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When, why and how did Michael become a contraversial artist.

Datsymay

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I recon MJ was contraversial since the day he signed with Motown It just got worse as he got older and bigger. What do you think.
 
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What's controversial about The Jackson 5? I'd say it was when he started grabbing himself, lol.
 
I dont think mj is controvercial...I wish sometimes he was a bit more controvercial actualy.
 
It was over time....

the first contriversal subject surrounding MJ was the fact that the J5 were singing bubble gum pop durring a war.. This was untill there first singles hit number 1...

But other than that little thing, the J5 were clean...

A LITTLE contraversy began in the early 80's when ppl knew MJ had a unique collection of animals at the house etc...

The first big contraversy was surrounding the Victory tour and how sales were being distributed..


A lot of little things in between the time..

His skin changing, 1984,85,86... and some plastic surgery..

Also durring the Bad tour that is when the 'mysterious being' took an alivation with stories like the 'sleeping chamber' story, the Elephent Mans bones, the Shrine for Liz Taylor.. etc...


But still then, people thought he was 'different'.. 'out there'.. But he was still were crazy in love with him..


Once the allegations hit in 1993.. a HUGE contraversy hit.. This is where the contriversy turned from 'strange but sweet'.. To 'strange and scary'..
Still the overall tone was in defence for him..

Though the media made him look guilty, the overall feel was positive and supportive for him..

After that it was simply over the years,

*the constant negitive press surrounding MJ (purposly making him look strange to SELL)..
* The constant themes of the jokes with comedians
* Skits on SNL, Mad TV and other shows


When you see something enough (no matter what it is) you'll start to believe it.. AND THAT'S WHAT HAPPENED..

Michael became more secluded, and at that same time jokes were being said more and more.. So what people saw/heard, is what they believed..

MJ was not out that much for people to really get a REAL and fair opinion on Michael..


The whole process was gradual.. There is not a SET moment..
 
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DuranDuran said:
U must not watch the news.
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LOL!

Exactly, he is one of the most controversial artist of our generation. Well, probably THE MOST controversial. Although he is mega-talented, and amazing in every way, people still tear him apart from all the controversy that surrounds him. Luckily though, the year of 2008 seems to be the best year for him. He has tributes everywhere for him, TV shows, magazines, it's just great :wub: You don't know how many things I've collected from this era because of all the tributes and positiveness from the press. The newspaper in NY had a whole article on him, and the front cover was a HUGE picture of Michael and the zombies. Which is now on my wall :wub:

So yes he is controversial, but I really think he's getting *a bit* less, because he's been away for so long.
 
Datsymay said:
I didn't mean contraversial in terms of accusations, I meant contraversail in terme of making people think. Causing emotions and creating drama and excitement
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I have never noticed nor has anyone ever told me that MJ is controversal because he has message in his songs. Weird who says that that is controversal..me not understand.
But people started thinking differently about him around the Bad era. Michael was mysterious and there were all these rumours...

If you ask me who is controversal in music business I'd say Marilyn Manson or just about any other hard rock band. :D
 
Okay...sorry. I was thinking about MJ´s art. his music and lyrics. They are not very controvercial. And somethimes I wish he was not that careful if you know what i mean.

and yes there are a lot of conntroversity about mj´s person;)
we all know that..
 
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vncwilliam said:
as soon as he became an outstanding success.
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That would have to be from J5 days. Don't forget that magazines refused to put him and his brothers on the cover of their magazines, that was contraversal. That was why the Ebony magazine supported him. Also many radio stations deliberately talked up the Osmans and down played the Jacksons and caused a rift in playgrounds and colleges. There were things going on way before MJ went solo. Their was talk about his sexuality, which only got worse to his detriment. His fashion was unisex and sometimes put rageous, adding to all sorts of speculations and feeding the gossip machine.
 
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You guys are all silly.

People would still be crazy about Michael if it wasn't for the fact that he bought the Beatles' catalouge right from under Paul.
 
KOPV said:
It was over time....

the first contriversal subject surrounding MJ was the fact that the J5 were singing bubble gum pop durring a war..
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U can say this about anybody - The Archies, The Osmonds, Mungo Jerry, Three Dog Night, Debbie Gibson, etc. That's not controversial. Wars go on all the time somewhere.
 
SeriousEffect. said:
You guys are all silly.

People would still be crazy about Michael if it wasn't for the fact that he bought the Beatles' catalouge right from under Paul.
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People are still crazy about Michael. If you are talking about the media, then that is a different matter. Ask you self why are people mad that MJ bought that catalogue, when they never cared who bought it before. If Paul couldn't buy it, who would they rather had bought it, and why?
 
