Michael Jackson is in rarified air when it comes to billion-view music videos on YouTube. This week, the late King of Pop notched his fifth visual to cross that mark when the gangster-themed clip for his 1988 single “Smooth Criminal” crossed the 10-digit mark.
The track from Jackson’s seventh album, 1987’s Bad, was brought to vivid life by director Colin Chilvers, who tapped into a 1930 gangster nightclub vibe for one of MJ’s most beloved videos. Jackson also paid homage to one of his musical and dancing heroes in it via a white suit and matching fedora that tipped its hat to dancer/actor/singer Fred Astaire.
The nearly 10-minute mini movie opens with Jackson running to the door of an underground club — where he’s blasted by a gust of white wind — before entering to silence as the clubgoers stare him down warily. In classic MJ fashion, he flips a coin through the tense air, landing it perfectly into the slot of a juke box, which, of course, cues up the rhythmic Quincy Jones co-produced track.
What comes next is a clinic in classic Jackson, with the singer popping, locking and skittering across the club’s floor while executing some of his signature spins and fancy footwork while breaking hearts and deftly dispatching would-be assassins with his signature elan. The action culminates in the video’s centerpiece movie, the “anti-gravity lean,” during which the track drops out and time slows down, before the beat picks back up and the singer slides into his moonwalk and then appears to defy the rules of the physical universe by keeping his feet planted and back straight while his body dips into a nearly 45 degree angle before righting itself.
According to a 2018 article in The Telegraph, the stunt was achieved via unseen cables, because, as neurosurgeon Dr. Nishant Yagnick told the paper, “It’s not really possible physically to do it. He was cheating gravity.” Jackson later patented a specially designed shoe with a hook in it so that he could recreate the stunt live, as most humans are able to pull off, at best, a 30-degree lean without injuring themselves.
A group dance number brings things to a close as Jackson opens fire with a machine gun, sending the revelers running for the exits.
“Smooth Criminal” joins a handful of other all-time-classic Jackson videos with more than one billion YouTube views, including such beloved hits as “Beat It,” “Billie Jean,” “They Don’t Care About Us” and MJ’s Halloween-appropriate 14-minute scarefest, “Thriller.”
Watch the “Smooth Criminal” video below.
