Really how does one change the world?
damn esoteric question...
It's gonna plague me...

EmbattledWarrior said:

I rather not even think about how that's possible, especially when history has been very tricky (Robert Wuhl's college classes on HBO recently opened my eyes). It's like a hyperbole when you do stuff like this. "How one song changed the world"... I just think "Johnny B. Goode" and "Billie Jean" are great songs, "changing the world"? Well, I can see if it was about an artist changing parts of the musical world or a genre or a label (Motown for example) but a song? Mmkay...

Both songs demonstrate a pivotal change in music, But change?
no
But I would say Johnny Be Goode changed the face of american culture,
Got a whole bunch of white kids rockin to black music....

The white people stole it away later... (but i won't get into that)

EmbattledWarrior said:

Chuck Berry's music in general did change the face of American music and culture because he put a face to rock & roll where others like Elvis were the image. Chuck was one of rock's first great songwriters after Otis Blackwell and Ike Turner. "Johnny B. Goode" was only one of many tunes that changed the face of music. That's why I say I don't think it was a particular song, it was a dozen of songs he did that were pivotal to rock music's development. He started getting major credit two decades ago for what he did.

But to be honest, I don't think rock & roll's golden years, so to say, didn't get a lot of respect until the 1970s and 1980s. People who didn't dig those eras thought it was passe to dig it but when people went back for nostalgia, that era where Chuck ruled came back and that's when he began to finally get the due he so well deserved. As did so many others, like Little Richard and Bo Diddley of course.

As for "Billie Jean", that song contributed to major events in Michael's career. First of all the song was damn catchy, danceable and had that great sound that is still timeless. The video was among one of the first to actually REALLY use STORY LINES in music videos where before an artist would just sing in front of a blank screen or perform with a band (few videos like Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing" and Rick James' "Give It to Me Baby" actually went further to showcase the video with a story line, which was usually devised in a plot - Marvin's being seen in some kind of movie where he "feels sick" and gets "sexual healing" from a nurse, that video is hilarious actually. ).

The thing that made "Billie Jean" so great was that it blurred the lines between what was acceptable at MTV at the time and what it could benefit. The fact that a black pop artist was making good music and had created an interesting video that wasn't even a video of "the norm" was incredible so of course after much apprehension, they tried it out. And the thing is unlike those that came before him, Michael used the exposure he got on MTV being the first "urban-based" artist to get heavy rotation there to create a sea of videos that went further than "Billie Jean" ever went. And this helped every other artist get heavy rotation and use it to build their popularity as Michael did. That's what made Michael's move to music videos and breaking barriers on MTV so revolutionary. Needless to say that was truly the only true revolutionary thing he did, well that, and being one-fifth of the Jackson 5 whose universal sound really brought the "Motown Sound" to the forefront.

It's what made Michael Jackson a visionary in the first place. His music videos still excite me whenever I do look at them, mostly the '80s videos.

And this goes to what I stated earlier, it was the thing that Michael had that finally shut the doors on MTV's barriers that everybody who wasn't "rock & roll" started benefiting. I wasn't shunning the fact that people should be kissing his feet because of what he did for MTV, as he should, damn, I mean he's the king of that ish. He did make a big impact.

Also it didn't hurt that he was/is a great performer.
[Edited 7/22/07 0:45am]

Timmy84 said:

Well when chuck came out the only genre he was competing was Bebop and Jazz.
HE brought the yang to Jazz's ying, with influences from the other side of blues. Stuff that Muddy Waters was doing. That era of musicians were very important to music. And they were negro musicians.
After the psychedelic 60's Rock beegan to launch forward being very pale...
Than the 70's Rock was full form until it's death in 1977
that was its popular era...
But people forget that it all began with Chuck Berry,
And i sometimes feel he never gets the respect that he fully deserves.
While Elvis & the Beatles gets all of it...
History should be colorblind, but those who have the pens write history by their syntax i suppose

EmbattledWarrior said:

You mean BLACK musicians, right? The "negro" connotation has never sit well with me (as well as African-American but that's another discussion). Anyway, yeah, you're definitely right, people don't really give Chuck the full respect he deserves. I've ALWAYS believed he's the king of this rock shit. I'll say LOTS of artists wouldn't be here with Chuck and Little Richard and James Brown, I always say that. Those guys truly revolutionize the music business but they never get the accolades that their fair counterparts get and that's very unfair. History is a dirty word actually, because it's like what someone said in a movie, "don't write the facts, write the legend and the legend will come to life". Well that legend has grown to bigger proportions no matter what it is. So we're always being told to take what we're being told by them and shove it... I'm sorry, but no one's gonna shove nothing in my mouth to make me believe it, I wasn't raised that way.