Michael jackson Smooth criminal

"Smooth Criminal" is the seventh single from Michael Jackson's 1987 Bad album . The song contains a fast-paced beat intertwined with Jackson's lyrics about a woman named Annie, who has been attacked in her apartment by a "smooth" assailant. It was released as a single on October 24, 1988 and peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.^[1] It was re-released on April 10, 2006 as a part of the Visionary: The Video Singles box-set. The re-released Visionary single charted at No. 19 in the UK. The piece is one of Jackson's signature songs, and has appeared on numerous greatest hits albums, including Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, Michael Jackson: The Ultimate Collection, King of Pop and This Is It.

The song also serves as the theme song to Jackson's 1988 film Moonwalker.

"Smooth Criminal" was a song that almost didn't make it into the Bad album. With the final decision to include the song, Jackson originally decided to make the music video a western-styled short film. However, he later decided to change the style into a 1930s nightclub style.^[2]

An early version of the song was written by Jackson in 1985 and the original demo was recorded in 1986. The original title was "Al Capone". This version didn't make the album and was re-worked and re-written as "Smooth Criminal".

The style of both the clip and the clothes as well as mannerisms Jackson portrayed were reused in the arcade, the Sega Master System, the Sega Mega Drive and the Sega Game Gear adaptations of Moonwalker. The song itself serves as the soundtrack for the Club 30s stage, the nightclub from the movie, in all versions of the game.

The song was performed live during the second leg of Jackson's 1987–88 Bad World Tour. The performance featured a dance routine modeled after the scene from Moonwalker. By the time the 1992 Dangerous World Tour came around, this performance became a regular on Jackson tours, including his HIStory Tour. A spoken word and synth recording preceded the song on the second leg of the Bad tour and on the subsequent Dangerous World Tour, the same recording having been used as an intro for the song "This Place Hotel" on the first leg of the Bad tour. By the time of the Dangerous tour, Jackson had devised a way to perform the patented anti-gravity lean, which was featured in the Moonwalker video, on stage. Much like the robot move from "Dancing Machine" and the Moonwalk from "Billie Jean", this showcased Jackson's talent for creating unique moves to enhance stage performances. This performance can be seen on the Bucharest Dangerous Tour performance which is included as a DVD in The Ultimate Collection boxed set.

Part of the song was also briefly used in the middle of the live version of the song "Dangerous" since Jackson's performance at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards. In the HIStory Tour, he used a small snippet of this song during his performance of "Dangerous". Jackson was also going to use it again in his "Dangerous" performance in This Is It, along with the full track, had the concert series not been canceled due to his sudden death.

[edit] Short film

The film begins with three homeless children (Sean, Katie and Zeke) sneaking through a big city to see their friend Michael walk out of his store. As Michael stands in front of the door, he gazes at the night sky before he is attacked by mobsters with machine guns. The film then backtracks to show Michael and the children playing in a meadow in happier times. Their dog Skipper runs away, and as Michael and Katie look for him. they uncover the lair of Mr. Big (Joe Pesci). Mr. Big – whose real name is Frankie LiDeo, which is an anagram of Frank DiLeo – is a drug-dealing mobster with a disciplined private army at his command. He wants to get the entire population of Earth addicted to drugs, starting with children. He likes to eat nuts and leaves nutshells wherever he goes. He is obsessed with spiders, as displayed by their abundance at the entrance to his lair and his operation named "bugs and drugs". He also has them engulfing a model globe when making a speech about his burgeoning drug empire. They signify the spread of his proposed control of the world via drug dealing. Further, all his henchmen sport a spider crest on their uniforms. Katie screams when she sees a spider, and Mr. Big discovers them spying on his operation.

The story returns to the shooting in front of Michael's store. Unknown to the gangsters, Michael has a lucky star, and using it, he escaped the gunfire. Upon realizing that Michael has escaped again, Mr. Big orders his henchmen to track him down with dogs. He is eventually cornered in an alley, where he uses his lucky star again to turn into a sportscar (the 1970 Lancia Stratos prototype) that mows down several of Mr. Big's henchmen. Michael is pursued through the city streets until he loses the henchmen. Meanwhile, the children scout out Club 30's, where Michael had told them to meet him, and find only an abandoned and haunted nightclub. As Michael arrives, Katie sees a silhouette of him turning back from a car into himself. The door of the club opens with a gust of wind, and Michael walks in to find it filled with zoot suiters and swing dancers. The children gather outside a window of the club and watch Michael dance to "Smooth Criminal."

The song used in the film is much longer than the album release, with several lyrics that clarify the story. There is also an interlude where Jackson joins the other dancers in a modern interpretive dance. At the climax of the song, Mr. Big lays siege to the club and kidnaps Katie. Michael follows them back to Big's lair and ends up surrounded by his henchmen. Mr. Big appears and taunts Michael by threatening to inject Katie with highly addictive narcotics. Katie breaks free for a moment, but Mr. Big grabs her again and starts kicking Michael. As Mr. Big stands over Michael and orders his henchmen to kill him and Katie, Michael looks up and sees his lucky star. He transforms into a giant robot and kills all of Mr. Big's soldiers, then turns into a spaceship. Mr. Big gets into a large hillside-mounted energy cannon, firing on the spaceship into a nearby ravine. The children are his next target, but the spaceship returns from the ravine just in time to fire a beam in the cannon with Mr. Big inside, killing him. The children watch the ship fly into the night sky with shower of light.

The children return to the city, believing that Michael is gone forever. As the boys talk about Michael, Katie walks away crying and clutching a paper star. As she sits in a corner wishing for him to come back, the paper star flies out of her hand and Michael walks out of the night fog. He takes them to Club 30's, where they find that the club has turned into the backstage area of a concert. Michael's stage crew return the children's missing dog and then escort Michael onto the stage where he performs "Come Together".