Music and Me

Music & Me was the third solo album by American singer Michael Jackson, released in 1973 on the Motown label, selling two million copies worldwide. The album was reissued in 2009 as part of the 3-disc compilation Hello World: The Motown Solo Collection.
The album was released during a difficult period for Jackson, who was 14 years old at the time, as he was experiencing vocal changes and facing a changing music landscape. Having been influenced by fellow Motown label mates Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, Jackson wanted to include his own compositions on the album, but Motown refused to allow this.
Despite featuring a photo of Jackson strumming an acoustic guitar on the album cover, he does not actually play an instrument on the album. Jackson would later express his frustrations about this to his father, Joe Jackson, who would later work to terminate Michael and his brother's contract with Motown, and negotiate lucrative contracts for them with Epic Records.
Since Jackson was on a world tour with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, promotion on this album was limited. The Stevie Wonder cover, "With a Child's Heart", was released as a single in the United States, where it reached #14 on the Billboard R&B Singles chart and #50 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. Two additional songs ("Music and Me" and "Morning Glow") were released as singles in the UK, but they failed to chart. Another track, "Too Young", was released as a single in Italy, while the track "Happy" was a single in Australia and "Doggin' Around" was a limited-release single in the Netherlands. Ten years after this album's release, "Happy" was released as a single in the UK to promote Motown's 18 Greatest Hits compilation album. For the compact disc issues of the album, the text on the album was changed and the shade of green was darker.
After this release, Jackson took two years to work on a follow-up album that focused on his maturing voice which became, Forever, Michael.
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by Ron Wynn
This was Michael Jackson's least successful album during his solo run at Motown. The songs were undistinguished, Jackson sounded tentative and uninterested vocally, and the production and arrangements were routine at best, sometimes inferior. There's little wonder that Jackson at this point began to openly express his desires to expand his horizons and try a fresher, more contemporary approach.