Datsymay said:
That would have to be from J5 days. Don't forget that magazines refused to put hiom and hios brothers on the cover of their magazines, that was contraversal. That was why the Ebony magazine supported him. Also many radio stations deliberately talked up the Osmans and down played the Jacksons and caused a rift in palygrounds and colleges. There were things going on way before MJ went solo. Their was talkj about his sexuality, whuch only got worse to his detriment. His fashion was unisex and sometimes put rageous, adding to all sorts of speculations and feeding the gossip machine.
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lol...well i just stated the short version of everything you said. it wouldn't matter what he did. as long as he is an outstanding success.
 
lol! I was just posting things... All plays in effect.. Even if others had the same contraversy..


read the whole list.. It's just talking in order..

I just mentioned it because it was the first thing in public eye that was ANYTHING contriversal.. Though it was a little thing.. It was still SOMETHING..
 
you can say that about any african american or latino trying to get on magazine covers back then though..others have made it on before them. michael and his brothers werent alone in that long fight. maybe that counts.. but so many others went through this.

and the way he dressed wasnt that unique or talked about until his solo career.

to me the first time he sprang serious controversy was when he was the first african american who was threatening to be the greatest entertainer on main stream television and breaking through MTV. not only 'some' african american artist who happens to be good to these racist folks.. but can break past 'precious' elvis even. and people who were worried about this eventually called him later 'the self proclaimed' king of pop in my opinion. they will never admit michael got this title from someone else. only elvis can be the male king in all music...and noone will dare say he a white man is ''self proclaimed''.


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He's controversial because he is MICHAEL JACKSON. He is HIMSELF. He's not afraid to be himself no matter how crazy people may think he is. He has a unique world-view, unique ideals that he actually lives out. THAT is different. THAT is why he's controversial. It's a good thing.

Also there are times where MJ wants to create the controversy (a la, end of Black or White video, the History trailer, etc...he likes to push the envelope.)
 
Thats an interesting topic...because I honestly never saw him as controversial. Yes he is very different, he is very private, he is extremely intellectual, extremely talented, extremely creative, loves life, loves animals, loves children etc etc...he is an extremely extraordinary human being..he is not your 9-5 average person....he is different but he is a good different...and he is the most famous person on the planet! I think the media or whoever you want to say it is...really sensatiionalize on his difference and blow it way out of proportion...i dont know...there may be some "weird" quirks but dont alot of us have some weird quirks and faults about us...??? I dont know thats just my perception.. I dont see what is so controverial about him.
Creative and talented people like him are on a completely different level. I know he is not perfect, I know he is not a complete angel ... but I think he is an exceptional human being...I just never saw him as controversial in my eyes thats all....
 
Michael was safe in the seventies. You wanna talk about who was controversial back then in the seventies in terms of JUST music appeal:

Marvin
John
Curtis

That's basically the top three acts whose albums had shock value and force people to actually take them seriously though John was already taken serious near the end of his Beatles career.

Michael didn't start becoming controversial until AFTER releasing Thriller. True the period was mostly cool but the first controversy came in '85 when Mike bought the ATV catalog, which happened to include the Beatles' Northern Songs catalog and Beatles fans got ticked off even more when Mike licensed one of the songs for NIKE in '87. Then came the rumors he was buying the Elephant Man's bones, that he slept in hyperbaric chambers, that he was building a shrine for Liz, that he had changed his color, that he had had a lot of plastic surgery.

In 1991, he got in trouble with people because of the last minutes of "Black or White" where he tore up cars and windows of stores and simulate masturbation (so they said at the time, lol, I remember comics joking about it, lol). Of course there was the 1993 scandal. So I think controversy just followed him after Thriller. He was deemed "safe" before then especially compared to his contemporaries like Rick James and Prince but in his last few albums since Thriller, he hasn't been as safe either in life or in his music.
 
Judging only by his music, there's really nothing controversial at all. Not like Prince's early music, or antics by Madonna, Ozzy Osbourne, or Motley Crue. Or like parents in the 1980s suing heavy metal groups for supposedly causing their children to commit suicide with backward messages.
 
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The BAD album was controversial, Mike was courting controversy at this time, The song Bad and accompanying short film truly highlight this. Go and read the lyrics to BAD and you'll see what I mean, then the short film with the way he looked, the crotch grabbing the costume, the concept "I'm Bad" (Because I wanna make the world a better place) was and still are all controversial. Also the video for Dirty Diana again the crotch grabbing and dancing of an explicitally sexy nature was also controversial as was the theme of the song. Also the words in songs like speed demon and another part of me could have been seen by some as controversial. Now some of this may seem tame by today's standards but I rember very clearly back then there was a lot of controversy surrounding this stuff, but it was mostly seen as cool and cutting edge albeit a little eccentric, some people already thought he was crazy and I beleive it was during this period that term W***O J***O first came out.
 
well his music alone was not really contraversal..


