Blame It on the Boogie

"Blame It on the Boogie" is a song released in 1978 by English singer-songwriter Mick Jackson. It has been covered by the Jacksons, Clock and Luis Miguel.

Background
The song was co-authored by Mick Jackson (credited as Michael George Jackson-Clarke) as well as Mick's brother David Jackson and Elmar Krohn.

Although Mick Jackson recorded the song in 1977, "Blame It on the Boogie" was written in hopes of being sold to Stevie Wonder.

The two versions of the song were widely released by the artists' respective labels—Atlantic and CBS—within one day of each other. Mick Jackson's track was showcased in 1978 at Midem where, according to Mick Jackson, "The Jacksons' manager [Peter Kerstin] heard the track being played...and took a tape recording of it...back to the States [where] the Jacksons quickly recorded a version so it would be out before mine." The Mick Jackson recording was released by Atlantic Records in the US in August 1978 when it reached #61, and #15 in the UK.

According to Michael Jackson of the Jacksons, Bobby Colomby, who was producing the Jacksons' Destiny album, brought the group "Blame It on the Boogie". "It was an uptempo, finger-poppin'-time type song that was a good vehicle for the band approach we wanted to cultivate. I had fun slurring the chorus: [the lyric] 'Blame It on the Boogie' could be sung in one breath without putting my lips together."

Record World praised Michael Jackson's "silky vocals and energetic youthful delivery."

Personnel

 * Michael Jackson – lead vocals, rhythm arrangements
 * Jackie Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Randy Jackson – background vocals, rhythm arrangements
 * Tito Jackson – guitar, background vocals, vocal arrangements
 * John Luongo – mixing
 * Don Murray – engineer
 * Bobby Colomby, Mike Atkinson – executive producer

Additional musicians

 * Roland Bautista, Michael Sembello – guitar
 * Nathan Watts, Gary King – bass guitar
 * Greg Phillinganes – keyboards, rhythm arrangements
 * Rick Marotta – drums, percussion
 * Laudir de Oliveira, Claudio Slon – percussion (congas)
 * Jerry Hey – horn arrangements

Chart records
Despite the Mick Jackson original reaching a No. 61 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1978, Epic Records that month released the Jacksons' version of "Blame It on the Boogie" as the advance single from the Destiny album. Although "Blame It on the Boogie" returned the Jacksons to the Hot 100 after five flop singles, it was not the single to effect a major comeback for the Jacksons, peaking at #54; it would be the follow-up, "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", which would briefly restore the Jacksons' Top Ten fortunes. However, "Blame It on the Boogie" did reach No. 3 R&B and would be coupled with "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)" on an extended club play single which would reach No. 20 on the dance charts in 1979.

In the UK, both the Mick Jackson version and the Jacksons' were released within a few days of each other in September 1978. The UK music press, struck by the rival versions being by similarly named artists, declared a "Battle of the Boogie" which Mick Jackson recalls as "great publicity...There was an equal balance of interest from the media about both releases – A good example is that my version came out first on Top of the Pops... The Jackson's [sic] had the second week...Radio One played The Jackson's [sic] version and Capital Radio only played mine – It was fair."

The Jacksons' version—incorrectly lauded by Melody Maker as their "self-penned song"—was the more successful version reaching Number 8 on the chart dated 4 November 1978; the Mick Jackson version—hailed by NME as "far superior"—had peaked at Number 15 on the chart for 21 October.

Mick Jackson himself in 2003 said of the Jacksons' version of "Blame It on the Boogie": "[the original] version had 100% of our heart and soul in it but the Jacksons' version had the magic extra 2% that made it incredible."

Music video
A promotional music video by the Jacksons was created for "Blame It on the Boogie" in 1978. The video, featuring the group's members dancing on a black background, relied heavily on electronic trail effects, created at Image West, Ltd. using then-cutting edge equipment: the Scanimate analog computer system and a Quantel DFS 3000 digital framestore. The video also appears on the bonus disc of the DVD box set Michael Jackson's Vision.

Michael Jackson's 1993 biography states that the video marked his video debut. The Jacksons' very first promotional music video was "Enjoy Yourself".

Big Fun version
In 1989, Stock Aitken Waterman produced a cover version of "Blame It on the Boogie" for British boy band Big Fun. Their version was released as a single the same year, and was later included in their 1990 album A Pocketful of Dreams. It peaked at number four in the UK, number five in Spain and number seven in Ireland, becoming Big Fun's most successful single on the chart.

Critical reception
In a review published in Smash Hits, Dannii Minogue stated that "it's good, but it couldn't beat the Jacksons' version. A hit? Definitely, especially in the UK. But it really doesn't sound like they [Big Fun] can sing!" In 2014, Matt Dunn of WhatCulture ranked the song at number 13 in his "15 unforgettable Stock Aitken Waterman singles" list, adding that this cover "was the embodiment of [SAW] 1989 sound: approaching 120bpm, stuttered vocoder effects, some keys to capitalise on the emerging piano house craze, the driving 4/4 beat and that sampled drum loop". Regarding the music video, he stated: "With three pretty boys wearing bright primary colours and matching bumbags, some funky choreography, clever visuals and all that dodgy falsetto, it was hard not to like (or at least laugh at)".

Other notable versions

 * Tina Charles has stated that she recorded "Blame It on the Boogie" prior to the Jacksons; her version was not released as "Sony [felt] it was not a strong enough song."
 * 1990: Luis Miguel covered the song in Spanish as "Será Que No Me Amas" (Will it be that you don't love me?") on the album 20 Años. Será Que No Me Amas was featured in Luis Miguel: The Series as Luisito Rey, due to his low influence in English speaking producing circles, could not help his son get a collaboration with Michael Jackson. Despite that he did manage to arrange the rights from Peter Kerstin, in order to make his cover-homage-interpretation. The lyrics were adapted in Spanish by Juan Carlos Calderón. The song was released as the third single from the album and it received significant radio airplay in Mexico, peaking at number 14. A live version of the song was featured on El Concierto (1995).
 * 1998: Dance act Clock brought "Blame It on the Boogie" back to the UK Top 20 (Number 16).

Documentary
In 2010, filmmaker Patrick Nation made a Channel 4 documentary about Mick Jackson and the story of the song, entitled The Other Michael Jackson: Battle of the Boogie. The documentary was co-written and presented by Mick's son Sam Peter Jackson and led to Mick Jackson's 1978 album Weekend (which features the original version of "Blame It on the Boogie") being re-released (for download on the iTunes Store) for the first time in 30 years by Demon Music. To promote the documentary, Mick gave a rare television interview to BBC Breakfast.