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Is "Invincible" as good as previous MJ's Albums ?

Is Invincible as Good as previous MJ's Albums...

  • YES

    Votes: 188 64.6%

  • NO

    Votes: 103 35.4%
  • Total voters
    291
'invincible' has a light that his 90's albums lack (for obvious reasons). so in that respect, I actually think it's better. I don't think it's classic in the sense that 'thriller' is (what is? lol), but it's still decent.

in revisiting it, the pacing is a lot better than I remember. in my mind, it was always 'the 3 fast songs at the beginning, and the rest is slow until threatened'.

it has a bit of everything from Michael's past catalogue; 'butterflies' always reminded me of 'I can't help it'. the anger and aggression from the 90's work carries over to 'unbreakable' and 'privacy'. 'threatened' was always intended to be a sequel to 'thriller'. I see 'whatever happens' as a somewhat lighter version of 'who is it' in terms of tone, not content. my favourite cut 'you rock my world', has a similar structure and feel to 'remember the time'. 'cry' and 'the lost children' are the mandatory humanitarian songs. Michael has been using rappers since 'dangerous'. yet there's room for innovation with dance experimentals '2000 watts' and 'heartbreaker'. the latter continues the long thread of distrust towards women. 'break of dawn' takes 'lady in my life' to such a level that it's explicit!

Michael's vocal range on this album is wide. it's clear that he's matured in many areas, yet there are times when he sounds just as youthful in his 40's as he did in his 20's ('speechless' and 'you rock my world'). I do miss hearing him do all of his background vocals though. 'heaven can wait' sounded a bit anoymous as a result. he also sounded a bit congested on some tracks to me, as if he was having problems breathing :(

as some have already mentioned, I think one of the main issues is length; the number of tracks and how long they are. even the radio edit of 'you rock my world' tends to go on for a bit for me. I don't think a song should overstay its welcome. then again, I'm not an albums person..
 
Invincible to me has more in common with the posthumous albums than with Michael's previous albums.

I mean I'm all for reinventing and giving the listener something new but I feel Michael lost sight of what his listener wanted, which was that Michael sound.
I totally agree about the background vocals, I miss them so much. It just doesn't feel the same.
It's nicer to see a return to his softer side in Break Of Dawn and Butterflies its a style that MJ slides into naturally.
The only thing I miss more than his background vocals is his solo song writing talent, I understand why (raising his kids, which is much more important), but the album did suffer massively because of it.

There is good points with Invincible but there is not enough of them to be considered a classic Michael Jackson album for me
 
I am not of the opinion that a song has to be self written in order to be good. I judge a song based on; melody, lyrics and concept, vocals, production... most importantly, how it makes me feel. will I be listening for years to come? none of this is determined by who happened to write it. that might be an ego thing..

there are billions of people on this planet. how is Michael to cater to everyone's musical needs, and still stay true to who he is as an artist? this is where I feel that the 'king of pop' title trapped him. that started with 'dangerous' (not the crowning, but the acknowledgement). you just have to be honest, not only with the content, but the intentions for your career as a whole. people should gravitate towards truth.

I prefer the 'michael' album to 'xscape', 'invincible'.. and any album post 'thriller'. having said that, I think it's unfair to compare posthumous work to lifetime work. especially when decades old vocals are used for current releases.
 
Invincible album isn't close to a 1.8. It's def. not *****'s A game but "You Rock My World" and "Butterflies" are pretty damn good.
 
This is very complicated. To put it bluntly: No, not really. Is it a great album? Yes.

I mean, If I were to say that to anyone else, they'd probably say: "That's only because you're a MICHAEL JACKSON FAN." Indeed I am. But there's a reason he's called 'The King of Pop.' He's just THAT Good. Even when he's not making albums like 'Thriller' while breaking all-time records, and singing 'Man In The Mirror' in front of thousands of crying fans; he's still beyond fantastic.
 
It’s a very good album.

As to whether or not I’d compare it to the ones that went before it, I simply can’t. All 6 of his original Sony albums are great.

The only thing I would say is that I prefer Invincible over History. IMO it is a better album.


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It's phenomenal. I think only contender for the album is dangerous


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Gonetoosoon said:
Great points.

I love Dangerous - but where it falls down a little for me is the lack of a love song/ballad on there. It's the same to a lesser extent with HIStory (HIStory was written at a different time in Michael's life which we all know)

OTW - Rock With You/She's Out Of My Life/It's the Falling In Love
Thriller - Lady in My Life/Baby Be Mine/Girl Is Mine
Bad - Liberian Girl/I Just Can't Stop Loving You
Dangerous - um... Remember The Time?
HIStory - um... :/
Invincible - Break Of Dawn/Heaven Can Wait/Butterflies/Speechless/YAML/DWA/Whatever Happens

Case in point.
Click to expand...

I kinda think that was one of the points with Dangerous. There is no straight love song on the album, bar Remember The Time. It was more about lust and passion and longing as evidenced on In The Closet, Give In To Me and She Drives Me Wild. That what makes Dangerous so great, it's a darker album and not in a way that screams pretentiousness but it was just a natural progression and MJ always explored darker themes but in Dangerous he really went to uncharted territory. Also remember that MJ arguably wrote and recorded his most beatiful love songs during this time, Someone put your hand out, Joy, To Satisfy You, For All Time.

