"Off the Wall,"

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In the three years since Michael Jackson's first solo album, "Off the Wall," sold 7 million copies and spawned four hit singles, black music has veered away from the danceable but ultra-slick style that "Off the Wall" epitomized. From Prince to Marvin Gaye, from tap to Rick James, black artists have incorporated increasingly mature and adventurous themes - culture, sex, politics - into grittier, gutsier music. So when Jackson's first solo single since 1979 turned out to be wimpoid MOR ballad with the refrain "the doggone girl is mine," sung with a tame Paul McCartney, it looked like the train had left the station without him. But the superficiality of that damnably catchy hit belies the surprising substance of "Thriller." Rather than reheating "Off the Wall's agreeably mindless funk, Jackson has cooked up a zesty LP whose untempo workouts don't obscure its harrowing, dark messages. Particularly on Jackson's own compositions, "Thriller's" tense, nearly obsessive sound complements lyrics that delineate a world that has put the twenty-four year-old on the defensive. "They're out to get you, better leave while you can/Don't wanna be a you, you want to be a man." It's been a challenging time for Jackson - his parents may separate, he's been involved in a paternity claim - and he's responded to those challenges head-on. He's dropped the boyish falsetto that sparked his hits from "I Want You Back, to "Don't Stop 'Till You Get Enough" and chosen to address his tormentors in a full, adult voice with a feisty determination that is tinged by sadness, Jackson's new attitude gives "Thriller" a deeper, if less visceral, emotional urgency than any of his previous work, and marks another watershed in the creative development of this prodigiously talented performer. Take "Billie Jean," a lean, insistent funk number whose message couldn't be more blunt:" She says I am the one/But the kid is not my son." The party spirit that suffused "Off the Wall" has landed him in trouble, and he tempers that exuberance with suspicion. "What do you mean I am the one," he quizzically asks his femme fatale, "who will dance on the floor?" It's a sad almost mournful song, but a thumping resolve underlies his feelings: "Billie Jean is not my lover" is incessantly repeated as the song fades out. Billie Jean is mentioned in passing in "Thriller's" most combative track, the hyperactive "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'," wherein Jackson also takes on the press, gossips of all kinds and other grief-givers. Here the emotions are so raw that the song nearly goes out of control. "Somebody's always tryin' to start my baby crying," he laments, and that sense of quasi paranoia yields to near-bitterness in the chorus: "You're a vegetable, you're a vegetable/They'll eat off you, you're a vegetable." It's a tune that's almost as exciting as seeing Jackson motivate himself across a concert stage - and a lot more unpredictable. These lyrics won't keep Elvis Costello awake nights, but they do show that Jackson has progressed past the hey-let's-hustle sentiments that dominated "Off the Wall."