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Xscape General Discussion

bad25;3977854 said:
it looks like the general public and the 70mil+ fans on facebook dont bother about the new album. :[
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Global iTunes Positioning

1) Pharrell Williams - G I R L
2) Michael Jackson - XSCAPE (NEW)
3) Shakira - Shakira.
4) Beyoncé - BEYONCÉ
5) Avicii - True

Based on pre orders alone. No lead single. No previews. No official track listing.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

bad25 said:
it looks like the general public and the 70mil+ fans on facebook dont bother about the new album. :[
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Stop. I'm sorry but you always bring a mask on negativity in this thread. Most of the 70mil fans are either (a) fake accounts or (b) general fans. The album was announced TWO DAYS AGO. It isn't going to explode immediately. It is already getting more international notice than any project the estate has issued so far. I don't see why you have to be angry with every single decision they make.
 
Vogue;3977853 said:
The artist responsible for the cover art, Mat Maitland stated:

How was the artwork made? Was it based on a photo?

It’s based on a photograph given to me by The Michael Jackson Estate; it’s a fairly recent image of Michael but like I say, it’s based on that image and uses parts of it.

Its a mixture of one photo and digitized components (presumably most of what is behind the galaxy cloak).
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Oh okay, that makes sense. I took what he said to mean that he used parts of the recent photo along with other photos of Michael. Not sure now where I got that "other photos" from because he doesn't say he used others... but that's just where my brain went to :dntknw:

Thanks for the clarification.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

LOL. The contrived negativity is cute.
 
dam2040;3977770 said:
I'm not totally against Sony at all! I just never knew the real ins and outs of how he felt.
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No worries, no one does. Evidence in the AEG civil trial showed some of Michael’s handwritten notes and he had other recording labels listed that he thought to work with. Did it mean he would never work with Sony? We will never know because he passed.

It is logical that he would return to Sony for Thriller25. If I am remembering correctly, Michael would not have his masters until sometime in 2009 and he passed before that time. Sony was withholding the royalty payments Michael earned on Thriller25 ($12M or so) from Michael because of his catalog debt and Tohme intervened.

I agree with others here that this conversation should not take place in this thread but, it seems it is. The executors made the deal with Sony and it is on them to make sure this cd is as successful as it possibly can be because Michael deserves it (and some may say they owe him).

morinen;3977835 said:
It's funny how people are trying to make it look like Michael was totally ok with Sony. I think pretty much everybody confirmed that he wasn't. He might have agreed to do a project with them, because he wanted the house, his finances were in a bad shape and he knew that they had marketing power. But that doesn't mean at all that he wanted to work with them or was even contemplating giving them any new material. It's like saying that he wanted to work with AEG because he was doing a show with them and outlining some other projects - when it's obvious that he didn't and felt uncomfortable. In the last years of his life Michael, unfortunately, didn't always have the liberty to pick and choose who would sponsor his projects.

You may accept that the Estate is working with Sony now, but please don't try to whitewash the past. Unfortunately the situation with the last album showed that Michael was absolutely right when he didn't want them anywhere near his music. Hopefully L.A. Reid is able to handle it better.
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AGREED!

Back to Xscape...

Vogue;3977857 said:
Global iTunes Positioning

1) Pharrell Williams - G I R L
2) Michael Jackson - XSCAPE (NEW)
3) Shakira - Shakira.
4) Beyoncé - BEYONCÉ
5) Avicii - True

Based on pre orders alone. No lead single. No previews. No official track listing.
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Is that the total of the deluxe and standard combined? I see some charts are separating the two.
 
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Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

analogue said:
I agree. I hated that they used a Pic of MJ from the Thriller era on the Michael album. I thought it was insulting
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I don't think it's insulting, I think it's paying homage to the king is his "better days" or "less stressful" days I should say. If Elvis had a posthumous album released do you think the cover art would be of him in his later years?.. I doubt it. Just stating my opinion (love the new Xscape cover btw!)
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

AlwaysThere said:
Stop. I'm sorry but you always bring a mask on negativity in this thread. Most of the 70mil fans are either (a) fake accounts or (b) general fans. The album was announced TWO DAYS AGO. It isn't going to explode immediately. It is already getting more international notice than any project the estate has issued so far. I don't see why you have to be angry with every single decision they make.
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It's not my intention to be negative here. I'm only commenting on what I've observed.
I can see that it does well on itunes right now and it's because diehard fans are the ones who pushed forth the initial sales. After the initial sales spikes, and if it's not getting any public interest, the sales is going to go stagnant and the album will quickly drop out of the charts. The estate needs to generate public interest for his new album!
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

I agree after a few days the pre sales will slowly drop (they are now very slowly starting to decline) so they will need to boost interest very soon. An official tracklist would help but dropping the first single very soon would be the best.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

bad25 said:
It's not my intention to be negative here. I'm only commenting on what I've observed.
I can see that it does well on itunes right now and it's because diehard fans are the ones who pushed forth the initial sales. After the initial sales spikes, and if it's not getting any public interest, the sales is going to go stagnant and the album will quickly drop out of the charts. The estate needs to generate public interest for his new album!
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It's a Michael Jackson release, there will be talk.. and lots of it. I'm sure Sony is going to heavily promote it, as well as many news stations/talk shows making some sort of comments about it. I mean, it was announced two days ago and just about every major news site as written an article on it.