There was contraversy surround the music though..

For example with smooth criminal and video.. People were not used to seeing a violent side of Michael..


it's not that it was so 'BAD'.. but it was unexpected from Michael..
 
Maestro said:
The BAD album was controversial, Mike was courting controversy at this time, The song Bad and accompanying short film truly highlight this. Go and read the lyrics to BAD and you'll see what I mean, then the short film with the way he looked, the crotch grabbing the costume, the concept "I'm Bad" (Because I wanna make the world a better place) was and still are all controversial. Also the video for Dirty Diana again the crotch grabbing and dancing of an explicitally sexy nature was also controversial as was the theme of the song. Also the words in songs like speed demon and another part of me could have been seen by some as controversial. Now some of this may seem tame by today's standards but I rember very clearly back then there was a lot of controversy surrounding this stuff, but it was mostly seen as cool and cutting edge albeit a little eccentric, some people already thought he was crazy and I beleive it was during this period that term W***O J***O first came out.
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Speed Demon? That's nothing. Tipper Gore started PMRC because she heard her daughter playing Darling Nikki. No one ever said ban MJ records, put stickers on them, claim there's Satanic messages, or have any explicit subjects on them. If he did, his stuff wouldn't have sold as much, as it wouldn't have gotten airplay. Acts like 2 Live Crew always made 2 versions of the same record - a dirty version and a "clean" one for radio play. There's absolutely nothing controversal about Mike's music. The "controversy" has mostly to do with what people think about his personality.
 
Michael was labled as controversial starting in 1983, 1984. If you read articles from that time period, you'll notice a very concerted effort on the part of the press to paint Michael as though there was something wrong with him. It's because he's different, in his perception, and people felt threatened by him because of it, because they couldn't relate to him or understand him, he was so unlike them. Society doesn't like change or difference.
 
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DuranDuran said:
Speed Demon? That's nothing. Tipper Gore started PMRC because she heard her daughter playing Darling Nikki. No one ever said ban MJ records, put stickers on them, claim there's Satanic messages, or have any explicit subjects on them. If he did, his stuff wouldn't have sold as much, as it wouldn't have gotten airplay. Acts like 2 Live Crew always made 2 versions of the same record - a dirty version and a "clean" one for radio play. There's absolutely nothing controversal about Mike's music. The "controversy" has mostly to do with what people think about his personality.
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Granted no one ever said ban MJ records, put stickers on them or claim there's satanic messages although there is the disclaimer at the start of the Thriller Short Film. MJ's songs can seem pretty tame when compared to as you rightly point out some of the records by 2 live crew. Despite this, these songs and alot of so-called controversial songs have no real substance to them, often being just about smut or violence whereas songs by MJ while they are tame on the surface often carry a message of deeper substance such as did Bad and Speed Demon. While some of these songs are only controversial because they are Michael Jackson songs is true but it is because MJ is such a mainstream artist and that issues raised in his songs infiltrate such a broad section of society.
 
When he beat out the beatles and elvis, and turned the recording industry inside out
 
Maestro said:
Granted no one ever said ban MJ records, put stickers on them or claim there's satanic messages although there is the disclaimer at the start of the Thriller Short Film. MJ's songs can seem pretty tame when compared to as you rightly point out some of the records by 2 live crew. Despite this, these songs and alot of so-called controversial songs have no real substance to them, often being just about smut or violence whereas songs by MJ while they are tame on the surface often carry a message of deeper substance such as did Bad and Speed Demon. While some of these songs are only controversial because they are Michael Jackson songs is true but it is because MJ is such a mainstream artist and that issues raised in his songs infiltrate such a broad section of society.
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The only reason that disclaimer is at the beginning of Thriller is because Mike was going to destroy the footage because the Jehovah's Witness leaders. John Landis and his managers at the time talked Mike out of it. Mike compromised and put the disclaimer to appease the church. The only time he had any controversy over his music was They Don't Care About Us from Jewish groups.
 
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I think another factor in how/when Mj became controversial has to do with when he was able to have exotic pets and live extravagantly. There were and still are times when the media refer to MJ's life style as "hedonistic". As if to say when you're a Christian you're not allowed to rich. But the fact of the matter is Michael has given a lot of money to charities and to people who need some encouragement and support. A lot of times the controversy does come back to jealousy. I'm afraid that cannot be denied.
 
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