History had You Are Not Alone and that is arguably his most succesful love ballad released. He even re-used some elements from YANA for Speechless
 
It's a great album but where it lacks is the production partially was in part overdone - that took away from some organic! That along with the order of the songs on the album did not play as well as it could.. I'll add there were some other songs in that time that could have replaced even one track to change the whole feel.

People talk crap about it too much, it's much better than some make it out to be. It just missed the mark in some regards!!
 
It has its strengths and Tracks 4 to 9 along with Cry and Whatever happens are incredible. On those songs alone I would have to have said yes, but the rest lards it down. Don't walk away, you are my life, the Lost Children and the 3 opening cuts are all flawed and unnecessary. It was too much and overdone, Yet I have no problem putting Speechless, Break of Dawn, YRMW, Cry and Heaven Can wait on any other MJ album as they would totally it it.

Despite me saying no, I still love Invincible. It is a great album and does not deserve some of the crap it gets from the general public and even many fans. Still its a great lbum next to OFTW, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and HIStory all being Classic albums.

The strengths though being Michaels vocals and singing in general, his voice is just incredible here and sounds so warm. Even the 3 opening cuts are good in the MJ part, but are ruined by Mr Rapper and there is a bit too much autotune and Byzantine production on the whole album to make it Bad or Dangerous quality
 
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It's clearly different but to me doesn't mean is any less good, that said, it's not my favorite album but that's because like the style of the older ones best.
 
mjprince1976 said:
It has its strengths and Tracks 4 to 9 along with Cry and Whatever happens are incredible. On those songs alone I would have to have said yes, but the rest lards it down. Don't walk away, you are my life, the Lost Children and the 3 opening cuts are all flawed and unnecessary. It was too much and overdone, Yet I have no problem putting Speechless, Break of Dawn, YRMW, Cry and Heaven Can wait on any other MJ album as they would totally it it.

Despite me saying no, I still love Invincible. It is a great album and does not deserve some of the crap it gets from the general public and even many fans. Still its a great lbum next to OFTW, Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and HIStory all being Classic albums.

The strengths though being Michaels vocals and singing in general, his voice is just incredible here and sounds so warm. Even the 3 opening cuts are good in the MJ part, but are ruined by Mr Rapper and there is a bit too much autotune and Byzantine production on the whole album to make it Bad or Dangerous quality
Click to expand...

Umm.. Excuse me but are you saying unbreakable and heartbreaker is bad. Omg those are great songs.


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I agree the answers are a bit black or white but hey, it's poll hey!

I did vote YES as it's ONE of my fave albums I do love every song on it. They all have their own 'unique' story and vibe.

Invincible does have songs that 'take your breath' away if you listen with your heart. Take 'speechless' :angel: or 'whatever happens' or even 'break of dawn' and listen to that awesome beat in 'Threatened' :cool:

It just didn't get the promotion it deserved really! :doh:
 
Is it as good as MJ’s previous albums? No. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad album.

Albums like OTW, Thriller, Bad & Dangerous are some of the best ever made, by any artist. So it’s a tall order for Invincible to be as good.

Invincible was underrated by many, but it has several problems. It’s uneven. There are some good/very good songs but also a bunch of quite frankly terrible songs (Privacy, 2000 Watts, YAML). There are too many writers involved. Most of the best MJ songs are ones he wrote himself (DSTYGE, Billie Jean, Dirty Diana, Liberian Girl, Smooth Criminal, WBSS, SIM etc etc). The best songs that MJ didn’t write himself, or co-wrote with others are the ones that had one or two other writers max. For example, the tracks he didn’t write from OTW and Thriller were written by Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder and one or two others. Invincible suffers from the same syndrome we see from younger artists today, which is writing songs by committee. It takes the soul out of it.

Unfortunatey, Invincible became overthought and over cooked and lacked the depth and soul of MJs previous albums.

Having said that, songs like Whatever Happens are brilliant. It’s a decent album, underrated by critics and the general public, but not at the level of his previous albums.
 
Unlike his previous studio albums, ‘Invincible’ left me with a bitter taste of underachievement on his part.

The very few truly great songs (like, ‘Break Of Dawn’, ‘Heartbreaker’, ‘You Rock My World’) cannot change the overall result, which for me is less than thrilling.

Also, during the final ‘Invincible’ recording sessions, MJ started to become sick to death with the whole project & this inevitably had a bad effect on the album’s final tracklist which included some really odd choices.

For example, ‘Shout’ was the tenth track on the tracklist but it was removed literally at the last minute for the sake of the substandard ‘You Are My Life’. An inexcusable decision, if you ask me.

As for songs like ‘Cry’, or ‘Don’t Walk Away’ – forget about it.

What is more, ‘Invincible’ in the end became too calculated, which is another issue for me (such as, over-used/rehashed lyrical themes already apparent in his previous albums, or its too safe, chart-oriented sound).
 
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