They were talking about it on the radio yesterday morning, because my mom called me on her way to work and told me she heard about it.

so there is already a good amount of buzz surrounding it, and it will only build up to the release and when it is released.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

AAAAAAAH! can't wait for the album! So exciting!!!

Let's enjoy this excitement all together as one family! Because the estate nailed this project!

And please stop looking in the past.

Forgive the past, embrace the future :D
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

The first few days of presales for ANY album are usually high. Fans seem to be hell bent on this album selling millions upon millions of copies, and that's gonna come back and make everyone disappointed. Personally I'm waiting for the physical copy so I'm not preordering.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

Since the announcement, Michael has gone from 730,000,000 Google hits to 879,000,000. That's around 150,000,000 new search results relating to his name.

More Google hits than Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Rihanna, Bieber, Jesus, the Pope, Barack Obama etc. LOL
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

AlwaysThere said:
The first few days of presales for ANY album are usually high. Fans seem to be hell bent on this album selling millions upon millions of copies, and that's gonna come back and make everyone disappointed. Personally I'm waiting for the physical copy so I'm not preordering.
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Me too.

I'll go the the music store and take the physical copy with me!!! I'm old school.

Don't need no compressed iTunes files.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

morinen said:
It's funny how people are trying to make it look like Michael was totally ok with Sony.
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It's equally "funny" how people are trying to make it look like Michael would never work with Sony when he actually worked with them and had no problem with getting paid millions.

(ps: at times I don't get how some fans want to portray Michael to be honest. A victim? A person that can't say no? A person who would let go of his principals just because of money? I don't get it.)

I think the best approach here is to avoid the extreme positions such as saying he would never worked with Sony and/or saying he was on bestest terms with Sony. Truth in most instances lies in the middle - such as perhaps he wasn't willing to tie himself to long term deals but he also wasn't going to say no to a good deal. The middle ground.

Also as a side note : the real business life and the real businessman doesn't really have much room for emotions (the fans tend to have in extreme amounts).
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

Never mind..
 
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Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

bad25 said:
It's not my intention to be negative here. I'm only commenting on what I've observed.
I can see that it does well on itunes right now and it's because diehard fans are the ones who pushed forth the initial sales. After the initial sales spikes, and if it's not getting any public interest, the sales is going to go stagnant and the album will quickly drop out of the charts. The estate needs to generate public interest for his new album!
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Hoe do you expect the general public to buy an album that isn't even released yet? They won't pre-order it, like the hard-core fans.

After the initial buzz the album will start to fall on iTunes. It may get a spike or two when the track list is confirmed, or a single is released, but then fall again until it is available to actually receive into people's hands. That's the way it works with all albums. Why are you always looking for the bad?
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

bad25 said:
It's not my intention to be negative here. I'm only commenting on what I've observed.
I can see that it does well on itunes right now and it's because diehard fans are the ones who pushed forth the initial sales. After the initial sales spikes, and if it's not getting any public interest, the sales is going to go stagnant and the album will quickly drop out of the charts. The estate needs to generate public interest for his new album!
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Do you realize at all that we are at the very beginning of this campaign? Of course, only hard core fans are interested in it at this point since the general public hasn't heard anything yet from the album. The singles will come, the album will come, the music will be on the radio hopefully and then we will see. It's too early to make a judgement about its success.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

Whilst it would be nice to see another MJ blockbuster release, I personally don't see it happening. I think Xscape will do better than Michael did in 2010, as not even the fans were entirely behind that release (for obvious reasons). But in terms of it being a big seller beyond the first few weeks, it'll be a tough job to capture the interest of non-fans and casual music listeners when Michael isn't even around to promote it.
 
bad25;3977870 said:
It's not my intention to be negative here. I'm only commenting on what I've observed.
I can see that it does well on itunes right now and it's because diehard fans are the ones who pushed forth the initial sales. After the initial sales spikes, and if it's not getting any public interest, the sales is going to go stagnant and the album will quickly drop out of the charts. The estate needs to generate public interest for his new album!
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Seems to me it either *is* your intention to be negative or you have a very poor way of expressing your observations.

