"Beat It" is a song by American singer Michael Jackson from his sixth studio album, Thriller (1982). It was written and composed by Jackson, produced by Quincy Jones, and co-produced by Jackson. Jones encouraged Jackson to include a rock song similar to "My Sharona" on the album. Jackson later said: "I wanted to write a song, the type of song that I would buy if I were to buy a rock song... And I wanted the children to really enjoy it — the school children as well as the college students." It includes a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen.
Following the successful Thriller singles "The Girl Is Mine" and "Billie Jean", "Beat It" was released on February 21, 1983, as the album's third single. It peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, staying there for three weeks. It also charted at number one on the Billboard Hot Black Singles chart. Billboard ranked the song No. 5 for 1983. It is certified 8× platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). "Beat It" was a number one hit in Europe, reaching number one in Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. With sales of over 10 million worldwide, "Beat It" is one of the best-selling songs of all time.
The song's music video, which stars members of Los Angeles-based street gangs, the Crips and the Bloods, at the height of their rivalry, helped establish Jackson as an international pop icon. The single, along with its music video, helped make Thriller the best-selling album of all time. "Beat It" has been cited as one of the most successful, recognized, awarded and celebrated songs in the history of popular music; both the song and video had a large impact on pop culture.
"Beat It" won the 1984 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance, as well as two American Music Awards. It was inducted into the Music Video Producers Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone ranked "Beat It" number 337 on its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004, and at number 185 in its 2021 update of the list. The magazine also named it the 81st greatest guitar song of all time. It was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll.
Production and composition Jackson first worked on a demo version of the song with musicians at his home studio. The drum part was programmed on a drum machine, and the bass line was a combination of electric bass guitar and Bell Labs Digital Synthesizer Synergy keyboard. This hybrid bass style was retained for the main recording session.
Sheet music for the song is in the key of E Minor in standard time, with a moderately fast tempo of 135–140 beats per minute. Jackson's vocal range is B3 to A5.
Upon hearing the first recorded vocals, Jones stated that it was exactly what he was looking for. The song begins with seven distinct synthesizer notes played on the Synclavier digital synthesizer, with Tom Bahler credited for the Synclavier performance on the song. The intro is taken note for note from a demo LP released the year before, called "The Incredible Sounds of Synclavier II" first published in 1981 by Denny Jaeger Creative Services, Inc., and sold by New England Digital, makers of the Synclavier. The drums were played by Toto co-founder Jeff Porcaro. Steve Porcaro and Steve Lukather, also Toto members, participate with synthesizers, and guitar and bass guitar respectively. Michael's older brother and fellow the Jacksons bandmate at the time Tito Jackson originally contributed a guitar solo, which was scrapped when Eddie Van Halen was called to perform the solo instead.
Jermaine Jackson has suggested the inspiration of "Beat It" and its video came from the Jackson family experiencing gang activity in Gary, Indiana. "From our front window, we witnessed, about three bad rumbles between rival gangs." The lyrics of "Beat It" have been described as a "sad commentary on human nature". The line "don't be a macho man" is said to express Jackson's dislike of violence, while also referring to the childhood abuse he faced at the hands of his father Joe.
Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo
Eddie Van Halen, lead guitarist of hard rock band Van Halen, was asked to add a guitar solo. When initially contacted by Jones, VanHalen thought he was receiving a prank call. Having established that the call was genuine, VanHalen used a rented Marshall amplifier, set up to use alongside his Frankenstrat guitar and an Echoplex, then recorded two takes of the solo free of charge. "I did it as a favor", the musician later said. "I was a complete fool, according to the rest of the band, our manager and everyone else. I was not used. I knew what I was doing—I don't do something unless I want to do it." VanHalen reported in 2015 that he also helped rearrange the song: they wanted him to solo over the chorus, but he suggested doing the solo over the verse section instead with the chord change underneath, which he felt worked better. The edits made based on this, however, interfered with the SMPTE timecode on the multitrack reel needed to synchronise with other multitrack reels for the complete song. Thus, guitarist Steve Lukather and drummer Jeff Porcaro had to re-cut the basic tracks of the song to fit around Jackson's lead vocal and the guitar solo with the help of engineer Humberto Gatica. Lukather recalled, "Initially, we rocked it out as Eddie had played a good solo—but Quincy thought it was too tough. So I had to reduce the distorted guitar sound and that is what was released."
Right before the guitar solo begins, a noise is heard that sounds like somebody knocking at a door. It is reported that the knock was a person walking into Van Halen's recording studio, while another story has claimed that the sound was simply Van Halen knocking on his own guitar.
