and honestly I don't believe it. I'm not saying that they read every article and memorized every word but Friedman's and later TMZ's stories was very widely discussed. Even the insiders in our forum wrote about the delays without knowing the reasons. If people looking forward to the album and was looking for information/ reading the thread - like I did- they should be aware of there was some issues, some delays and issues raised. Again I'm not saying they believed it but I think 99% was aware of the very basics at least.
Ok, well here we simply disagree then.
Let's not lump sum Jacksons. Yes while Joe is highly unbelievable, the same could not be said for 3T. At the time the were liked. everyone knew Michael was close to them, knew they were included in the will, they wrote they wanted 3T to be involved in the Estate, involved in Michael's kids life and so on. It's all on these forum. So when those statements came 3T was a highly liked and credible sources. If any negativity against them happened after the Cascio song debate and their participation in Cardiff tribute.
I agree with you that Joe should perhaps be in a category of his own, but I still think that in general, people had more faith in the Estate than in the family (as I said, this was also the time when Katherine Jackson, another highly respected and well-liked family member, was working with Howard Mann, who everybody perceived as shady). The Estate was and is the official authority when it comes to all things Michael - they were the ones appointed by Michael, they were the ones in control of the release, therefore, they were the most authoritative source when it came to this album.
and IMO the medium of the message makes no difference. Teddy Riley didn't give any "official statements" and just tweeted away, all of his statements are repeated over and over. It doesn't seem like people give them any less importance just because the source is twitter.
I agree with you, but many believers do seem to think the medium makes a difference. Just the other day kreen commented that Teddy Riley's tweets should not be taken seriously because they were written in the 'heat of the moment'. This is not the first time I have read that. Similarly, several believers have said that the comments by the Jackson family should not be taken seriously because they 'only posted something on Twitter'.
Correction: time of the statements. Friedman stories started 2-3 weeks before the release, TMZ stories 1 week before. Taj Jackson denied Friedman's story that they came to an agreement weeks before the stream. Estate statement came weeks after all of these, and days after the song stream. By that time most people have formed opinions (and even you said "why people should have waited?"). It's hundred times harder to change a person's mind when they already made it up. So I think Estate didn't stand a chance.
Yes, this is something I thought about as well. However, given the fact that I believe many people were not aware of those rumours (I know you disagree about that) or that they did not take them seriously because the idea sounded so ridiculous, I think they only became relevant after BN was streamed and that timing therefore is not a crucial issue. And I still think all the other issues I raised apply as well.
With the 'why should they have waited' I was referring to people sharing their impressions of the songs: what do they sound like to them? What do they hear? What feelings do they evoke? Your comment seemed to communicate surprise at people immediately posting how they felt about the song, which to me is a totally normal and valid thing to do. That does not mean that people should no longer have listened to what the Estate had to say. On the contrary, if they had provided evidence that the songs were authentic, people should have adjusted their initial opinions. And I think many people did wait for what the Estate had to say, expecting an explanation for what happened. I remember being utterly disappointed with the Estate's explanation because of the total lack of evidence, and then being flabbergasted because there was nevertheless a tremendous shift in opinions: suddenly people heard Michael or were convinced by the Estate's explanation. To say that their statement did not 'stand a chance' is therefore bizarre to me, because it clearly did influence opinions to a great extent.
I think the incidents you mention about the Bad Tour DVD quality and the use of Monster in that Glee episode are not comparable because they all came after the 'Michael' debacle. In other words, after many fans lost faith in the Estate. If what you say is true (fans always immediately jump to conclusions without awaiting further info), shouldn't fans have been massively protesting the Michael album as soon as the rumours about the fake tracks emerged? But this did not happen of course.
Now let me try with our example. Some days back kreen wrote a post talking about if the claim is that there's been a deliberate attempt to fake the songs, it means that there are quite some people that are knowledgeable about the fraud and the doubters position is based on the assumption that these group of people can and will keep silent no matter what - for a measly sale of 2.5 Million albums.
Assume that you logically agree with this statement (or any similar ones). Assume that you think there's no perfect crime (and furthermore prisoner's dilemma theory concludes that someone ratting the other one out) and it's highly unlikely for a group of people to keep this a secret, logically you should alter your position (I'm not saying change your opinion, it's just alter) to include that it's hard to pull this fraud through. You see what I mean? Even though you continue to believe the songs aren't Michael , you also have "could they have pulled this fraud through?" question mark in your brain. However again by human nature people do not like conflicting thoughts and if your response is " I don't care if they could have done it, I don't care how they did it, all I care is what my ears hear" than although you are deep down aware of a logical conflict but emotionally choosing to ignore it.
The difference between the prisoner's dilemma and this situation is that in the prisoners dilemma, choosing the option to rat the other out is always more beneficial to the individual than cooperating. In your description of this situation that is not the case: remaining silent is less dangerous than ratting out the other(s), which would make your own involvement evident and might pit you against a multi-million dollar company.
As I said in my previous post though, these kinds of questions are the things that have given me pause. However, when I take everything into account, the total lack of evidence for MJ's involvement, the contradictory explanations we have been given, the fact that the vocals sound nothing like MJ and everything like JM, etc., then I still can only come to the conclusion that this did somehow, some way happen.
Well the more information you have the more informed opinion (and correct) you form, that's one thing.
I once had an exhausting debate about this on Max Jax. This is not always necessarily the case.
But to get the point: my general argument was that there is a tendency among some believers to completely disregard or shift the focus away from the fact that the vocals do not sound like MJ at all (and instead for instance focus on how hard it would be to pull of such a conspiracy), and that I do not think we should ignore what we hear. Yeah, the opinion of one single fan might not mean much (as you said, we can be wrong). But if so many of us feel the vocals sound off, that does mean something. And that's also why those initial reactions are so interesting: people made them relatively indepent of one another, before seeing how others reacted to the song.