Unpopular opinions about MJ’s music?

[robotchicken14]

Anyway, taken seriously by who? Magazines like Rolling Stone & Spin? What difference does that make?

Taken seriously in the 'public consciousness' I mean, which, admittedly, is somewhat controlled by publications such as the ones you've mentioned. But ask anyone in the street what Michael Jackson's greatest successes were, and they're going to say his singing and dancing ability rather than his songwriting ability.

Jagger/Richards are praised as songwriters and they sang for cereal

Firstly, this was in 1964 when they hadn't yet reached the success they would achieve in the following years, and they probably needed the money. I'm sure that we can all agree that Michael Jackson didn't need the money in 1992 when SPYHO was released.

Secondly, SPYHO is a genuinely great song (in my opinion), that had been worked on since the Bad sessions, not a song written for the specific purpose of featuring in a Pepsi commercial. Therefore, the fact that it was released in the way it was leads me to believe, like I said before, that he cared more about his business than his artistic legacy.

 

[DuranDuran]

Looks like this jingle was done pretty close to the beginning of their career, not when they had made it big.

Is this big enough for ya?

 

[zinniabooklover]

Is this big enough for ya?

Yep, I was waiting for you to do this!

 

[bluemoon7]

I doubt this is the reason. Because Bob Dylan made commercials advertising stuff and he's considered by the boomer rock press to be the greatest songwriter. In general, rock music (mainly blues based, not really prog or metal) was always taken more seriously than other types of music in the rock magazines. Mike's music is considered R&B or dance music. Dance music (disco, funk, house, electronic, etc.) is usually not given the same importance as what was called singer-songwriter like Paul Simon & James Taylor. Those acts also did not have an old Vegas/Broadway showbiz style image. Early Elvis Presley is usually praised more than 1970s Vegas Elvis, which is sometimes made fun of and so was some of his 1960s soundtrack songs.

This!

 

[Horrorlover656]

- Invincible is his best album.

- Cry should've been number one and is better than We've Had Enough, which I agree is overrated.

- Just Good Friends isn't the worst song on Bad, Speed Demon is.

I think I Just Can't Stop Loving You is the worst song on Bad.

 

[DuranDuran]

But ask anyone in the street what Michael Jackson's greatest successes were, and they're going to say his singing and dancing ability rather than his songwriting ability.

The average person does not even know who writes songs, and they didn't in the past either. Like they used to say on American Bandstand "I like it because it has a good beat & I can dance to it". Especially if they did not buy the record and only listened to the radio. Even that is not really reliable. Anybody can get a songwriting credit. People who buy Elvis Presley records will see his name on some songs (or the songs were in his publishing company) and Elvis never wrote a song in his life. There's also ghostwriters who don't get a credit at all, the songs are credited to someone else who didn't write them. Today, most people just stream songs, which does not have liner notes like on a record album. Also if people are listening to contemporary popular music, one song might have up to 15 different people credited, including songs without samples/interpolations.

It was the rock magazines like Rolling Stone that really popularized the idea of self-writing as being important in the first place. Before The Beatles' British Invasion era, nobody cared if Bing Crosby or Frank Sinatra wrote songs or not. They didn't. Very few pre-Beatles acts wrote their own songs. It was common for a lot of acts to record the same songs (like Fever), which later became known as standards or The Great American Songbook. A lot of that material was written by non-performing songwriters. Only a small percentage of music of any era is self written by the singer or band.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

I think the bigger problem is the 80s were so weird that people got hyped over Pepsi and Pepsi commercials. Like, is life truly that boring? It makes no sense.

Never mind MJ making smart sense in a modern way. Next you're gonna say starting in the Raisins commercial was silly.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

I think I Just Can't Stop Loving You is the worst song on Bad.

There is no worst song on Bad. They went through 3 discs worth of songs for that very reason.

 

[DuranDuran]

I think the bigger problem is the 80s were so weird that people got hyped over Pepsi and Pepsi commercials.

It helped Madonna get a lot of publicity, because her Pepsi commercial got banned when the Like A Prayer music video came out. The commercial didn't have anything to do with the video other than having the same song

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

In general, rock music (mainly blues based, not really prog or metal) was always taken more seriously than other types of music in the rock magazines. Mike's music is considered R&B or dance music. Dance music (disco, funk, house, electronic, etc.) is usually not given the same importance as what was called singer-songwriter like Paul Simon & James Taylor.

