Jimmy Jam Weighs in on Michael Jackson - New Album

Michael Jackson has reportedly been hard at work on a brand new album between travels to Dubai, Las Vegas, and spots in Europe. Fans and industry insiders are wondering whether Jackson’s new material will prove to be the kind of sales blockbuster he’s had in the past, like historic multi-platinum releases Off The Wall and Bad.

Producer Jimmy “Jam” Harris, who with partner Terry Lewis worked on all but two of Janet Jackson’s albums, also produced “Scream,” Janet’s 1995 duet with Michael.

Harris says that Jackson isn’t motivated by breaking sales records when he goes into the studio nowadays. He explained: “I don’t think a successful comeback should be based on statistics, I think making music will be the thing that makes him happy, you can’t put the cart before the horse. You can’t sell records until you make the songs. And I think for him, making the songs at this point is going to be the fun thing for him. And obviously the reward for him selling records is wonderful. I know for a fact, because I know him pretty well, that the statistics, he already has those, I mean, he’s got records that will never be broken again. And now in this point in his life it’s really about making great music. ”

There is no word on when Jackson will release a new album, but results of a British poll reported last week shows that the eccentric superstar should command healthy sales figures. PopScores, a monthly quantitative measurement of the emotional connection between artists and consumers, shows that 82 percent of Jackson’s fans are ready to buy the new material he releases.

http://freddiebell.wordpr...l-jackson/

MJ just needs to release one real good song and hope for millions of views on youtube/great iTunes sales. Sales blockbuster with regards to albums is a thing of the past. The only way an act can break get even near 5 million nowadays is with pure talent and integrity. He has one of them left. His best bet is to stop all this contrived nonsense with regards to the production on his album and in your face mass marketing.

Well now with JJ and TL working on it should be good.
[Edited 6/20/07 19:50pm]

yoshimaroka said:

Looks like MJ will finally have an album ready somewhere in the next 5yrs

asg said:

I would say at least 6 months to a year. You can always tell he's got something planned when he starts making alot of appearances

Michael should go back to old school sounding music... something that sounds like his off the wall Days...

I pray that he stays away from hip-hop or even modern RnB... Stay away from anything that sounds like Omarion, Usher.... any young RnB star...

I love michael and will always support him no matter what... so if he releases a new album.. he already has my support

TotalAlisa said:

One thing's for sure, it's gonna have that Jackson vibe

It's nice that Jimmy Jam is defending good old Mike
but i wan't to hear this coming from his own mouth...
It seems to me MJ has been chasing thriller...
Jimmy Jam is saying otherwise...
hmmmm

TotalAlisa said:

You must not have checked out the alleged list of producers for his forthcoming cd

will.i.am
Ne-Yo
Teddy Riley
Rodney Jerkins
Neff-U
Sean Garrett
DJ Whoo Kid
DeVante
Big Chuck
Feemster

So long as he cuts back on the number of "Aren't the chiwdren wonderful" and "Why's everybody picking on me" songs, he ought to be fine.


There isn't much chance of that, but we can dream.

Raze said:

If what Jimmy says is true then I am happy to hear that. I think MJ has been worrying about breaking record sales for far too long and he needs to be more focused on quality, not quantity. I mean he already has the biggest selling album of all time and has broken countless records, so what more can he do really? One thing I know for sure though is that MJ is a perfectionist in every sense of the word so it wouldn't suprise me if the album didn't come out this year but I hope i'm wrong.
[Edited 6/20/07 23:17pm]

StarMon said:

I take 9 out of the 10 with a grain of salt, ESPECIALLY Ne-Yo and DJ Whoo Kid

yoshimaroka said:

Contrived nonsense? What "contrived nonsense" are you speaking of? Michael hasn't made any statements concerning his new album. All that I have heard are people who WANT to work with him and speculation from the media and others. Again, what "contrived nonsense" has Michael been involved in concerning his new album. What "in your face mass marketing" are you speaking of? I haven't heard of any "mass marketing" that Michael has been involved in concerning his new album. Does that mean that in the future he won't want to market his album to the masses? When or if he does would it be any different than what Prince is doing right now with his upcoming album? Are you saying that there should be DOUBLE STANDARDS for Michael and that he can't promote his album as every other artist does? Surely, that is not what you are saying. Maybe you need to clarify your statements.

