Trivia / Off the Wall

• Better Export for You: The first 20,000 copies of the UK LP release included a bonus picture disc single containing both halves of "You Can't Win" from The Wiz, the film that led to Quincy Jones discovering Jackson in the first place.
• Breakthrough Hit: After finding fame as The Jackson 5's frontman, this album and its single "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough" came close to being Michael's breakthrough as a solo artist, but in the end, the real breakthrough didn't happen until Jackson's next album.
• Creator Backlash: Ultimately subverted, and only with regard to the cover artwork. Not long after Off the Wall was released on CD in the mid-80s, the album artwork (prominently featuring Jackson's face as it looked in 1979) was modified so that the original back cover, which shows Jackson only from the waist down, was now also the album's front cover. This alteration just happened to coincide with his drastically changing physical appearance, caused by vitiligo and plastic surgery. The "new" cover artwork was used on all further pressings and reissues of Off the Wall for the next two decades, including the 2001 remaster, until Jackson's death in 2009. Since then, the original front cover has been officially re-embraced, and is again used on new pressings and remasters of the album.
• Cut Song: "Sunset Driver" was initially written and proposed by Jackson for Off the Wall, but didn't see an actual recording until the time of the Thriller sessions, wherein it was cut too. The song wouldn't see an official release until its inclusion on The Ultimate Collection box set in 2004.
• What Could Have Been: The last line of "She's Out of My Life" was originally "instead of being my wife, she's out of my life." Jackson, who was fine with all the other lyrics including the word "damned", felt he couldn't convincingly sing about getting married at his age, and asked the writer to bring back the earlier line "and it cuts like a knife" instead.

---