Michael Jackson – Rock With You
1979 · Directed by Bruce Gowers
3.5M Likes
Best comments
1.“Only Michael could dress like a disco ball and still be the coolest person in the room...”
More comments
- 2.“Michael Jackson is the only person who could make a great music video just standing in one place!”
- 3.“My battery: 1%. Me: *plays this song*. My battery: I'll wait.”
The story
No plot. No story. Just Michael Jackson in a sequined jumpsuit and matching boots on a plain Los Angeles stage, with a wall of shimmering lasers behind him bouncing light off every sequin. Director Bruce Gowers shot it in 1979 at the 800 Stage, and that's the whole trick. It works because of the guy standing in the middle.
It was the second of three short films made for Off the Wall, Michael's first solo album for Epic, and it's a straight performance clip rather than a story. Gowers later told Rolling Stone that Michael was an absolute professional, and the magazine ranked it sixth on its 2014 list of his 20 greatest videos.
Rod Temperton wrote the song and Quincy Jones produced it. Fun bit of trivia: it was first offered to Karen Carpenter, who passed. It spent four weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1980, five weeks on top of the soul chart, and finished as the fourth-biggest single of the year. Critics count it among the last hits of the disco era. A smooth, slow-burning invitation to the dance floor, sung by a man about to own the decade.