EmbattledWarrior said:

It's not Michael who is "chasing Thriller" it is the media, music industry, some fans and non-fans. People can't seem to seperate "Thriller" from whatever Michael releases. Just because "Thriller" is the biggest selling album ever doesn't mean that everything that he releases has to be compared to it. Again, it is not Michael who is "chasing Thriller", it is the fact that no one allows him to forget it. The only pressure that Michael should have is to release a great album. Instead, we hear people saying that it will not outsell Thriller. Michael doesn't have to worry about "breaking records" anymore; he has already done it all. If it happens again, then it happens. He is not worried about that and most of his fans are not worried about that either. I am patiently awaiting his new album whenever he decides to release it. If you have been a fan of Michael's for as long as I have, you know that "patience" is a key word in being a fan. I can say that his music is always worth the wait.

skyecute said:

mmyah invincible was well worth the wait...

Nice news. Let´s hope we´ll see the results soon.

wonder505 said:

I agree. He should do the majority of the project (if not all) with them solely.

StarMon said:

Who the hell are these people?
I recognize like one or two of the names...

skyecute said:

The fact of the matter is although the rest of the world wanted to see whether subsequent albums would outsell Thriller, Michael himself wanted to see those albums outsell Thriller too; that's why he was forever reworking his image, the reason why Bad (which just happened to be the follow up to Thriller) was his most poppish album to date, and with Dangerous he tried to be all things to all people so that he could maximize sales to the hilt. And then you had all those "You ain't seen Nothing yet" slogan that he use to spew. Unfortuantely, I think we have seen everything Michael has to offer talent wise, don't be expecting anything groundbreaking from him on his next release....in about 3 yrs time.
[Edited 6/21/07 3:54am]

TotalAlisa said:

I agree.

Cinnamon234 said:

Mj spent most his life releasing qulaity albums, he is not a man of Quantity, he releases an album at least evey 4 years ,because as you have said, he is a perfectionist.

MJ stopped being concerned about record sales and he is aware of the age of Internet downloads these days , he knows that he can't even beat History saleswise because of the downoloads.....

seeingvoices12 said:

I understand him taking 4 years from Off The Wall to Thriller. (infact he only took 3 years between those albums) He was still with his brothers at the time and he was releasing classic albums like Triumph with the Jacksons in between greats like Off The Wall and Thriller. But since he has left the Jacksons the gaps between albums have got bigger and the quality of the albums have become blander.

In my opinion Michael was at his most prolific and creative between the years 1978 and 1982, where with and without his brothers, he released the albums Destiny, Off The Wall, Truimph and Thriller in the space of 4 years and all were classics. Now fans wait up to 5 or 6 years for ONE album and he produces an average sounding album, that if it wasn't because of his name would have struggle to sell 1 million!

seeingvoices12 said:

Yes I know that but explain then what happened w/Invincible? All of his albums have been solid-great IMO up until Invincible. I just can't figure out how a perfectionist like Michael actually listened to Invincible and thought that was a great album. Honestly, only 5-6 songs really worked on that album and the rest were filler. Invincible was the first full length album MJ had released in almost 10 years and it just didn't measure up when compared to his other albums. I think maybe his mistake on that album was trying to keep up with the times too much and it just didn't work.

I hope with this new album he goes back to his roots which would be making great dance/r&b records.
[Edited 6/21/07 11:23am]

Cinnamon234 said:

no it wasn't History Disc 2 was a full album.

Who the hell cares what Jimmy thinks about MJ's motivation? Jimmy should be taking his own advice these days.

sosgemini said:

PUKE

EmbattledWarrior said:

Invinicble is a good album if you compare it to other albums that were released in 2001 , There are some strong Joints on the album Like whatever happens, Butterfiles , speechless, heaven can wait, rock my world, break of dawn and Unbreaklable so No one can say its a crap, the fact that MJ didn't give sony music the best songs recorded in the sessions intentionally, he simply wanted to end the contract with them, so he just gave them songs that make a good album not a great one, the man wrote over 100 songs for Invinicble alone only 2 songs written by him made that final cut, and they are not even that strong, Mj would have at least 4 songs solely written by him on any new album he releases...

skyecute said:

THANK YOU!!!!! Finally, someone with some sense!

All some Prince fans ever talk about is MJ not being able to outsell Thriller! They and the media say he should move on from Thriller-esque sales, but eveytime he's about to come out with an album all they can say is, if he does'nt do Thriller sales then the album is a flop! And some of you posting in this very thread have been guilty of this very thing! FYI.....NOBODY will ever do Thriller slaes ever again! Just say thanks to the downloading of music for that! Invincible was a good album...if Usher had released that album, everybody would be proclaiming it to be faboulous! How is it nobody including Prince or Madonna fans ever try to hang their past album sales around their necks? The double-standards for Michael is just plain ridiculous!

To MJ I say, do you and forget everybody else!