby be mine", "PYT" and "lady in my life"... well, that's still more than half of the album actually !
thinking of it, the closest thing to a dud on the album is "the girl is mine". and that's mainly because of the silly collab. cos the basic track and groove are great.

the Toto demo is very detailed. I could have easily imagined only basic guitar or piano chords with some humming of the melody, like many demos.

https://soundcloud.com/harringtone/michael-jackson-human-nature-dave-harrington-edit

I've been listening to the Easy Star All stars version of Thrillah lately and it's really grown on me.