"I Want You Back"

Jackson Five, The

album cover

The Prototypical J5 Single

A bubbly song of contrition, "I Want You Back" established the lucrative recipe the Jackson Five would follow for its entire hit-making run: Take one jittery, impossibly caffeinated beat. Add some strings, classic Motown harmonies, a singsong refrain so simple it sounds like a playground taunt. Mix it hot, so the vocals are inescapable. Then add some bite—in the form of a single electric guitar note that threads, Morse code–like, throughout the entire tune. That instrumental urgency, coupled with a scatsung "breakdown" that recalls Sly and the Family Stone's exuberant tag-team vocalizing, makes "I Want You Back" the apex of the J5.

And of course the song, which unseated B. J. Thomas's "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" at the top of the chart in January 1970, has Michael Jackson singing lead. Then age eleven, Jackson pleads with a grown-up's notion of how the script of love is supposed to go, talking about how he dismissed the girl prematurely and is now full of (painfully audible) regret. This performance stands among the most passionate vocals from any pop artist—not just those in the child-star division—and as a result has become an endlessly emulated benchmark. One could argue that the various generations of boy bands—from Jodeci in the '80s to Hanson and 'NSync in the '90s—derived their entire repertoire of wheedling and begging tactics from this track.

The Jackson Five was, in classic Motown fashion, a singles operation; the album carrying this song, Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five, is otherwise unexceptional. The best way to experience "I Want you Back" and the other radio blasts that followed is on any of the available anthologies.

Genre: R&B
Released: 1969, Motown
Appears On: Diana Ross Presents the Jackson Five; The Jackson Five Anthology.
Catalog Choice: Michael Jackson: Off the Wall.
Next Stop: Sly and the Family Stone: Stand!
After That: 'NSync: Celebrity.
Book Pages: 385–386