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The main reason most people don't like Invincible album is Rodney Jerkins?

Okay, so even if he's interpreting the songs his way, and "means it", then he "means it" for every song on every album ever. Which brings me back to the original point, what makes this "his most personal album" as so many continuously suggest?
 
Hurley509 said:
Okay, so even if he's interpreting the songs his way, and "means it", then he "means it" for every song on every album ever. Which brings me back to the original point, what makes this "his most personal album" as so many continuously suggest?
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With age self-awareness will peak. When recording Invincible he was more self-aware than ever, because it was his last album. That's why Invincible is his most personal album.
 
Hot_Street said:
With age self-awareness will peak. When recording Invincible he was more self-aware than ever, because it was his last album. That's why Invincible is his most personal album.
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michael wasnt aware that was gonna be his last album he didnt know he was gonna die early
 
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8701girl said:
michael wasnt aware that was gonna be hois last album he didnt know he was gonna die early
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that doesn't matter
it was the album he was the most self-aware, because it was the album he was the oldest when recording it
like I said with age self-awareness will peak
 
Hot_Street said:
that doesn't matter
it was the album he was the most self-aware, because it was the album he was the oldest when recording it
like I said with age self-awareness will peak
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true as we get older we just more mature (well most people do) but mike still had his childlike aura
 
Yeah this argument about album numbers, on what planet is 8 million copies of an album, that was really quite average next to the Godlike works that came before it - a failure.

Prince only had one album that sold more than that and after Purple Rain which sold 13 million initially (9 million in the USA and 4 million international sales up to Dec 1985), no other album sold over 5 million (Batman soundtrack as it was tied into an ultra successful movie and that album was slammed afterwards as a dated novelty). Diamonds and Pearls sold 5 million, but that was global success with it just passing double platinum (2 million) in the states. The later 80s and 90s albums, which were largely flops in the USA, were huge hits in Europe, Japan and Australasia.

Most of Prince's cult work after 1995 sold 6 figures or even less. Standouts include Musicology which sold 2.5 million, but 1.8 million of those copies were concert freebies and Billboard in their racist jealously banned concert freebies as counting towards sales afterwards (Bet you if it was a white group like the Rolling Stones or Foo fighters, they would have not passed that rule) . The next album 3121 in 2006 sold just 550k copies, barely going gold, yet that was acclaimed as a hit. Prince's last album before he died sold just 45,000 copies.

Imagine the riot had Invincible sold just 45,000 or 550,000 copies?

Many artists have album sales drop off after huge hits - look at Madonna

Like a Vrigin and True Blue went Diamond, Like a prayer sold 7 million, Immaculate collection more, but it was a greatest hits collection. I'm Breathless which was complete shit except for Vogue and 2 other songs, sold 3 million. Erotica sold 4 million and Bedtime Stories and Ray of Light sold around 2 million each, Music sold 3 million, but after that her albums moved 6 figures, Madame X a pleasing return to form sold around 100,000 copies, yet a lot of that was blamed on streaming and illegal downloads (Mega platinum physical album sales became rare after 2010).

I don't think Dangerous would have sold many more copies, by Aug 93 when the Jordy crap broke, the album had been out for 21 months and already 8 singles had been released with the last one - the maudling, Gone too soon. If anything I doubt it would have moved 2 million more copies at most. Most fans had the album and apart from a few replacements caused by the cheapo quality tapes and CDs wearing out or breaking from overuse. I can remember by mid 1993, we were having MJ overload, 8 singles, the tour, Oprah interviews etc. Pretty much by 1993 any true fan who wanted Dangerous, had it.

Also finally, I knew when that Jordy shit broke, most of the gutter media were promoting it, but I don't actually remember too many people believing it here and definitely none of his fans. It was only with the payoff that attitude changed and of course the later bullshit.
 
DuranDuran said:
Well, the swastika is a really old symbol that was used in different cultures. But today it's associated with Nazis and so it's considered racist although it wasn't orginally so. I'm not saying you're a racist, I just explained why using the phrase "dance monkey dance" directed to a Black man would be taken as racist, at least in the USA where monkey/ape has been used as a racist comment. The blackface in old entertainment was meant to make Black people look like monkeys. It's likely if you went up to a Black American and said "dance monkey dance" to him or her, they are likely not going to take it that well. You're probably going to get in a fight. Although "dance monkey dance" might not be racist in itself. Like if you went up to a person and said they are "gay" they probably aren't going to take it as you're saying they are happy or the f- word as a bundle of sticks. I think the f-word is used for cigarettes too by British people. The thing is while it might be a harmless phrase in your country which doesn't have the baggage behind it, that isn't the same case everywhere. It's kind of like if you are wearing red clothes in a Crip neighborhood, something might happen to you. Although red in itself doesn't mean anything.
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Off topic but curious do the Bloods & Crips still exist to this day ?
 
wendijane said:
Off topic but curious do the Bloods & Crips still exist to this day ?
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Yep. I think the guy who killed rapper Nipsey Hussle is a Crip.
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This is a great thread. Love the invincible era personally, but dislike some of the songs on the album, that are generally liked by people on this forum.
 