It was reported that during the marathon mixing sessions, the engineers were shocked while working on Van Halen's solo to discover that the sound of his guitar caused the monitor speaker in the control room to catch fire, allegedly causing "Thriller" songwriter Rod Temperton to exclaim, "This must be really good!" In an interview in 2016, this was confirmed to be an urban legend. Following Jackson's death in 2009, Van Halen described working with him as "one of [the] fondest memories in [his] career".
Release and reception
"Beat It" was released in early 1983 to widespread acclaim, following the successful chart performances of "The Girl Is Mine" and "Billie Jean". Frank DiLeo, the vice president of Epic Records, convinced Jackson to release "Beat It" while "Billie Jean" was heading towards number one. DiLeo, who later became Jackson's manager, correctly predicted that both singles would remain in the top 10 at the same time. The song reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 on April 30, 1983. "Billie Jean" remained atop the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks, before being toppled by "Come On Eileen", which stayed at No. 1 for a single week, before Jackson reclaimed the position with "Beat It".
"Billie Jean" and "Beat It" occupied top 5 positions at the same time, a feat matched by very few artists. The single remained at the top of the Hot 100 for a total of three weeks. The song also charted at No. 1 on the US R&B singles chart and No. 14 on the Billboard Top Tracks chart in the US. Billboard ranked it at the No. 5 song for 1983. "Beat It" also claimed the top spot in Spain and the Netherlands, reached No. 3 in the UK and the top 20 in Austria, Norway, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland and #2 in Australia for 4 weeks while stuck behind the smash hit, "Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler.
During the week of Dec. 18, 1982, “Beat It” was one of Billboard's top three adds at rock radio alongside cuts by Sammy Hagar and Bob Seger. The song peaked at No. 14 on Billboard's rock tracks chart.
In a Rolling Stone review, Christopher Connelly describes "Beat It" as "maybe the best song" on Thriller, adding that it is "a this-ain't-no-disco AOR track if ever I heard one". He notes of the "nifty dance song", "Jackson's voice soars all over the melody, Eddie Van Halen checks in with a blistering guitar solo, you could build a convention center on the backbeat". AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine states that the song is both "tough" and "scared". Robert Christgau claimed that the song has Eddie Van Halen "wielding his might in the service of antimacho". Slant Magazine observed that the song was an "uncharacteristic dalliance with the rock idiom". The track also won praise from Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli, who stated that the song was "rambunctious".
"Beat It" has been recognized with several awards. At the 1984 Grammy Awards, the song earned Jackson two of record-eight awards: Record of the Year and Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. The track won the Billboard Music Award for favorite dance/disco 12" LP in 1983. The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a few months after its release, for shipments of at least one million units. In 1989, the standard format single was re-certified platinum by the RIAA, based on the revised sales level of one million units for platinum singles. The total number of digital sales in the US, as of August 2022, stands at 8,000,000.
Music video
The music video for "Beat It" helped establish Jackson as an international pop icon. The video was Jackson's first treatment of black youth and the streets. Both "Beat It" and "Thriller" are notable for their "mass choreography" of synchronized dancers, a Jackson trademark.
The video, which cost Jackson $150,000 to create after CBS refused to finance it, was filmed on Los Angeles' Skid Row—mainly on locations on East 5th Street—around March 9, 1983. To add authenticity to the production but also to foster peace between them, Jackson had the idea to cast members of rival Los Angeles street gangs Crips and Bloods. In addition to around 80 genuine gang members, the video, which is noted for opening up many job opportunities for dancers in the US, also featured 18 professional dancers and four breakdancers. Besides Jackson, Michael Peters, and Vincent Paterson, the cast included Michael DeLorenzo, Stoney Jackson, Tracii Guns, Tony Fields, Peter Tram, Rick Stone and Cheryl Song. The bar location shown in the latter part of the first minute of the video was also featured 13 years earlier in the gatefold and on the back cover of the Doors 1970 album, Morrison Hotel. Coincidentally, the name of that skid row bar, the Hard Rock Café, was also the inspiration for the London original of the famous chain of restaurants begun in 1971.
The video was written and directed by Bob Giraldi and produced by Ralph Cohen, Antony Payne and Mary M. Ensign through the production company GASP. The second video released for the Thriller album, it was choreographed by Peters who also performed, alongside Vincent Paterson, as one of the two lead dancers. Despite some sources claiming otherwise, Jackson was involved in creating some parts of the choreography. Jackson asked Giraldi, at the time already an established commercial director but who had never directed a music video, to come up with a concept for the "Beat It" video because he really liked a commercial Giraldi had directed for WLS-TV in Chicago about a married couple of two elderly blind people who instead of running from a run-down neighborhood all the other white people had fled from, chose to stay and throw a block party for all the young children in the area. Contrary to popular belief, the concept of the video was not based on the Broadway musical West Side Story; in reality, Giraldi drew inspiration from his growing up in Paterson, New Jersey.