“…in 1979, with Off The Wall, he invented modern pop as we know it. He’d been around for years, making the occasional solo record, but for literally millions of us, it was a de facto debut album from a kid — a kid! Like us! — we were hearing for the first time. It was an unabashed disco record, with an anthem called “Burn This Disco Out” at a time when “disco” was the most polarizing word in pop music. But it was a disco record that imagined the entirety of pop in disco terms, and it sounded universal on a level nobody had imagined possible before — even Donna Summer‘s Bad Girls, which had dominated 1979 radio, sounded a bit narrow in comparison. Off The Wall had more hits than the radio had time to play: When “Rock With You” crashed the radio, it was time for “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough” to go home, but the radio just kept right on playing it — because none of us had gotten enough. His voice had that sad, lonely, vulnerable twitch, just as his songs felt haunted by something otherworldly and beautiful. He was as personal and eccentric as any crackpot singer-songwriter could be — yet he was also the most famous guy in the world.–Rob Sheffield on Michael Jackson in Rolling Stone
