Richard Lecocq

This would've been my bible if it existed when I was a teenager and I would've pored over it endlessly*. I'm less of a Jackson fan these days, but I had a lot of fun revisiting his music whilst reading along to this over the past few months. While I've given it 5 stars, there are actually a couple of downsides to it.

Firstly, it glosses over, and sometimes outright skips, much of the earlier Jackson 5 tracks especially ones where Michael isn't lead, but later on will devote a page to say Quincy Jones' The Dude where Jackson contributed an inaudible backing vocal buried deep in the mix somewhere. Secondly, it's somewhat poorly written sometimes when it comes to descriptions of the songs themselves. There are a lot of meaningless, filler words used.

Still, there's a ton of information here that I didn't know, and I appreciate the huge efforts that went into this book. Loved all of the info on various releases, edits and remixes.

* Instead, that bible was the pocket size The Complete Guide to the Music of Michael Jackson & The Jackson Family by Geoff Brown. Would easily recommend this if wanting bitesize, but musically literate reviews of Jackson's songs up to 1996.… (mehr)

This beautiful, 600+ page book is the perfect gift for any Michael Jackson fan. Beautifully bound, the gray cover has a pixelated black and white image of Michael Jackson from the “Bad” years on the front and a full-color image of Michael Jackson during the “Off the Wall” years. There is a sturdy dust cover that covers this. The paper used is this book is sturdy, top-quality. This beautiful volume is filled with color and black and white images starting from the beginning of Jackson’s career in the Jackson Five, All the way up to Jackson’s last album, Xscape. I love the tabs along the pages that mark off the years from 1968 through to 2014, when his last album, a collection of work released as a tribute to him five years after his death. It also includes This Is It, a wonderful single, the first released after his death. This is the book that tells the story behind every song that the King of Pop ever performed. It also examines every dance move, album, and video.

I can’t say enough about this amazing book! It is well worth the $50 list price and for the sale price, it is a steal and sure to please!… (mehr)