I also think the music videos, as revolutionary as they were, also led to musicians who didn't feel comfortable doing videos, to do videos just so they could get their MTV money. Artists from the past like Tina Turner, the Pointer Sisters and Diana Ross were all changing their sound to fit the standard and while it worked for Tina and the Pointers, Diana fell off something HORRIBLE!

Yes, as horrible as it sounds MJ and Prince kind of ruined pop music.

MJ did open the door for the crap of today even though his stuff was coming from a fairly personal, genuine, and creative place.

Prince by being such a whore with his behavior and lyrics, making stripped down songs with artificial sounds, and bringing us the disease that is Vanity basically created the blueprint for the shit hop and shit hop oriented stuff of today.

He is certainly more talented than the clowns of today and has the background to do that. His music of that kind has held up. One just can't ignore the impact though.

Someone even went as far as to say P's whole "real music" rants were because shit hoppers "jacked his swag," but the reality is they bastardized what he did much like they did everything else, and what they get is something disposable.

Thriller: a blessing and a curse to the music industry

No, this ain't all about what happened to Michael Jackson after Thriller but what happened after the music industry blew up after that album took off. For many Thriller came at the right time when the music industry desperately needed it. Coming off the fallout from disco and having difficulty rearing in new wave, soft rock and the underground hip-hop that was slowly edging onto the mainstream, Michael Jackson set out to create a record many said was impossible: an album everybody from hip-hoppers to R&B fans to rock heads could dig.

In other words, making "the ultimate crossover album". Now while he succeeded in creating just that and had everyone thinking music videos from MTV was the "future" and wanting EVERY artist to sell at least ten million copies a record. Now while artists like the Beatles, Pink Floyd and AC/DC had records reaching that high before Thriller, what that album did was just ascended that streak so that artists can find new ways to market themselves therefore making everyone wanna buy it. But see this is where Thriller in some ways destroyed the music industry because while the album was great and it did good business, it still did something that probably no one realized until now: no one is interested in wanting just to create a great album, no one don't want their artistic view to overrule its commercial appeal so what you see is artists changing their sounds just so they could get that "Thriller" money and what happens is you don't know you make a travesty until you realize it later on. And also what it created was every artist had to dance in a video, every artist had to have something that was similar to what Michael practically made the pop standard just as Elvis and the Beatles had done decades before.

You may take it to be dissing Thriller's impact but that album made it possible for the artists like Justin Timberlake, Ne-Yo, Akon, Celine Dion and them to have careers, plus Clive Davis brought a commercial pop sound to Whitney Houston, which worked out for a time until backlashes put Whitney into a place where she hasn't gotten out of. Thriller was as disastrous to the industry as it was valuable to saving the industry, since people say that album saved the industry. Truth is though everybody now is a Michael Jackson clone, there's no originality, every musician wants to be the next this and next that and every other pop/rock group say that Michael was their biggest inspiration. That's why many artists who actually portray an image of their own being rather than a clone, music industry executives overlook them for what they feel has the appeal of a music legend and in truth, you can't.

When Michael himself was asked recently about people imitating him, he felt like artists should create from their own selves rather than be somebody else...well he said something like that so it seems that even Michael Jackson knows that no one can ever get away with what Thriller got away with and Michael himself seems to be in a dilemma because he's re-releasing the album with the artists who basically grew up wanting to emulate the elements of that album or at least its sales potential/music videos. Questino is how long will it be before we see more originality and less trying to make the next Thriller? Anybody knows?

Note: This ain't from no article, this is particularly my own opinion on the matter... " I should create my own blog..."

"What's happening my man?" - Marvin Gaye (1971)
[Edited 2/3/08 13:02pm]
[Edited 2/3/08 13:07pm]

But I think with the use of talented directors, music videos can be a fantastic medium for artistic expression.

Bjork comes to mind. David Finch's work with both Madonna and MJ is amazing as well.

Timmy84 said:

Are you white ???

Dumbest thread ever...
[Edited 2/4/08 13:15pm]

Rodya24 said:

But that has no place in music and has smothered the art.

If you want to express yourself in that way, there's film.

If you want to express that along with your music, do what people have always done, bring it to the stage with your live act. If it's bigger than that, plays or a musical film would seem to fit.

But it shouldn't EAT another art form or cheapen it.

and it would be a joke to suggest that there's a lot or even a good amount of videos out there that were made by some true artist and not the same people making all the other COMMERCIALS you see

Michael is a force unparalled. He is a beautiful Black man, inside and out and the most talented brother to walk the planet.

Mainstream America hates the fact this Black man is greater than any artist that ever lived and they are doing everything in their power to destroy his legacy by false accusations of child molestation and whether are not he fathered those 3 beautiful children of his.

Michael is more gangsta than 50cent,Ludacris and DMX put together. He has the audacity to do whatever the eff he wants to do and its nothing mainstream America can do about it. So there!

Michael is a force unparalled. He is a beautiful Black man, inside and out.....

krayzie said:

Nope, I'm black.

Timmy84 said:

you ain't black

No way
[Edited 2/12/08 15:15pm]