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Unpopular opinions about MJ’s music?

AlwaysThere;4316974 said:
There’s only one truly perfect album in existence, and it’s Thriller. Even though it’s not my favorite MJ album, I wouldn’t change a single second on it. All of MJ’s other albums have at least one song that I could do without. But Thriller is flawless.
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Thriller is one of my favorite albums. i agree with this even it wasn't.
 
I agree with others. i don't like she's out of my life. while michael only pretending he actually cried while recording the song. he was so lonely. makes it's sadder to know he was always lonely.
 
mj_frenzy;4316990 said:
Rodney Jerkins revealed that it was solely Michael Jackson’s idea for the ‘Invincible’ album to be so long apparently because the singer felt that this album would be his last studio album (which proved to be true).
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Rodney's full quote on this matter was, "It was Michael's idea. It was long. He didn't make that transition of doing shorter albums, and this is the guy...it was literally nine songs on Thriller. We actually had that conversation where I was like, "You should make it 10 songs and that's it." You never know... maybe he felt like that would be his last album." Pure speculation.

But it is a well-known fact that Michael Jackson could not play any musical instruments at all (including guitar, or piano).

He only posed few times with a guitar, or a piano but this was just for the sake of the photo shoots themselves.
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Yes, he could. He wasn't a Prince level guitarist, nor a Billy Joel level pianist, but several people have testified to having witnessed him playing piano, drums, and guitar (and rather proficiently, at that). I have no idea why he continued to perpetrate the narrative that he couldn't.
 
Here's another unpopular opinion, I love how they edited the Bucharest concert! I love the crowdshots and the overall atmosphere that's perfectly conveyed in the way they edited the concert.
 
AlwaysThere;4317014 said:
Yes, he could. He wasn't a Prince level guitarist, nor a Billy Joel level pianist, but several people have testified to having witnessed him playing piano, drums, and guitar (and rather proficiently, at that). I have no idea why he continued to perpetrate the narrative that he couldn't.
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These several people, including Irish music industry entrepreneur Paddy Dunning who met with the singer in Ireland (in 2006-2007), clearly exaggerate about that.

Taj Jackson stated (in 2020) that his uncle Michael Jackson could not play musical instruments (including piano and guitar):

“…He definitely didn’t know how to play a piano or a guitar…” (Taj Jackson, 2020)

Note also that Michael Jackson (while he was composing his ‘Black Or White’ song) he could not even play the main guitar riff to Bill Bottrell.

So, he had to sing it to Bill Bottrell who immediately took the guitar in his hands and played it on guitar for him.

There is also a misleading video that made many fans wrongly believe that Michael Jackson could play piano.

I am talking about the ‘Don't Be Messin' 'Round’ video snippet (1987) that shows him playing piano (in reality, what he plays here is entirely looped).

Michael Jackson never learned how to play any musical instruments because, as he said, that would interfere with his own way of composing music into his head (for the same reason, he also never wanted to learn how to read sheet music).
 
I do not get the addition of Come Together on HIStory - HIStory is my joint favorite album (along with Dangerous) - But the album would have been better with another original track rather than "Come Together", I like the song, but I never got the addition of that track, with it being recorded in the 80's - You replace Come Together with Someone Put Your Hand Out and HIStory becomes MJ's best album, SPYHO is also more apt for the theming of the HIStory album

If you swapped Dangerous and Invincible release dates around, Invincible(1991) would have been considered a masterpiece and sold better than Dangerous(2001) - Alot of the sales and negative media focus on Invincible was focused around Michaels image and popularity in the early 00's
 
in my opinion come together should of been on the bad album. michael cover of come together sound better then the beatles and i like some beatles songs.
 
Come Together was a B-Side on Remember the Time or In the Closet if I remember correctly. It should've stayed as that tbh.

I Just Can't Stop Loving You, especially with the intro, is easily the worst song on Bad.
 
