I've been listening to a lot of MJ's pre-off the wall stuff lately and forgot just how much I love these songs. His solo pre-off the wall songs (except for "Ben") don't get enough recognition IMO. What are your faves?

My list:

1)Aint No Sunshine
2)Music & Me
3)Got To Be There
4)With A Child's Heart
5)Farewell My Summer Love
6)Ben
7)Dear Michael
8)People Make The World Go 'Round
9)We're Almost There
10)Morning Glow

IMO the best work Mike ever did was done before he turned 18. Period. I honestly wouldn't want to name specific tracks because there were just so damn many. I'd be typing for at least half an hour. That's not much help I know, but there it is.

I definitely agree! Most of his Motown solo material is criminally underappreciated and listening to those songs now makes me even more interested in the period because back in the day, that youngin had some vocal cords on him.He was filled with so much soul and talent before the media and mainstream took it away from him tragically.

Here is my list:

1. Call On Me
2. Got To Be There
3. Maria
4. People Make The World Go Round
5. Music & Me
6. Ain't No Sunshine
7. Dear Michael
8. Cinderella Stay Awhile
9. Don't Take Your Love Away From Me
10. Greatest Show On Earth
11. With A Child's Heart
12. We're Almost There
13. Rockin' Robin
14. When I Come of Age
15. You Are There
16. Who's Looking For A Lover
17. One Day In Your Life
18. Don't Let It Get You Down
19. Take Me Back
20. Just A Little Bit Of You

This list is in no order

1)Cinderella Stay Awhile (this is my favorite song, hands down)
2)Dear Michael
3)Take Me Back
4)Call on Me
5)Love Gone Bad (outtake without the brothers)
6)Ben
7) Farwell, My Summer Love
8) We're Almost There
9) To Make My Father Proud
10) People Make the World Go Round
11) Got to Be There
12) Rokin' Robin (questionable, but I like it)
13) You Are There
14) I Wanna Be Where You Are
15) Everybody's Somebody's Fool
16) Happy
[Edited 10/23/07 14:10pm]

Lovesexy82 said:

Dang, how could I forget that one?

Lovesexy82 said:

Cinderella reminds me a little of Stevie Wonder.

I agree about Michael earlier material, sure he didn't write the stuff himself but he had so much soul in him.
[Edited 10/23/07 14:26pm]

I have to agree with the comments about Michael being more soulful as a child. Being a big r&b/soul music fan myself I graviate towards that type of music more and that's probably why I love his earlier work so much. I just wish Michael would actually for once acknowledge some of his earlier work. Can you imagine Mike singing "Call On Me", "All The Things You Are", "Take Me Back", "People Make The World Go 'Round", etc. live these days? Man, I would absolutely LOVE to hear him sing some of these songs today.

whatsgoingon said:

Yep, during the early 70s, Michael was Soul Brother #2. "Wings of My Love" from his first solo LP is one of his best.

I love this thread.

You know what? I hate to make things so easy, because I have his separate solo Motwown albums, but if I want to hear something from this era, the Anthology is actually quite satisfying.

Cinnamon234 said:

Your list is pretty dope.

Cinnie said:

'Lonely Teardrops' on that kicks butt! MJ doing his idol justice there.

I'm a bigger J5/little MJ fan then older Mike.


His first two solo joints from 1972 are amazing (I think he released them "Got To Be There" and "Ben" like 8 months apart).

Even though I don't really consider them solo Michael Jackson records as it was all part of the Jackson 5 franchise, I do really enjoy alot of his pre-OTW. My top-10 favourite Motown-Michael songs...

1. One Day in Your Life
2. Cinderalla Stay a While
3. Aint No Sunshine
4. Dear Michael
5. Ben
6. I Wanna Be Where You Are
7. Got to Be There
8. Morning Glow
9. Music & Me
10. With a Child's Heart

Cinnie said:

I absolutely love this collection! It's the only thing I own by young Michael in his Motown years. His early solo albums before Off The Wall were mixed bags to me, but Anthology gives you a killer overview of what he was before he became one of the biggest selling artist in music history,

hmm...well, i couldnt find any of these tunes on youtube but i did find an interesting documentary on mj and sonic3 (which if true would probably have made mj millions) and watched Liberian Girl (which i never realized actually is a pretty cool video).

sosgemini said:

That Sonic 3 video is pretty interesting. I'm sure Michael did work on the music at some point. I just which Sega weren't so close minded as to fire him as soon as the allegations came out. If they just wated another 12 years they would've found out that he's completely innocent. But anyway. I'd love Michael to make the music for a video game in the future. But screw Sega. Nintendo loves you Michael. They'll be up for it.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

I'm more of a Younger Michael/J5/Jackson fan too rather than a fan of solo, older MJ, even though OTW is my overall favourite album.

There is just something about the younger Michael's voice which conjures so many emotions. He expressed everything from joy to sadness with that voice. When I look at Michael's body of work up to Triumph there hasn't been an artist which as made me wanna dance so much, but at the same time made me cry a lot with his voice. Even on an album like Going Places there is just something about his voice that was there and then got lost along the way to him becoming "King of Pop".

silverchild said:

I'm just saying, if I had to make my own anthology, the tracks I choose wouldn't be too far off of what was on that Motown compilation. They put the good album tracks on there too.