Michael Jackson’s Off the wall: beyond the wall of the American musical and colorist categorization

Abstract

This article aims to analyze how Michael Jackson’s album Off the wall (1979) dealt with American musico-racial, commercial and stylistic dichotomy in the early 1980s. It aims to highlight the way this production overcame not only divisions established by the charts, but also the colorist conventions linked to stylistic labels, through dynamics of sound imbrications and associations, both global and internal. These elements were creative milestones in the decategorizing process that Michael Jackson continually pursued throughout his adult career.