Released December 5, 1980 Genre R&B, Funk | Recorded 1980 Label Epic | |
Format 7" single, 3" CD single Length 5:44 (Album Version)
4:52 (Single Version)
2:09 (Immortal Version) | ||
"This Place Hotel" (originally named "Heartbreak Hotel") was a hit recording by The Jacksons when it was released in 1980.
Written and composed by Michael (and produced by The Jacksons), the song would precede Jackson's own hit, "Billie Jean", in its insecurity-plagued tale of confusion. While his brothers did not sing background vocals, they were credited with playing percussion on the album while brother Tito contributed a guitar solo. The song has a tempo of 98 beats per minute, making it notably slower than many of the other disco-based songs on the album. In the song, the protagonist speaks of a time when ten years ago, he took his girlfriend to a hotel for a romantic night - only to find out that it was designed specifically to break couples up. The staff at the hotel gave the girl the impression that he had cheated on her with someone else, something he did not do, which caused her to break up with him in the hotel.
The song reached number twenty-two on the Billboard pop singles chart and number two on the R&B singles chart. "This Place Hotel" was the group's second biggest single off their Triumph album, behind "Can You Feel It." The song, in turn, became a popular concert performance for the group's next two tours right into Michael's own Bad tour.
The song, like the aforementioned "Can You Feel It," has become one of the oft-sampled songs in hip-hop.
The song's title was changed because of the 1956 Elvis Presley hit, "Heartbreak Hotel". Michael claimed to be unaware of the Presley song but had the title changed nonetheless.
The song was performed on the Jacksons' Triumph Tour (thus appears on the Jacksons' subsequent live album) and was subsequently used on the Jacksons' Victory Tour. When Michael Jackson first toured as a solo act, "This Place Hotel" was the only Jacksons song to be used in both legs of the Bad World Tour, whereas the other songs by the group (with the exception of a medley of early Jackson 5 hits) were retired during the second leg. A spoken word and synth recording preceded the song on the first leg of the Bad tour, but for the second leg of the tour (and on the subsequent Dangerous World Tour) that recording was used as an intro to Jackson's hit "Smooth Criminal" instead.
The song was included on Michael Jackson's The Ultimate Collection and it has been remixed on the Immortal album in 2011. A live version of the song is available on the 2012 DVD Live at Wembley July 16, 1988. On March 23, 2014, a video clip of a live performance of the song from the Victory Tour was uploaded to The Jacksons' official YouTube account.