I agree The Lost Children really is filler along with a couple of others.

There are a few weaker or just average tracks on HIStory and Invincible, the insipid remixes on BOTDF - such half par tracks would never have made the cut on earlier albums, the out take songs on Bad25 give you some idea of how high the bar was with his albums up to and including Dangerous.
 
Personally, I don't dislike the album, but I would say it's one of MJ's weakest albums. (still strong but weak for him)

For me, most of the album isn't memorable outside of You Rock My World.

Now I do like Invincible, Unbreakable, Threatened, but even still, I don't find them memorable. These songs are still top quality and the sound still endures well today.

What may have been discussed before too, imo, MJ sounds a big different, almost very nasally.
 
There's nothing on Invincible as personal or haunting as "Who Is It" or "Stranger in Moscow", both songs that were penned entirely by MJ. If MJ actually brought his A-game on the album, then I would have expected at least one song to be as good as those two.
 
Spaceship said:
MJ should have mostly stayed away from the electronic "futuristic" sounding music on this album. Everyone was doing that sort of music at the time due to the new millennium starting. He should have aimed to have plenty of organic, raw-sounding songs with live instruments on the album to stand out from everyone else.
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Tbh, thinking about it more, it was fine for MJ to want the album to sound very digital and futuristic. Yeah, everyone else was making music like that at the time, but MJ was always a trend chaser to begin with. The issue is that aside from "Unbreakable", all of the futuristic songs that ended up on Invincible sounded a little more pop than legitimate R&B; "Heartbreaker", Invincible", "Privacy", "Threatened" and "2000 Watts" all sound like 'N Sync or Britney Spears songs. It's a shame because Darkchild and Teddy Riley made some decent futuristic R&B and hip-hop songs at the time, but for whatever reason, they didn't exactly do that for MJ.

Maybe the Neptunes could have done a better job, but as we all know, either MJ or his manager turned down all of the tracks that they made for him. He probably didn't want those songs because they sounded too much like Off the Wall; according to Pharrell, MJ wanted something more like "Superthug" by Noreaga, but the Neptunes didn't accept his request for whatever reason and the collaboration never came to be. MJ apparently wanted to work with Dr. Dre, but got turned down because Dre preferred to work with lesser-known artists. In that case, I think Timbaland would have delivered the kind of futuristic sound that MJ was looking for without coming across as cookie-cutter pop. Darkchild clearly emulated Timbaland's style on "Heartbreaker", as well as "Anybody" for Brandy, and it's better to work with the real thing than a copycat. I don't think Timbaland would have been willing to fully commit himself to MJ's album like Darkchild and Teddy Riley were, though, so maybe it wouldn't have worked out.

In any case, MJ would need to rely on his own team like Brad Buxer to put out truly great music, not chase trends with whoever the most contemporary producers were at the time. Even for upbeat songs, MJ was capable of making better music with his own team than with others. "Hollywood Tonight", for one, would have certainly become a classic MJ song if it was finished.
 
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Spaceship said:
Not selling over 10m is definitely a failure for MJ lol
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No, it isn’t. By the time Invincible came out, Michael’s reputation certainly in his home country wasn’t great and he was also in his 40s, by which point, artists are past their peak commercially. Invincible selling 8 million is a very good achievement.
 
Spaceship said:
There's nothing on Invincible as personal or haunting as "Who Is It" or "Stranger in Moscow", both songs that were penned entirely by MJ. If MJ actually brought his A-game on the album, then I would have expected at least one song to be as good as those two.
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Hit the nail firmly on the head. Michael was a phenomenal songwriter and his talents were sorely missed on Invincible
 
Nite Line said:
No, it isn’t. By the time Invincible came out, Michael’s reputation certainly in his home country wasn’t great
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Didn't stop History from selling over 20m worldwide. Both are post-settlement.
Nite Line said:
and he was also in his 40s
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Carlos Santana was in his 50s when Supernatural came out in 1999 and it sold over 30m worldwide.

