Timmy84 said:

I apologize! But this all started on the first page when someone questioned their comparative success in Europe. Then Patrick, whatsgoingon, and I kept responding to each other. The usual suspects... LOL.

I guess it all depends where you live, MJ's Bad album get's alot of play on both of are oldies stations here in Philly. You'll here:

1.I Just Can't Stop Loving You
2.Another Part Of Me
3.Bad
4.Man In The Mirror
5. Smooth Criminal
6.Liberian Girl

.....in regular rotation.

Rodya24 said:

I know... We all have a habit of going deep into conversation over something else. Least Najee was trying to stay in topic. I tried warning y'all but y'all kept ahead. Just adding pages and pages, then the topic will be about is Michael "the king of pop" and then it'll get to his surgery, his child thing and all of that... so I decided to come in here to cut you off from further discussing it. And at least get back to how MJ & Janet compared urban radio/club-wise.

Timmy84 said:

LOL. I got way carried away. Again I have successfully helped to hijack a Michael Jackson-related thread. Without your intervention and Najee's, I think this thread would have officially gone to Org Hell along with dozens of other threads on Michael Jackson.

LOL. I got way carried away. Again I have successfully helped to hijack a Michael Jackson-related thread. Without your intervention and Najee's, I think this thread would have officially gone to Org Hell along with dozens of other threads on Michael Jackson.

Rodya24 said:

Nothing personal, but Timmy84 and I personally would like to see mrsnet make nonsensical comments about Michael Jackson's soul music presence in the late 1980s than watching you go on incessantly about MJ's sales outside the United States.

whatsgoingon said:

Well, I'm not from Japan, Canada and Australia.. so I can't tell you much about that, but I can tell you about Europe!

Germany and the UK are two of the biggest European markets! Bad did almost match Thriller in e.g. Switzerland and Austria (I will probably look up some more countries on the weekend to give you more details... but then again, since this thread is only about Janet I probably won't tell you what I'll find!).... the peak positions sometimes were better than those for Thriller and it's acompanying singles!

In Germany for example he had his first #1 singles with Earth Song and They don't care about us in '95/'96... more than ten years after Thriller! In Austria Dirty Diana was the most successful single of '88! Earth Song was his biggest single in the UK ever!

You have to take in account though, that Thriller has 5 years on Bad, several times it reentered the charts (when Bad was released, when Dangerous was released and when HIStory was released)... also it was first released mainly on vinyl! Bad was one of the first CD's released ever!

Thriller is the biggest selling album of all time and is still regarded as the more must have Michael Jackson album due to that fact and that's the reason it still sells that much! So todays sales numbers don't exactly reflect what has happened back in the day!

Nobody is saying that Thriller wasn't big (saleswise)! It's just that the Bad, Dangerous and HIStory eras and it's accompanying tours were just as big and important and had a bigger impact in the rest of the world (and definitely in Europe) than they probably had in the US!! And I say that in the public conscious in central Europe his peak was the Bad era, the year 1988! Maybe it has to do with the album and it's singles, maybe it has to do with the tour, but that's the way it is!

whatsgoingon said:

That is not true at all! So far I can count the times that I have heard a Jacksons or Jackson 5 or Off the wall song on the radio on the fingers of one hand! It's simply not happening! When people in Europe talk about vintage Jackson they talk mainly about Thriller and Bad... Bad more so than Thriller! Thriller in my opinion was more of an american album and Bad more of an european (or international) album! Less RnB, more pop!

The Jackson 5 and Jacksons did not really happen that much in Europe, other than in the UK, not to say though, that no one new them! The songs that are mostly played on radio these days are from Bad, Thriller and to a lesser extent HIStory and Dangerous!
[Edited 10/4/07 15:12pm]
[Edited 10/4/07 15:14pm]

I don't know how old you are but you can't be that old. I have lived in the UK, and yes even there when they talk of vintage MJ they still refer to Thriller/Off The Wall/Jacksons. Being old enough to know MJ prior to Thriller was well known in the UK, infact well before Thriller ever came out he stated the UK was the place where the fans were the most wild.

whatsgoingon said:

Again, STAY ON POINT REGARDING THE THREAD. I'm getting tired of seeing any thread remotely related to Michael Jackson turning into some pissing contest about international sales, his personal life, etc. If anything, the thread is more about Janet Jackson's presence in the soul market.

It's tired, it's overdone and in this instance it's unnecessary. How many times can the same shit be said over and over but yet you act like you're saying something brand new?!?

Well, the people who couldn't accept what was being said in the first place about Janet's popularity in the urban community were the ones that went of course, and I am just responding to some of the myths have of the whole late 1980s era.

whatsgoingon said:

1.) IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE THREAD.

2.) YOU'RE NOT OBLIGATED TO ANSWER SOMEONE'S STATEMENT, PARTICULARLY IF IT IS OUT OF POCKET.

3.) IF IT IS OUT OF POCKET, THE BEST THING TO DO IS IGNORE IT AND IT LIKELY WILL GO AWAY.

The fact is after the initial hype of Bad and the fanfare surrounding it, the album wasn't something you would hear at lots of parties and clubs and it definitely wasn't played to death on black radio.What kept that album in the public conscious in general is the fact that he release half of the singles off the album and the world tour, take that away and the album would have probably faded into oblivion.