As with any album (from any artist) that is announced and made available for pre-order, there will be an instant spike in "sales" (pre-orders) resulting from hardcore and casual fans who have an immediate interest in new material by that artist. Then, as the album approaches its actual release date, marketing starts gearing up and the first single is released, *then* the more general audience will start to take notice and -- if the material is good and has a broad appeal -- start buying the album. And the number of purchases will usually continue to increase as more singles are released and, more importantly (like it or not) based on how strongly the album is marketed.

Xscape was announced three days ago... To say that "it looks like the general public and the 70mil+ fans on facebook dont bother about the new album." is an extremely negative and inaccurate point of view, but it seems to match the gist of a lot of the posts you've made in the past few days. We won't know how well the album will sell until we actually start getting some sales numbers after it's released, which will be in a bit under 6 weeks from now, and even then it will be an ongoing process. Try getting used to that idea and you might actually enjoy the ride.

Also, as a reminder, this is from the press release:

In conjunction with the release of XSCAPE, Epic / Sony Music will launch an unprecedented global campaign with the One Sony sister companies, Sony Corporation, Sony Mobile Communications, and Sony Network Entertainment International drawing from all of Sony’s strengths and consumer reach.
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Sounds to me like they're serious about getting people to take notice.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

MattyJam said:
Whilst it would be nice to see another MJ blockbuster release, I personally don't see it happening. I think Xscape will do better than Michael did in 2010, as not even the fans were entirely behind that release (for obvious reasons). But in terms of it being a big seller beyond the first few weeks, it'll be a tough job to capture the interest of non-fans and casual music listeners when Michael isn't even around to promote it.
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That is a good point Matty.

Some killer tracks, released as singles, would help it though.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

Amaya said:
I was thinking that myself. Unfortunately, knowing how haters are, they'll immediately brush that aside and come up with a desperate yet somewhat believable explanation as to how this song implies that Michael was a pedophile, and seeing how the vast majority of the human race are idiots, they'll believe it. They're going to say things like "He was fighting his demons and put it into song form/he knew it was wrong all along but did it anyway/he was taunting his victims with this!" Hell, I'm fairly certain someone, somewhere on the internet has commented on an article about the album/song with at least one of the examples I just used, or at least had it pop into their heads.

How am I supposed to relax when people could very easily do what I described above and incite more hate and hysteria? >.< Don't get me wrong I'm still excited about the album but I'm so anxious with all this other crap going on.
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Why should we pay attention to haters? Haters gonna hate and nothing will ever change that. If the song would not be released they'd still spread crap about MJ. If we let them dictate whatever we do or say or whatever the Estate releases we are already on the losing side.

Anyone who concludes from this song that it "proves" that MJ was a pedophile is an idiot. Sorry, but that's my opinion. It proves just the opposite. Haters always going to twist everything to the opposite. I'm not even sure why fans give those crazy people so much significance.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

respect77 said:
Anyone who concludes from this song that it "proves" that MJ was a pedophile is an idiot. Sorry, but that's my opinion.
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Don't apologise. If you actually do come to that conclusion from the song, you are an idiot :p
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

Anyone else suspect this could be the reason why the estate wouldn't reveal the tracklisting at the listening parties?
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

MattyJam said:
Anyone else suspect this could be the reason why the estate wouldn't reveal the tracklisting at the listening parties?
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What? That one of the songs is called Do You Know Where Your Children Are? If they are so bothered with it they could have simply called it 12 O'clock.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

respect77 said:
What? That one of the songs is called Do You Know Where Your Children Are? If they are so bothered with it they could have simply called it 12 O'clock.
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Well, it just strikes me as a bit odd to hold a listening party but refuse to tell people the song titles.
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

The rumored sales figures i now believe to be incorrect. i hope someone can email the online team to get up to date numbers right about now! coming to promotion, i think that Commercials should already begin on television with the Xscape album preview! this album deserves to sell very well.

Update: it's gone down 8 places in the charts since being taken off of the featured list..
 
Re: News and discussion about new MJ album : Xscape, May 13, 2014.

The whole Sony discussion is moot IMO. Whether MJ liked or hated them he was contracted to them and his Estate continues to be contracted to them. That's the fact and we have to accept that. Or you do not accept it and then do not buy anything MJ. And that includes his older publications as well from OTW to Invincible, because those are released by Sony and make money for Sony as well... Who would you punish with that the most? Sony has other artists so they will survive just fine even if MJ's fans are not supportive of their artist. It will only harm MJ at the end of the day.

MJ might have hated Sony but I'm sure he was glad to see Thriller 25 do well rather than fail. And he was also glad that it made money for him.

You can say that his Estate should have made a deal with another record company or whatever, but I don't think it's that simple. Sony/ATV is co-owned by Sony and the Estate, so it's not that easy for them to leave Sony IMO. Just like it wasn't for MJ.

Let's just hope Sony will do it right this time. I don't think emotions should play a part in it.
 
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