AlwaysThere;4316974 said:
There’s only one truly perfect album in existence, and it’s Thriller. Even though it’s not my favorite MJ album, I wouldn’t change a single second on it. All of MJ’s other albums have at least one song that I could do without. But Thriller is flawless.
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I'd replace TGIM with its solo demo.


Dangerous1991;4317040 said:
I do not get the addition of Come Together on HIStory - HIStory is my joint favorite album (along with Dangerous) - But the album would have been better with another original track rather than "Come Together", I like the song, but I never got the addition of that track, with it being recorded in the 80's - You replace Come Together with Someone Put Your Hand Out and HIStory becomes MJ's best album, SPYHO is also more apt for the theming of the HIStory album
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You're right. CT's out of place on the HIStory album. It should have better been released as a b-side on one of BAD's singles - why not on the SC maxi?

Morphine or Is It Scary would have enriched the albums overall flaw. (I would also get rid of the way too long intro to LS)


dam2040;4317046 said:
Come Together was a B-Side on Remember the Time or In the Closet if I remember correctly. It should've stayed as that tbh.

I Just Can't Stop Loving You, especially with the intro, is easily the worst song on Bad.
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IJCSLY intro was silly but it is a great song nonetheless! JGF is by far the weakest track. I would have kicked it out off the albums regular track list in favour of LMA. JGF should have been the CD only bonus track.
 
i love the original intro of i just can't stop loving you and i don't even like the song but it is a beautiful song. they said alot people complain it being too sexually. in my opinion i heard so many things compare to that. Michael was an grown man he's like in his late 20's here.
 
i love streetwalker. michael should made the bad album like he planned it with more music. that definitely could of worked. he was at his peak in this era. making the album bigger would of been a nice shot. probably would of been expensive. but good move.
 
NatureCriminal7896 said:
i love streetwalker. michael should made the bad album like he planned it with more music. that definitely could of worked. he was at his peak in this era. making the album bigger would of been a nice shot. probably would of been expensive. but good move.
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He could have released a 2nd LP while he was touring in 1988 - kinda like BOTDF minus its remixes.
 
Fuzball said:
I'd replace TGIM with its solo demo.
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I do prefer MJ's solo version, but it would be a very weird song to sing alone. MJ arguing with himself... :)

Fuzball said:
He could have released a 2nd LP while he was touring in 1988 - kinda like BOTDF minus its remixes.
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Wow... Imagine that - MJ at his peak. It could just have been a EP - with 6-7 new songs. Would have been great. Overall MJ released too few songs during his adult career I think, but maybe that's why those he did release are perfect and so iconic.
 
also i think the reason why it took michael longer to make music was because he said he had to make sure it was "perfect". fun fact if michael or any of his crew mess up a song they started all over again. wow. michael was an perfectionist if the song didn't fit right to him he started all over or reject the song. bless his heart. sometimes even if a song was perfect he still felt he could of done more with it.

to be honest i'm kind of like that sometimes not with music being i'm not an musician.
 
- I skip "The way you make me feel" (and I also don't like the video for it) (Though I do not skip it on some CD titled "Swinging Tribute to Michael Jackson" or something like that.)
- "Don't walk away" is one of my favorite songs on Invincible. (But actually only the first half of it.)
- I just voted on a poll that I preferred "Triumph" to "Off the wall" (for sure there are songs I couldn't leave behind on OTW, but I enjoy Triumph better as an album.)
- I'm so much more into MJ's early career that I tend to forget about stuff like "Billie Jean", "Bad", etc. (I sometimes noticed that when I think "MJ" I first see J5 era pictures, like, one that's on the back of "Got to be there" album.) (Reason may be that I've known the big albums since I was a teenager, and the Motown era has so much more stuff to listen to.)
- I don't like the Beatles (maybe I haven't found how I should listen to them yet, but so far I don't). (And even if I like the sound of MJ's "Come Together" cover, lyrics-wise, I don't understand why he covered this one precisely.)
- It took me 20 years, but I finally appreciate most of "Invincible" (I'm not sure if this is actually an unpopular opinion).
- I didn't like Michael's acting in Captain EO.
- It's a really great tune, but I don't like the lyrics to "Another part of me" ... Ok, they're about spreading peace and love, and accepting your former enemy as a friend (see Captain EO) and it was for a Disney project... but at the same time it feels like an invasion. (Sure it wasn't the intention when writing the song.) ... (Now I heard that Michael didn't want it on the album, he wanted "Streetwalker" instead ... maybe he found that the lyrics were out of context? But I guess he may have had totally different reasons... from what I heard it was Quincy Jones who pushed for "Another part of me")
 