I think statements like this aren't even really true in Michaels case. Beat It was the crossover success but the way people state it, that crossover appeal didn't even last.

Off The Wall has earned more love, more accolades, than anything MJ did, and it's fair, that's basically the average 10/10 album done MJs style, and he wasn't even 24 yet. There's no rock and roll on that record. Maybe a few nay sayer fools underrated it though. Time certainly has been kind though.

Up to Bad though, he had begrudging respect of the critics. Dangerous has also fared well when given an honest appraisal .

They boycotted MJ as a person, more than the genres of his music. They either compared him to himself, or they denounced him using his art. It was actually very rarely racial. That's what I see nowadays anyway.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

That I'll Be There Pepsi Commercial was genuinely incredible though. Nothing shallow about that.

 

[Horrorlover656]

There is no worst song on Bad. They went through 3 discs worth of songs for that very reason.

Worst by MJ standards. MJ's worst is better than most artists best.

 

[zinniabooklover]

I think the bigger problem is the 80s were so weird that people got hyped over Pepsi and Pepsi commercials. Like, is life truly that boring? It makes no sense.

I never saw any of Michael's ads. Or Madonna's for that matter. I'm not sure if I even knew Michael was doing ads back then, I only found out loads later. I assume they were shown in the UK but maybe only during kids tv or during prime time shows. In which case, I was out at work and then straight out to gigs. Even today, I haven't watched one all the way through. I can't cope with them. My point is, I'm not sure how big of a deal they were in the UK. Presumably a big deal for Michael's fans but I wonder how much impact they had outside of his fanbase? I knew people who talked about Michael and his music. I can't think of a single person who talked about his tv adverts.

I think statements like this aren't even really true in Michaels case. Beat It was the crossover success

Agreed. Michael's cross-over success in the UK, for example, was solid. We didn't have so much of the division that they had in the US so that just wasn't an issue. OTW was mainstream, Thriller was mainstream ...

but the way people state it, that crossover appeal didn't even last.

Even though his success was right there in their face! His success was like a juggernaut, it just kept on going!

 

[DuranDuran]

Presumably a big deal for Michael's fans but I wonder how much impact they had outside of his fanbase?

There's many celebrities (musicians, actors, athletes, etc.) who have made commercials for TV, print ads, and/or radio for many decades for all kinds of products. Not just drinks & food. They are hired because they are famous & have a following. When a singer does a radio shoutout like "This is so-and-so and you're listening to 'radio DJ name' or 'radio station call letters' or "I want my MTV", that's pretty much a commercial too and they don't get paid for doing that. It's part of promotion like going on a talk show.

Air Jordan is a big ad for Michael Jordan with his name & logo on the sneakers. Even people who are not into sports or Jordan wear them. It's like people buy Rihanna's makeup line because she's famous. Nothing really that special about Beats headphones, but they're by Dr. Dre (will.i.am is also a partner in Beats). So the headphones sold a lot, making him a billionaire or close to it. It's the same idea as getting a popular music act and putting them into movies & TV shows like The Beatles, Elvis Presley, Brandy, & The Fresh Prince (aka Will Smith).

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Worst by MJ standards. MJ's worst is better than most artists best.

Even by MJ standards. Just Good Friends is top. It's not like y'all like other album tracks more.

 

[zinniabooklover]

There's many celebrities (musicians, actors, athletes, etc.) who have made commercials for TV, print ads, and/or radio for many decades for all kinds of products.

Yes. I know.

 

[robotchicken14]

Is this big enough for ya?

These Stones ads are completely different to the initial point I made though, because they're just ads that have Start Me Up playing in the background.

I'm talking about the way that MJ rewrote and rerecorded "Billie Jean is not my lover" to "Your the Pepsi generation" and "I'm Bad" to "Pepsi's cool".

The only way that your comparison with The Rolling Stones would make sense in the context of SPYHO would be if the Start Me Up single was only available once fans had bought enough cans of Budweiser, which obviously wasn't the case.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

I think that a lot of MJ's creative choices were far too commercial-leaning, and they have negatively impacted his artistic legacy.

This is still just a flawed opinion, not an "unpopular one".

Literally what has negatively impacted the legacy of Billie Jean? A soda commercial? Are you serious?

If the point you're making is that people didn't treat MJ seriously, then fair enough. But you might as well say MJ, Being black, a Dancer, and a former Child Star, also negatively impacted his artistic legacy, because plenty of people discredit him for those things too.

