Smooth Criminal and the 45-Degree Lean

Michael Jackson wasn't satisfied with having made the moonwalk popular all over the world in 1983.

And why should he have been satisfied? His career shows that he had no limits.

So, in 1988, he thought of surprising the world again with special effects ☺️​ when he released Smooth Criminal.

The song was chosen as the seventh single from the 1987 album Bad.

An almost obligatory choice, considering that the album had eleven tracks (in the end, the singles were ten... a well-exploited album, I'd say!).

In any case, given the MTV era and the success that his videos were having, Michael Jackson dedicated himself to the making of the video for Smooth Criminal with his usual meticulous care.

He created the choreography with Vincent Paterson, with whom he had already worked on the videos for Thriller and Beat It, and with Jeffrey Daniel.

And what came out of that choreography?

Yes, another moonwalk gem: the 45-degree lean, o antigravity lean.

Remember when Michael and the dancers lean forward with their bodies straight but their feet planted firmly on the ground and then return to the starting position? Well, that's the 45-degree lean.

Of course, it was an illusion obtained with the support of cables and harnesses since the move is impossible to perform, but the effect obtained was perhaps greater than what they expected.

Given the results, in fact, Michael Jackson also used the move in his concerts, after special moccasins were designed for the Dangerous Tour in 1992 that fit into pins protruding from under the stage. The dancers, therefore, remained attached to the floor while they leaned forward.

In 1993, Michael Jackson and two of his collaborators patented the method.

Going back to Smooth Criminal, the commercial success was great, which is obvious since we're talking about the golden age of Michael Jackson, a little less if we consider that the album Bad had been on sale for fifteen months, and millions of people around the world were already regularly listening to Smooth Criminal and all the other tracks.

Just out of curiosity, the total sales of the album seem to have now exceeded 45 million copies.

For those who in the early 2000s did not watch music TV and did not listen to the radio, I recommend listening to the version of Smooth Criminal by the American group Alient Ant Farm.

If you prefer a version a little less faithful to the original, you can listen to the one by 2Cellos.

2Cellos were a Croatian-Slovenian cellist duo (they disbanded in 2022) who performed famous songs only with their cellos.

The video of their performance of Smooth Criminal, posted on YouTube in 2011, went viral. The song is featured on their first album 2Cellos.

Now, let's enjoy some 45 degree lean with the original version of Smooth Criminal.