The BEST Moments from MJ's Greatest Run, Ranked
You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians
Peter Martin
4.8 • 838 Ratings
🗓️ 8 June 2026
⏱️ 22 minutes
🔗️ Recording | Apple Podcasts | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jazz musicians Adam Maness and Peter Martin review their three favorite songs from Michael Jackson's most iconic albums: Bad, Thriller and Off the Wall. And their choices aren't what you might expect.
Plus - Adam, Peter and the Open Studio band play their jazzy interpretation of Michael Jackson's Smooth Criminal.
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Off the Wall: https://youtu.be/jR9zxGueeq4
Thriller: https://youtu.be/KZx6W3SI8JA
Bad: https://youtu.be/XgcI9LkZqeo
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About You'll Hear It:
In this popular music series, Adam and Peter break down the greatest albums of all time. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, D'Angelo: Jazz is the foundation of the most GENIUS music in recent history. These seasoned jazz pianists bring their deep musical knowledge to every joyful episode to help you hear the hidden qualities that make music AMAZING. You'll never hear music the same way again.
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00:00 The Top 3 Songs on Bad, Thriller and Off the Wall
00:55 #3
05:02 #2
12:23 #1
16:40 "Smooth Criminal" - Open Studio
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Mind-blowing. |
| 0:03.4 | That is a vocal performance that only Michael Jackson could do. |
| 0:06.4 | That's a perfect track. |
| 0:07.4 | It's a perfect track. |
| 0:07.8 | I'm going to put it out there. |
| 0:08.6 | It wasn't until I was a teenager that I discovered. |
| 0:11.5 | This specific track, I said, is that Michael Jackson? Hey, Adam. |
| 0:30.0 | You know what we're doing today? |
| 0:32.2 | What? |
| 0:32.8 | We're going to look back at some of our favorite moments. |
| 0:36.1 | Yep. |
| 0:36.3 | Over here. |
| 0:37.0 | Oh, yeah. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. But we're looking back in time. Oh, okay. You know, what would you say is our favorite period of Michael Jackson, the greatest run, if we were to isolate three albums? Off the Wall Thriller Ben. Yeah, that's what we're looking back on. Every moment with these albums is amazing, but these are some that stand above the rest. So stick around. You'll see it and you'll hear it. |
| 0:59.8 | Thriller at the time when it came out was, and still remains one of my all-time favorite. |
| 1:05.0 | I think Thriller is as close as a perfect pop record that's ever been made. |
| 1:09.0 | I think we can all agree that it should be talked about in that sense. |
| 1:12.9 | But I didn't really know off the wall because it was a little bit before my time. |
| 1:16.2 | Thriller was so massive and then bad was so massive. |
| 1:19.7 | Those two specifically, and I love Dangerous too, by the way. |
| 1:22.2 | Don't get me wrong. |
| 1:22.7 | But like that run, Thriller and Beyond, kind of just took over my early childhood. |
| 1:29.2 | Michael Jackson was my favorite artist, danced in my kitchen every night to Thriller when it |
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