Off The Wall (album) - Production

Production

When Jackson began the Off the Wall project he was not sure what he wanted as the final result. However he did not want another record that sounded like The Jacksons. He wanted more creative freedom, something he had not been allowed on prior albums. Jones and Jackson jointly produced Off the Wall, whose songwriters included Jackson, Heatwave's Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. All sessions took place at Los Angeles County-based recording studios. Rhythm tracks and vocals were recorded at Allen Zentz Recording, the horn section's contributions took place at Westlake Audio, and string instrumentation was recorded at Cherokee Studios in West Hollywood. Following the initial sessions, audio mixing was handled by Grammy-winning engineer Bruce Swedien at Westlake Audio, after which the original tapes went to the A&M Recording Studio, also located in L.A., for mastering. Swedien would later mix the recording sessions for Jackson's next album and his most well-known work, 1982's Thriller. Jones recalled that, at first, he found Jackson to be very introverted, shy and non-assertive.

"She's Out of My Life" was written for Jones by Tom Bahler three years prior. Jackson heard and enjoyed it, and Jones allowed him to use it on the record. Jones called in Heatwave's keyboardist Rod Temperton to write three songs. The intention was for Jackson and Jones to select one of his songs, but Jackson, liking them all, included all of them in the final cut. Jackson stayed up all night to learn the lyrics to these songs instead of singing from a sheet. He finished the vocals to these three Temperton songs in two recording sections. Temperton took a different approach to his song writing after spending some time researching the background to Jackson's music style. Temperton mixed his traditional harmony segments with the idea of adding shorter note melodies to suit Jackson's aggressive style. Jackson wrote "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" after humming a melody in his kitchen. After listening to hundreds of songs, Jackson and Jones decided upon a batch to record. In hindsight, Jones believed they took a lot of risks in the production of Off the Wall and the final choice of album tracks. Attention was also paid to the album cover, which shows Jackson smiling, wearing a tuxedo and trademark socks. His manager stated, "The tuxedo was the overall plan for the Off the Wall project and package. The tuxedo was our idea, the socks were Michael'".