Howdy do, and welcome to this week’s Pop Essays on this sunny May morning. And we’ve got a suitably uptempo bop paying homage to a music icon for this week’s lost gem…
- Artist: The Mitchell Brothers
- Song: Michael Jackson
- Released: 05/11/2007
- Writers / Producers: Owura “Tony” Nyanin / Kofi “Teddy” Hanson / Calvin Harris
- Highest UK Chart Position: #65
- Chart Run: 65 – 92
Sometimes, all the connections in the world aren’t enough on their own to make a successful transition across the boundaries of niche sounds and into the mainstream. Just ask The Mitchell Brothers. And no, before you ask, we are not talking about Grant and Phil from EastEnders.
The emergence of Mike Skinner – the urban poet, musician, producer and rapper, better known as The Streets – in the early-mid 00s, undoubtedly pioneered British rap music and offered some serious competition to the Stateside big guns, offering the genre an every geezer, laddish appeal that wittily and incisively reflected life in modern urban Britain.
It was after the success of his second album in 2004, the concept rap opera album A Grand Don’t Come For Free, which yielded BRIT Award, Ivor Novello and Mercury Prize nominations, sold over 1.2 million copies and generated some of his best known hits, including “Fit But You Know It” and the chart topping “Dry Your Eyes”, that he added another string to his illustrious bow: that of record label boss.
Together with Ted Mayhem, he set up The Beats, a sub-label of 679 Recordings who he was signed to. One of his first signings were The Mitchell Brothers, who he had first spotted two years previously, around the time of the release of his first album, Original Pirate Material.
The teenage pairing of Tony Nyanin and Teddy Hanson had already produced a mix CD, called Sorted, and had pressed up to a limited number of 1000 copies, and were discovered by Mike in their local Barclays Bank in Brixton in South London, where Hanson slipped him a copy of their demo CD with their phone number on it.
They were launched with a blaze of publicity in March 2005, but their debut single, “Routine Check”, which featured Mike and Kano, just missed out on a top 40 debut, peaking instead at #42, followed by their debut album, A Breath Of Fresh Attire, and a string of equally brilliant tracks such as “Excuse My Brother” and “Alone With The TV”, few of which ventured any further than the lower regions of the top 75.
With the release of their second album, Dressed For The Occasion, in 2007, there was definitely more of a concerted effort to cross them over not just into the mainstream but to other audiences too, working with the likes of Plan B and Franz Ferdinand. Originally planned for release that July, the underperformance of the first single “Solemate” was a contributing factor in the album being pushed back to November, after a second single.
There was only one thing for it: a hit was required, and so the dice was thrown as one track on the album lined up as the next single was transformed completely. In its original form on the album, “Michael Jackson” was a much more sedate sounding affair, certainly for a track which was an irreverent yet affectionate tribute to the King of Pop.
Enter one Calvin Harris into the equation. In a time before being every Heart FM mums’ favourite DJ, a serial Rag’n’Bone Man collaborator and underwear modelling came calling, 2007 had seen him make his chart debut with his first album, I Created Disco, yielding the top 10 smashes “Acceptable In The 80s” and “The Girls”.
His then retro referencing production style had caught the eyes and ears of everyone from Kylie Minogue to All Saints, which was how he came to stick a rocket up the arse of the single and make it sound like an utterly bonkers but brilliant floorfiller that was worthy of MJ himself.
Squelchy electronic riffs and juddering synths pop and explode around the machine gun fired rapped verses and the chorus: “I wish I could move like Michael Jackson / Spin around have the world in a gaze / I wish I could move like Michael Jackson / Hit the ground, glide across the stage / I wish I could move like Michael Jackson / Getting down with my shoulders shakin’ / I said, I wish I could move like Michael Jackson / Hee hee aoow!”
It’s the references to some of Michael’s trademark tics and performance attributes that are leant into here with such aplomb, and without a trace of irony, that makes what could have so easily become a bit of a novelty record into something that is the encapsulation of brilliance, even down to the video, which has a wannabe MJ attempting to learn to Moonwalk in a dilapidated flat whilst the duo and Calvin perform on a TV set, and the artwork for the single cover, which is a reference to the album cover for Jackson’s own Bad from 1987.
And yet, despite this, and championing from Annie Mac on Radio 1 (we heard the premiere of the single on her Friday night show she hosted back then, which was how we came to discover it), it failed to have the desired commercial impact. Entering and peaking at #65, it was ultimately the last roll of the dice for The Mitchell Brothers, who quietly went their seperate ways not long after.
It did subsequently find a brief second wind over two years later, in December 2009, when BBC Three used it as the theme tune to a short lived reality TV dance show called, appropriately enough, Move Like Michael Jackson, hosted by Jamelia and Reggie Yates, with the aim of finding dance talent with the same charisma and showmanship of Michael Jackson, who by that point had passed away in June of that year. One can only guess with hindsight whether it would have had greater impact on the posthumous factor.
Don’t forget to follow our Pop Essays playlist on Spotify, which includes this and all the songs we’ve written about. What are your memories of this week’s featured song or band? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or message us on our Instagram.
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