Connor McGrath
In the history of popular music, there are many albums that could be ranked amongst the greatest of all time. This column is not about those albums. This column is about the albums that have filled the cutout bins of record stores across America for the past 50 years. Culture Crossfire’s Connor McGrath discusses the albums that others brought back to the store… in Deep Discount Discussions.
The Jacksons- Victory
Released: June 22nd, 1984
Billboard Albums Chart Peak: #4
Singles: “State of Shock” (featuring Mick Jagger) (peaked at #3 on Billboard Hot 100), “Torture” (peaked at #17 on Billboard Hot 100), “Body” (peaked at #47 on Billboard Hot 100)
It’s hard for any band to reconvene after their frontman comes back from releasing a successful solo album. But imagine how difficult it must have been for The Jacksons to get back together and start recording after Michael released Thriller, the biggest album of all time. Of course, Michael had juggled a solo career and his career with The Jackson 5/Jacksons for almost fifteen years by that point, having released five albums (including 1979’s 8x platinum Off The Wall) but he wasn’t just bigger than the rest of the band in 1984. Hell, he wasn’t just bigger than anyone in the music. He was arguably the most famous person in the world. It was hard to imagine him wanting to go back to just being the frontman of The Jacksons.
In fact, it really didn’t seem like he wanted to go back to The Jacksons for one more album. By most reports, Michael only did the album to lend a helping hand to his brothers and/or because he was bullied into doing another album with them by daddy Joe. In any effect, this was hardly a passion project for anyone involved. This was one for the money. In the era of Jacksons-mania, when even LaToya and Rebbie were getting radio play, a Jacksons reunion album was the next best thing behind another Michael album in terms of a cash cow.
It’s easy to imagine the mixed emotions that the other Jackson brothers must have felt. On one hand, it was good for them in some ways to have their brother back in the fold. On the other hand, even though none of them would probably publicly admit (except Jermaine, who did in the early ’90s then immediately retracted it) there had to be some level of jealousy and resentment towards Michael. Maybe not outright hostility but some sense of “Why him and not me?” over his success. It’s been easy to forget in the past twenty five years with the reality TV shows and awkward Larry King Live appearances but all of the Jacksons are immensely talented performers in their own right. Victory would have all six Jackson Brothers taking turns on lead vocals.
This favored nations approach seemed awkward from the start. Although the other brothers had taken turns on lead vocals occasionally, Michael had always indisputably been the frontman. It seemed more than a little awkward to have him just be one of the guys, especially right after he released the biggest album of all time. The only other comparison I can think of in music history is Creedance Clearwater Revival’s last album, Mardi Gras, where John Fogerty got tired of the other band members complaints and only sang four songs on the album.
Actually, that’s pretty close to what happened here. Michael makes three appearances on lead vocals (duetting with Jermaine on the opening track and first single, “Torture”, the limp ballad “Be Not Always”, and “State of Shock”, a collaboration with Mick Jagger) and does some prominent backing vocals on Jackie’s “Wait” but on more than half the tracks you can’t really tell that he’s there, although he’s credited on all nine tracks. For six of the nine tracks, it’s the other Jackson Brothers taking their turns in front of their spotlight.
The album actually starts off very well with the leadoff single “Torture”. It’s one of the only tracks on the album that feels like a group collaboration. Michael and Jermaine trade verses like the good old days and bring their A game. Jackie contributes some great vocal ad libs (and also wrote the tune and was originally supposed to sing Jermaine’s part before Jermaine decided to rejoin the group at the eleventh hour). Unfortunately, this song is one of those classic cases of a great ’80s tune that was destroyed by a howlingly awful music video. Michael’s videos, at least from Thriller on, were a bit over the top and camp but “Torture” feels like something that was found on Ray Harryhausen’s scrap heap. The whole thing is rather tortorous to watch.
The video only features three Jacksons and its the three Jacksons who had the least involvement in the track; Marlon, Tito, and Randy. Michael and Jermaine apparently had much better things to do and would appear in neither of the videos produced for this album although they inexplicably decided to dress a wax dummy like Michael and pretend he WAS there. And Jackie disappears part way through (this might have been around the time that he suffered an ankle injury which sidelined him off the ensuing tour) the video. This whole thing just feels corny and undermines the song.