It's ALL relative, folks!!!!!

Janet Jackson= Jam & Lewis

Jody Watley= Andre Cymone


.....ALL SIGNS POINT 2 MINNEAPOLIS!!!!!

whatsgoingon said:

More importantly, the singles for "Bad" literally were released on top of each other in an attempt for Michael Jackson to flood the market and have the record for most hit songs/No. 1 singles from one album. Here are the chart debuts for each of his singles:

* "I Can't Stop Loving You" -- the week of 8/8/1987
* "Bad" -- 9/19/1987
* "The Way You Make Me Feel" -- 11/21/1987
* "The Man in the Mirror" -- 2/6/1988
* "Get It" -- 4/23/1988
* "Dirty Diana" -- 4/30/1988
* "Another Part of Me" -- 7/16/1988
* "Smooth Criminal" -- 11/12/1988

It's a classic case of market oversaturation -- eight singles in 15 months (including the first seven in 11 months). "I Can't Stop Loving You" was climbing the charts still when "Bad" was released. Within six months, four singles already were released. Epic/CBS literally released two singles ("Get It" and "Dirty Diana") at the same time!

Being bombared with pop-oriented records from a company trying to create an artificial market was another reason why MJ's songs from "Bad" met resistance from the soul audience.
[Edited 10/5/07 4:40am]

I knew about 'The Time' connection to janet and jody, and I agree with you timmy, she should have been visible longer, then she wouldn't have to make cover singles to get hits on the dance charts.

It was funny how Motown released "Get It" at the same time as "Dirty Diana" was released by Epic. Were they looking it at like a Paul McCartney thing when "Say, Say, Say" came out at the same time as "P.Y.T."? LOL Talk about a tiring formula. And "Get It" was a hit on the R&B charts (#4) but peaked at a dismal #80 on the pop side.

Timmy84 said:

The "Dirty Diana"/"Get It" double play was tiring only because Epic/CBS already oversaturated the market with Michael Jackson singles. Essentially, the first four singles from "Bad" prior to "Dirty Diana" were released every six weeks apart -- typically, new singles from one album are released every three months apart.
[Edited 10/5/07 15:34pm]

I guess that it may be a case of where you live, because the only people I've ever heard gushing over "Bad" over the years have been white pop music fans. That's coming from having lived in several places across the country. I certainly have not heard those songs on any regular rotation on an 80s soul format.

I have heard "Man in the Mirror" once on an 80s soul radio station based in Charlotte, N.C. But that always has been my argument with "the hit soul songs" on the "Bad" album: Surely if all these songs were "big hits with soul fans," how come they are hardly heard on radio stations with those formats?
[Edited 10/4/07 17:38pm]

Najee said:

Here in Philly MJ is old school radio "friendly". You'll here those songs I mentioned off the Bad album and almost everything off Thiller, Off The Wall, Destiny, Truimph, a few songs off Dangerous, History and Invincible.


I thought that was the norm in terms of oldies radio playing his music, it's interesting to see that's not the case in other areas.

whatsgoingon said:

You done done it now,lol. Don't you recall in 'Do The Right Thing' when Michael's name was mentioned in a scene? Spike Lee's character was in an altercation with the italian dude. Spike told the White dude , "f-ck Frank Sinatra" and the guy answered, "F-ck MICHAEL JACKSON"! Cause Michael was the BIGGEST damn Black entertainer on the face of the earth - "OUR Sinatra"!
Now crawl your way out of this one,lol. See Ya

Najee said:

Here in Philly MJ is old school radio "friendly". You'll here those songs I mentioned off the Bad album and almost everything off Thiller, Off The Wall, Destiny, Truimph, and a few songs off Dangerous, History and Invincible.


I thought that was the norm in terms of oldies radio playing his music, it's interesting to see that's not the case in other areas.
[Edited 10/5/07 21:12pm]

Here in Philly MJ is old school radio "friendly". You'll here those songs I mentioned off the Bad album and almost everything off Thiller, Off The Wall, Destiny, Truimph, and a few songs off Dangerous, History and Invincible.

I thought that was the norm in terms of oldies radio playing his music, it's interesting to see that's not the case in other areas.

Najee said:

Wow, to say that it's oversaturation would be an understatement! WHEW!

I always thought of Janet in relation to Prince, not Michael. Even though she didn't play an instrument, Janet's sound was more represenative of Prince's due to Jam and Lewis' influence.

I was only a moderate Michael fan--even though I recognized his genius in much the same way I recognize Madonna's. However, as far as music I would buy, I much prefer Janet over Micahel and Madonna because I was much more a fan of Prince and that whole Minneapolis sound. I loved the grittiness--the darkness of it more the the pop sound of Michael's and Madge's.

Soooo... I think Janet benefitted from Prince's popularity or maybe that Minneapoplis music scene's--as unpopular an opinion as it might be.

P.S. I'm a white female--approaching 40. AND as far as the Beatles just as a matter of comparison.. I've always preferred John over Paul because I thought John's music was "grittier" and Paul's more pop... so there ya go...
[Edited 10/6/07 4:48am]