The King of Pop Also Rocked! 3 of Michael Jackson’s Most Rockin’ Tunes

The title of King of Rock ’N’ Roll was already taken when Michael Jackson began his reign as the King of Pop. However, when Jackson dropped his landmark album, Thriller, in 1982, he, like Elvis Presley before him, transformed more than pop music; he shifted culture in his direction by blending multiple genres, including rock and roll.

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For this list, we’ll begin with one of Jackson’s signature tunes, which stars a rock guitar legend. And it wouldn’t be the last time the King of Pop rocked. Still, in 1979, Jackson did say he wanted to “rock with you.”

“Beat It”

One of Michael Jackson’s pop masterpieces also contains one of the most recognizable rock guitar riffs. Steve Lukather from Toto recorded the iconic guitar and bass parts, which Jackson had sung to him. Then Quincy Jones invited Eddie Van Halen to record a solo. However, Van Halen didn’t want to play over the section Jones had highlighted. So he spliced the tape and tracked over a different part of the song. (There was no “undo” option back then.)

This edit created a problem as the tape was no longer in sync with the rest of the instruments. Jones didn’t want to rerecord Jackson’s vocal, so he tasked Lukather and his Toto bandmate, drummer Jeff Porcaro, with recreating the rhythm track to save both the vocal and Van Halen’s shredding guitar solo. Listening to those performances, you understand why Jones went to such trouble to rescue the takes.

“Give In To Me”

Jackson’s heavy metal ballad appears on his 1991 album Dangerous. The same year, Guns N’ Roses released the two-album set, Use Your Illusion I and II. The first of the pair features “November Rain”, a colossal hit, with a music video showing Slash ripping a guitar solo outside a chapel. So when Jackson wrote “Give In To Me” with producer Bill Bottrell, Slash was the obvious choice for the kind of blues one plays under a mop of hair.

“Morphine”

I’m tempted to write about “Dirty Diana”, as it features longtime Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens. Instead, here’s a Jackson deep cut you may not be familiar with. This is the King of Pop interpreting industrial metal and once again calling on Slash for the power chords. The unpredictable arrangement and its dark multi-part suite sound unlike anything else in Jackson’s catalog. It echoes the tumult in the superstar’s personal life that threatened to overshadow his many hits.

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