I'd compare him to George Lucas, an ambitious visionary who did commercialize his reputation but is still a real artist at the end of the day.

People saying that Michael never doing an intimate show impacted his legacy, and I can actually agree to that to an extent. But the soda commercial does not do any such thing.

I don't like SPYHO being a Pepsi thing either, but it's more so because that song deserves more attention. That's the nature of all bonus tracks though. On The Line earned the same fate, as did the TUC cuts

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Weird Al parodying those songs also did irreparable damage to MJs legacy by this logic.

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

Childhood is too Disney to be on HIStory, it should have been a B-side to Scream

The studio footage of Mike singing it is wonderful though

 

[R1chard]

I believe I have another unpopular opinion. I prefer Ricky Lawson on drums over Jonathan Moffett.

Quick question: when did Johny Jackson stop playing drums? When did Tony Lewis start? Was there anybody between the two?

I don't know if this is an unpopular opinion, but I think that a lot of MJ's creative choices were far too commercial-leaning, and they have negatively impacted his artistic legacy.

To be honest, when you hear a crass version of a song, it impacts more on the person making the commercial decisions, you don't think about the songwriter at all...

Only a small percentage of music of any era is self written by the singer or band.

I've not dug into the numbers, but I'd say a very high percentage of rock music today was written by the band. I'm just gonna throw out the figure of 75%, seems about right. Maybe not so much with dance music.

I think the bigger problem is the 80s were so weird that people got hyped over Pepsi and Pepsi commercials. Like, is life truly that boring? It makes no sense.

Yeah, it's strange. But that's not an 80s thing. It happens today, even with the same brands (Pepsi, Budweiser, anything at the superbowl, for some bizarre reason the newspapers now even make a big deal out of the Christmas adverts for M&S and Aldi).

I never saw any of Michael's ads. Or Madonna's for that matter. I'm not sure if I even knew Michael was doing ads back then, I only found out loads later. I assume they were shown in the UK but maybe only during kids tv or during prime time shows.

I don't think they were shown in the UK. Basically they had no impact.

Agreed. Michael's cross-over success in the UK, for example, was solid. We didn't have so much of the division that they had in the US so that just wasn't an issue.

Yeah, that's true. Firstly the UK doesn't have anywhere near the racism that the US does, plus the radio stations aren't as segregated as American ones. With only a few exceptions (primarily classical and the BBC Asian Network), every station plays every genre that could be considered pop. So the concept of "crossing over" doesn't really apply. It's more just "getting more popular".

Until very recently, you wouldn't see the UK making a big deal out of "the first black person to do X"

 

[DJs_Doodles]

Childhood is too Disney to be on HIStory, it should have been a B-side to Scream

It WAS the B-side on the Scream single. Or rather, the second track on the Scream single (since it was released as a CD).

Scream (Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson song) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But also, why is Smile not considered "too Disney"? Or "You Are Not Alone"? Or even "Little Susie"?

Personally, one of the things I really enjoy about HIStory is how it begins with its most emotionally charged songs, but then starts to melt into the more plaintive ballads and "Disney-ish" songs toward the end. I think "Michael Jackson: All the Songs" says it best when it comes to its section on Smile. Quote:

"Smile gave Michael Jackson the opportunity to sing in a more soothing key on the album. HIStory therefore ended on a serene note, giving the impression that the singer had finished screaming out his resentment and had perhaps found inner peace again" [page 487].

For that reason, I also believe that Stranger in Moscow should've been on the second half of the album instead. Perhaps even, the first track of the second half. Along with 2 Bad shifting more towards the end of the first half.

 

[DuranDuran]

These Stones ads are completely different to the initial point I made though, because they're just ads that have Start Me Up playing in the background.

I'm talking about the way that MJ rewrote and rerecorded "Billie Jean is not my lover" to "Your the Pepsi generation" and "I'm Bad" to "Pepsi's cool".

The only way that your comparison with The Rolling Stones would make sense in the context of SPYHO would be if the Start Me Up single was only available once fans had bought enough cans of Budweiser, which obviously wasn't the case.