Another odd aspect is that the fact was denounced by the Parents Music Resource Center for endorsing BDSM, which is rather ludicrous because even if you were half deaf, you could hear that the song was about the end of a relationship. I don’t think the PMRC paid attention to a lot of things and we can be glad that John Denver and Frank Zappa really took it to them. *1985 political rant over*
My favorite track on Victory is the second song on the album, “Wait”, and it’s not even one that Michael sings lead on although he certainly makes his presence felt. For the first two-thirds of the song, Jackie ably takes lead vocals and the whole thing seems like a really fun outtake from the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack. However, Michael and Jermaine show up in the last third to add some backing vocals and absolutely crush it. They take a pretty good song and turn it into a lost ’80s pop gem.
Then it’s time to slow things down a bit with the album’s two ballads, Randy’s “One More Chance” and Michael’s “Be Not Always”. It’s hard to believe but I actually like Randy’s better of the two. Little sister Janet would actually cover “One More Chance” as a B-side in the early ’90s. Randy might be the most underrated Jackson in terms of both talent and wackiness. The discordant nature between his two contributions to Victory; ““One More Chance” and “The Hurt” reflect that. “One More Chance” is as good as any ballad in the Jacksons discography and is definitely another one of my favorites on the album.
“The Hurt” is a pensive, slightly odd mid-tempo song that I think a lot of Jacksons fans think is written and sung by Jackie since Randy decides to sing it in a falsetto. This song is either about the time that Randy was shot by Tina Turner when he broke into her house or the time Jermaine stole his wife. OK, it’s probably not the case but both of those are things that happened to Randy “Not the American Idol Judge” Jackson around this time.
Michael’s duet with Mick Jagger, “State of Shock” was the album’s biggest hit but if I were to rank the songs on the album, I’d put it smack in the middle. It’s a fun enough song but you expect more than fun enough when you get one of the greatest pop stars of all time and one of the greatest rock frontman together on the same track. It’s odd whenever Michael did a duet with another pop megastar outside of his own family, the results were almost always disappointing. See also, The King of Pop’s collaborations with Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder.
While some of the Jacksons made the most of their time in the spotlight, a few of the others kind of showed why they were better as sidekicks. I think Tito is the one Jackson who never made any allusions of being a great frontman or an equal in terms of stage presence of Michael’s. And listening to his reggae tinged contribution to Victory, “We Can Change The World” kind of shows why Tito worked best as a sidekick…
In terms of pure showmanship and dancing ability, Marlon was probably the second most talented behind Michael and he was also a pretty talented producer (he produced some of Janet’s early tracks and tracks for R&B greats Betty Wright and Barry White). Unfortunately, when it came to vocals, he was probably the second weakest of the Jackson brothers. His contribution “Body” illustrates both of his strength and his weakness. Production wise, “Body” is a pretty nifty ’80s pop song albeit one that rips off little brother Mike’s “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” but it’s undermined by Marlon’s mediocre lead vocals. There’s that, and a music video that’s almost as goofy as “Torture”.
By the standards of 99% of albums, Victory would be considered a huge success, with the album peaking at the Top 5 of the Album Charts and two songs entering the Top 20 singles chart. Hell, by the standards of most Jacksons albums, it’d be a huge success. But as the quasi follow up to Thriller and The Jacksons’ swan song with Michael, it fell short. It was an album that never was really sure of what it wanted to be. Was it a showcase of all of the individual members? A classic Jacksons album? Whichever the case, the relatively limited presence of Michael ensured that this one would hit the cutout bins almost as soon as it was released. You’d be hard pressed to find very many Jacksons apologists to rep for Victory. Even the band itself seemed to distance itself from the album, playing none of its tracks on the ensuing tour to promote it. Like the album, the tour was similarly fraught with controversy…not the least of which was Michael getting his hair lit on fire while filming a commercial to promote the album.
I think it gets a bad rap. Yeah, I think the band could have gone out a bit better and certainly gone out more unified BUT I think it’s about as good of an album as its predecessor, 1980’s Triumph. Two of the tracks I’d rank as very good (“Wait” and “Torture”) and two of the tracks I’d rank as very poor (“Be Not Always” and “We Can Change The World”) with the rest ranging from mediocre to pretty good. That’s about as good of ratio as the average Jacksons album.
I think the biggest problem is Victory was hyped as the most spectaular album/tour of the band’s career. Instead, it was just incredibly disjointed and overblown. Entertaining at times, laughable at others, but always compelling.
