WhisperingDandelions said:

LoveGalore said:

OTW, Thriller, and Bad are cookie cutter...? The fuck kind of cookies were you eating?

...Is this a joke?

You can absolutely enjoy those albums top-to-bottom, but don't delude yourself into thinking because something's enjoyable it isn't contrived, cookie-cutter, or blatantly pandering to the mainstream pallet.

Maybe if your 80s record shelf consisted of only those three MJ albums, Madonna's first three albums, a couple Lionel Richie solo albums and two copies of Purple Rain... This is the same decade that birthed goth, thrash, house, hip-hop, made strides with new wave, made strives with funk and R&B. Compared to, say, Sexual Harassment's "I Need a Freak" or Anne Clark's "Sleeper in Metropolis", them kinda cookies, then uh, ya, MJ's sesame-street sing-a-longs are indeed cookie-cutter, without even bringing Prince's albums into the equation, which no matter how enjoyable/fun they may be always had moments of weirdness or left-field tapestry.

Ranking Bad highly is where MJ stans truly go off the deep end, however. Thriller I can understanding getting in your feelings a bit, but Bad, are you f'n kidding me? Bad makes New Power Soul look like Innervisions.


and we don't even need to compare MJ to others. Compare MJ to MJ. Bad vs. HIStory. You really can't tell how one is contrived and the other has a genuine sense of purpose/emotion behind it?

[Edited 2/18/23 10:51am]

Just catching up here. This post made me laugh, I respect a hot take this confidently delivered. To the substance of the issue:

OTW is flawless, above critique.
Thriller is fine. To the degree that it's contrived, it's contrived well enough.
You are 100% correct about Bad. Even as a kid I fet pandered to when I heard it. (And I say this as someone who loves New Power Soul.)

purplethunder3121 said:

National Enquirer? They just make up stories as they please...

WhisperingDandelions said:

Bad makes New Power Soul look like Innervisions.

This made me laugh. Of course nothing touches Innervisions... But in all honesty, I prefer Bad to New Power Soul.. can't argue with a record that starts off with "You're butt is mine!"

[Edited 3/20/23 7:45am]

[Edited 3/20/23 7:46am]

Krid said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

Bad makes New Power Soul look like Innervisions.

This made me laugh. Of course nothing touches Innervisions... But in all honesty, I prefer Bad to New Power Soul.. can't argue with a record that starts off with "You're butt is mine!"

[Edited 3/20/23 7:45am]

[Edited 3/20/23 7:46am]

There is no accounting for taste. IMHO the MJ albums are aptly named: once he was thrilling, then just bad.

Even "Eat it" was so much better than "Fat".

New Power Soul has house room, Bad does not.

Some parts I already knew, but I didnt know about the part of Tavis Smiley talking about how Michael´s passing moved Prince just before he played Montreux in 2009 (one of my fave concerts)