You seem to think that the general public cares about this kind of thing. The same audience who made songs like What Did The Fox Say, Purple People Eater, Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep, & Who Let The Dogs Out into big hits. Also who bought records by a cartoon band like The Archies with Sugar Sugar. You mentioned Lennon/McCartney. Which is the same Paul McCartney who released Mary Had A Little Lamb (yes that one) as a single. And the same John Lennon who had Yoko Ono sing on his records. People still listen to Milli Vanilli today and they know Rob & Fab didn't sing on the songs. Go look at their video views on Youtube. With songs that has samples, a listener might not have heard the original song. Especially with a younger person who was not around when the original song was released, or the song sample is an obscure album track and not a popular single.

The people who tend to care more about who writes their own songs are rock fans who read rock magazines, the boomer generation more so who listened to what is now called "classic rock". It surely isn't all of the folks who bought Whitney Houston, Barbra Striesand, & Nsync records. R&B in general is more songwriter and/or producer driven (Jam & Lewis, Gamble & Huff, Curtis Mayfield, Babyface, HDH, etc). Today, it's hip hop fans that care if the rapper writes their own rhymes. That wasn't always the case with some early rappers, who might have lyrics written by someone else. It was openly known back then though because the lyric writers were credited on the record label, but the samples weren't at first though until laws were passed around 1990. It's not like Drake, who has been accused of using ghostwriters for some of his stuff.

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

It WAS the B-side on the Scream single. Or rather, the second track on the Scream single (since it was released as a CD).

Scream (Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson song) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

But also, why is Smile not considered "too Disney"? Or "You Are Not Alone"? Or even "Little Susie"?

Personally, one of the things I really enjoy about HIStory is how it begins with its most emotionally charged songs, but then starts to melt into the more plaintive ballads and "Disney-ish" songs toward the end. I think "Michael Jackson: All the Songs" says it best when it comes to its section on Smile. Quote:

"Smile gave Michael Jackson the opportunity to sing in a more soothing key on the album. HIStory therefore ended on a serene note, giving the impression that the singer had finished screaming out his resentment and had perhaps found inner peace again" [page 487].

For that reason, I also believe that Stranger in Moscow should've been on the second half of the album instead. Perhaps even, the first track of the second half. Along with 2 Bad shifting more towards the end of the first half.

Well Smile made sense to me. A user on here @Tony R once said HIStory starts with Michael screaming and ends with Michael laughing. I think he summed it up wonderfully

It's personal preference but I've never been a big fan of the song and it's always been jarring to me, same with Little Susie to be honest. Even though it's out of place at Least Come Together is Rock and roll

 

[robotchicken14]

This is still just a flawed opinion, not an "unpopular one".

I don't like SPYHO being a Pepsi thing either

You've just contradicted yourself, we share the same opinion about "SPYHO being a Pepsi thing".

You seem to think that the general public cares about this kind of thing.

Michael Jackson cared about his reputation as a songwriter, introducing himself as a "performer/songwriter" in the Dangerous deposition in 1994. Therefore, he clearly wanted the public to recognise his songwriting abilities, which I believe he tarnished with various commercial decisions. I genuinely don't believe it's a controversial opinion to have.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

You've just contradicted yourself, we share the same opinion about "SPYHO being a Pepsi thing".

Your main point is flawed. SPYHO is a bad example to support your main point.

 

[DuranDuran]

Michael Jackson cared about his reputation as a songwriter, introducing himself as a "performer/songwriter" in the Dangerous deposition in 1994. Therefore, he clearly wanted the public to recognise his songwriting abilities, which I believe he tarnished with various commercial decisions. I genuinely don't believe it's a controversial opinion to have.

Whoever wrote Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep is a songwriter. Weird Al is a songwriter. That's their occupation. If that's what Mike does for a living, then of course that's what he's going to say in court if asked. He's being accused of plagiarism. If a plumber is asked what his/her job is, then that's what they are going to say.

 

[R1chard]

he clearly wanted the public to recognise his songwriting abilities, which I believe he tarnished with various commercial decisions. I genuinely don't believe

This just isn't a thing.

I saw a TV advert about an hour ago, which had a version of You're the One That I Want with different lyrics.

And do you know what? It didn't make me suddenly think "Grease is a really crappy movie". If anything, it will probably make me want to dig out the soundtrack and play it again. Maybe even rewatch the movie.

Phrases like "feel-good movie" and "fan-favorite song" spring to mind. Nothing is "tarnished" by that.

 

[wendijane]

The 90's commercials Dreams and I'll Be There were shown in the UK. On MTV.

Rough Cut

IBT

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Some of the Remixes on Blood are just as good as the original, some are good for different reasons and seasons, and some are actually better than the original song.