Madonna was the same age as MJ and her 2000 album Music sold over 11m worldwide.
Nite Line said:
Invincible selling 8 million is a very good achievement.
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It failed.

And it didn't even actually sell 8m, but 6m lol
 
Spaceship said:
Didn't stop History from selling over 20m worldwide. Both are post-settlement.
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I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the USA a multiple CD album is counted as separate albums. Like if a double CD sold 1 million in actual copies, then the RIAA counts it as 2 million sold. A 3 CD album would be 3 million sold. So if it is the same worldwide, going by 20 million, then HIStory really sold 10 million.

Today a certain amount of streams is counted as the sale of an album although nobody bought anything, not even a download. They don't even have to listen to the entire album, just 1 song. TikTok is counted and that might only have a minute of a track.
 
In my perception, Michael Jackson was driven by a desire to never appear outdated. He wanted the public to recognize that his music was contemporary and evolving. However, that's exactly what led Invincible to failure. MJ encouraged Rodney Jerkins to produce futuristic beats, which almost gave birth to a new style of music rather than adhering to the prevailing standards of the time. In an interview, RJ mentioned that he had many instrumentals and tracks like You Rock My World, which evokes classic Michael Jackson but updated for the modern era. Yet, MJ was insistent on having more tracks in the vein of Invincible, Unbreakable, Threatened, and so on. You Rock My World ended up being the most successful song from the "Invincible" album. So, in my view, Rodney Jerkins wasn't the problem.
 
I do remember Invincible being labeled as a flop by the media. All things considered I don't think it did too bad sales wise.

The album was already dead by the end of 2002 due to no major hit singles/music videos/live performances.

One thing though, I don't buy the whole Sony sabotaged the promotion etc, it just never really took off.

MJ always released strong and consistent albums. We were pretty lucky.

If Vince is considered as MJ's worst album, fair enough, I'm sure he would have bounced back with a stronger release next time.

All the big Artists can release duds from time to time.
 
DuranDuran said:
I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the USA a multiple CD album is counted as separate albums. Like if a double CD sold 1 million in actual copies, then the RIAA counts it as 2 million sold. A 3 CD album would be 3 million sold. So if it is the same worldwide, going by 20 million, then HIStory really sold 10 million.

Today a certain amount of streams is counted as the sale of an album although nobody bought anything, not even a download. They don't even have to listen to the entire album, just 1 song. TikTok is counted and that might only have a minute of a track.
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It’s the other way around in regards to HIStory. 40+ million units sold.
 
Agonum said:
It’s the other way around in regards to HIStory. 40+ million units sold.
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I don't know how much it sold. But going by the US method it would have to be certified as selling 40 times platinum to be a 20 million seller. If it's 20 times platinum, then that's 10 million. There's also the case that platinum in the US is more than platinum in other counties and the RIAA only counts US sales. So the worldwide number might not mean anything. For example, let's say that HIStory sold 20 million worldwide and half of that is US sales. Which is 10 million, or 5 million in actual unit sales. Let's also say that other countries, the 10 million is actual unit sales. So in this case that means it didn't really sell 20 million, but 15 million.

These sales numbers don't mean anything anyway. They can easily be faked, like Prince giving away his Musicology album at concerts for each ticket sold. That was counted as sales by Billboard. If a family of 6 went to the concert, then then got 6 CDs, Normally 6 people in the same house do not buy the same album. At most they will just copy it if they want it. There's also the rumor that Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is not accurate. Same for the Sony hype sticker saying Thriller sold 104 million or RCA saying Elvis Presley sold over a billion. In other cases, sales are albums shipped to stores, & not actually purchased. Record labels have also reported to the RIAA some albums sold less than they really did to get out of paying as much in royalties to the act, or to keep them in the hole. Reporting sales to the RIAA is voluntary anyway, it doesn't have to be done.
 
Spaceship said:
Didn't stop History from selling over 20m worldwide. Both are post-settlement.

Carlos Santana was in his 50s when Supernatural came out in 1999 and it sold over 30m worldwide.

Madonna was the same age as MJ and her 2000 album Music sold over 11m worldwide.

It failed.

And it didn't even actually sell 8m, but 6m lol
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Usually artists reach their commercial peak in their 20s and early 30s, before declining in their mid-late 30s. There are obviously a few exceptions to the norm.

History sold over 20m worldwide, but only 3.5 million in Michael’s home country of USA.

I don’t see what’s so “lol” about selling 8m or 6m copies? :confused:
 
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