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I think when Michael relied more on collaborators (like Rod Temperton or), it was better, than when he tried to do everything himself.

His solo writing efforts in Bad were limited to funky, "James Brown-style harmonies". It is doubtful that he could write "The Lady In My Life", "I Can't Help It", "She's Out Of My Life" or "Human Nature".
 
Dart_Jack said:
I think when Michael relied more on collaborators (...)
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I would agree with most of this. I don't forget that Michael wasn't the only genius behind his music and his albums were the product of the works of many contributors.
On the other hand, I really really like Dangerous and HIStory, which I think are the albums where he go the highest degree of creative freedom.

Though, I'm not sure that he couldn't write songs like the ones your mentioned as he wrote other very good songs.

Though what sometimes irritates me (slightly) is when people say that Michael is a genius or so and then refer "Man in the mirror" or "Gone too soon" (both of which he didn't write.)

But for me, through his all career, Michael also really stands out has an interpreter/singer (be it with his own songs or not), he did a lot of cover (mostly at Motown), and people covered his works, I really often prefer his version to other people's versions.
 
Dart_Jack;4318018 said:
I think when Michael relied more on collaborators (like Rod Temperton or), it was better, than when he tried to do everything himself.

His solo writing efforts in Bad were limited to funky, "James Brown-style harmonies". It is doubtful that he could write "The Lady In My Life", "I Can't Help It", "She's Out Of My Life" or "Human Nature".
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I was actually thinking about this and I tend to agree with this. Michael's self penned songs, from a musical perspective were pretty straightforward. I think the genius of Michael¨s self penned songs lies in the production. They were so masterfully produced and arranged that those compositions sounds more complex than they really were when you break down the chord progressions etc. I don't think MJ has written any song that has the type of advanced chord progression such as I Can't Help It or Man in The Mirror or even Keep The Faith.

I Don't agree with you when it comes to Bad though. I just can't stop loving you, Liberian Girl, Fly Away, I'm So Blue, Scared Of The Moon are some examples of a different writing style from MJ.
 
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Maxym said:
I would agree with most of this. I don't forget that Michael wasn't the only genius behind his music and his albums were the product of the works of many contributors.
On the other hand, I really really like Dangerous and HIStory, which I think are the albums where he go the highest degree of creative freedom.

Though, I'm not sure that he couldn't write songs like the ones your mentioned as he wrote other very good songs.

Though what sometimes irritates me (slightly) is when people say that Michael is a genius or so and then refer "Man in the mirror" or "Gone too soon" (both of which he didn't write.)

But for me, through his all career, Michael also really stands out has an interpreter/singer (be it with his own songs or not), he did a lot of cover (mostly at Motown), and people covered his works, I really often prefer his version to other people's versions.
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Michael is definitely a great songwriter and this was not an attempt to beat him up. Still, he seemed limited enough when he tried to do everything completely alone. That's why I love OTW more than BAD. OTW was both his own vision and the vision of other writers (Rod Temperton, Tom Bahler, Stevie Wonder, ets) which enriched the album.

BAD doesn't seem so musically rich and is more obsessed with "James Brown's funk rhythms.", because that team was gone. Although I love him too. I don't have any unloved MJ records.
 
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