{"id":744888,"date":"2026-07-05T16:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T16:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744888\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T16:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T16:40:09","slug":"i-cant-believe-most-people-dont-remember-when-mick-jagger-and-michael-jackson-united-for-a-duet-in-1984","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/744888\/","title":{"rendered":"I Can\u2019t Believe Most People Don\u2019t Remember When Mick Jagger and Michael Jackson United for a Duet in 1984"},"content":{"rendered":"

The song featured two of the biggest stars on the planet at the time. That\u2019s why it\u2019s somewhat surprising how murky the details surrounding \u201cState Of Shock\u201d are. While credited to The Jacksons and Mick Jagger when released in 1984, the song was essentially Jagger and Michael Jackson trading yelps and grunts on the microphone.<\/p>\n

Even though the song hit the Top 10 in 1984, it\u2019s somewhat of an obscurity today, rarely played and somewhat unloved. Let\u2019s delve into the somewhat confused circumstances to find out just why that might be.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tVideos by American Songwriter\t\t<\/p>\n

Mercury Bows Out<\/p>\n

The first thing that you have to realize about \u201cState Of Shock\u201d, which might explain its odd place in history, is that Mick Jagger was a Plan B. Initially, Michael Jackson planned to record the song with Freddie Mercury. And the pair did lay the track down, at least as a demo.<\/p>\n

In fact, Jackson and Mercury worked on several songs together for a planned release. There were even rumors of a colossal collaboration featuring The Jacksons and Queen. But that never quite came to pass, and why that is stands as one of the first mysteries surrounding this song.<\/p>\n

The old standby excuse \u201cscheduling conflicts\u201d has been bandied about as a possibility. Still, it\u2019s hard to imagine, considering the monumental pairing, that such concerns would be prohibitive. It seems more than likely that there was some kind of record company conflict that prevented these tracks, including \u201cState Of Shock\u201d, from seeing the light of day.<\/p>\n

\u201cShock\u201d Treatment<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Still, the idea of Jackson releasing the song as a major collaboration with another artist didn\u2019t die. That\u2019s when Mick Jagger entered the picture. In 1983, which is when Jagger recorded his vocals, he was constantly fighting with Keith Richards over the artistic direction of The Rolling Stones and only a few years from starting his solo career<\/a>. Such a duet likely proved very tempting.<\/p>\n

How this duet took place stands as another confused part of the story. Some reports claim that Jagger simply added his vocals to a preexisting recording. Others say that the two men did work on the vocals together (this seems like the more likely story), although the session was relatively quick.<\/p>\n

\u201cState Of Shock\u201d certainly sinks into a fiery, minimalistic funk groove, at least when it comes to the music. There\u2019s not much to the lyrics, however, and the arrangement, with Jackson and Jagger kind of screaming on top of each other during the verses, doesn\u2019t do the song any favors either. Even though the song made it to No. 3, it petered out pretty fast, lacking the durability that the star power behind it might suggest.<\/p>\n

Mick & Mike\u2019s Misfire<\/p>\n

We\u2019re also not sure who wrote \u201cState Of Shock\u201d. It\u2019s credited to Jackson and Randy Hansen. But Hansen, a guitarist who worked with Jackson, likely didn\u2019t have much to do with it. Jackson once claimed that a 12-year-old named Randy Hansen actually wrote the lyrics. More than likely, Freddie Mercury contributed lyrics but couldn\u2019t be credited for the same contractual reasons listed above.<\/p>\n

And what of the aftermath? Well, we don\u2019t have much in the way of direct quotes from the participants about the experience. But based on several books, it seems that neither Jackson nor Jagger was rushing to form a mutual appreciation society after everything was done.<\/p>\n

In the end, \u201cState Of Shock\u201d was more event than song. The fact that it\u2019s more notable today for the curiosity surrounding its creation than the actual listening experience it provides says a lot about it.<\/p>\n

(Photo by Dave Hogan\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The song featured two of the biggest stars on the planet at the time. That\u2019s why it\u2019s somewhat…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,27355,1733,216,17172],"class_list":["post-744888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-michael-jackson","tag-mick-jagger","tag-music","tag-pop-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}