Destiny and Triumph are my fave Jackson's albums. To me, Victory always had a "various artist compilation" feel to it.

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[Edited 1/12/09 22:27pm]

graecophilos said:

Somehow, I don't believe it because wasn't MJ very friendly with them. John and Yoko's son appeared in "Moonwalker". Besides, why would John be so influential on Paul's friendship with him.
[Edited 1/14/09 17:25pm]

yo Timmy84 put me onto that album
in one of the threads here
some months back
with "That's What You Get (For Being Polite)"
(it was a DeBarge thread I think)

I found it on vinyl
and been hooked ever since
I got Triumph & Goin' Places too
but Destiny gets played the most

"Push Me Away" & "That What You Get"
are 2 of my fav songs of 2008
(that weren't released in '08 of course)

I think that 'Victory' should have included the excellent Michael/Jermaine duet "Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin".

I remember in early 1984,hearing Rockwell's song "Somebody's Watching Me" for the first time.I was with some friends and when we heard Michae's unmistakable vocal on the chorus,we thought it was the new Jacksons single! We thought it was the first single from 'Victory'.This song and "Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin" are better than anything else on 'Victory'.

hey man...are you old enough to remember KSOL? Their playlist during 1983 and 84 was very Michael-heavy.You would have went crazy

vainandy said:

Even though 'Thriller' crossed over in a major way,I really don't see it as a "sellout" album.Most of the songs I would describe as R&B ("Wanna Be Startin Something","Baby Be Mine","Billie Jean","PYT","The Lady In My Life").Of course,"Beat It" is the obvious crossover rock track but for the most part,I find the album to be very soulful and even funky at times.

vainandy said:

This is something he wanted to do before "Thriller", branch away from his brothers and create his own music and sound. \He said in one of his interviews that he's an artist that's always growing. This is the end result. Till this day for some reason, he doesn't want to tour with them.

SoulAlive said:

(I might be on the late pass with all my replies, and haven't skimmed through all the posts yet lol, but ...)

...You can keep in mind that MJ was very, VERY determined to create the perfect and flawless album.
He was so frustrated after the Grammy award-results from OTW, and wanted under no circumstance experience such a thing again.
If you know how many hours of post-mixing has been done for Thriller. The CBS-executives thought the album-concept wasn't solid when hearing the first mix at a listening-session.
Mike wrote about it in his Moonwalker-bio. After that listen-session, there was a lot of stress and a whole scheldue of re-recording/mixing/etc was planned. That was an interesting anecdote to read. The recording-process with all its ups and downs.

SoulAlive said:

(I might be on the late pass with all my replies, and haven't skimmed through all the posts yet lol, but ...)

...You can keep in mind that MJ was very, VERY determined to create the perfect and flawless album.
He was so frustrated after the Grammy award-results from OTW, and wanted under no circumstance experience such a thing again.
If you know how many hours of post-mixing has been done for Thriller. The CBS-executives thought the album-concept wasn't solid when hearing the first mix at a listening-session.
Mike wrote about it in his Moonwalker-bio. After that listen-session, there was a lot of stress and a whole scheldue of re-recording/mixing/etc was planned. That was an interesting anecdote to read. The recording-process with all its ups and downs.

Shango said:

I've heard parts of the original version of Thriller, and believe me, it just didn't work

Shango said:

Yeah,Quincy Jones talks about the recording sessions in his autobiography.I would kill to have a copy of that test pressing that they played for the Epic executives The album had to be re-worked and some songs were shortened.

I've heard parts of the original version of Thriller, and believe me, it just didn't work

bboy87 said:

Details,please!! Is it true that "Billie Jean" had a longer intro?

SoulAlive said:

I can tell you some of the songs that were edited:
Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'
Thriller
Billie Jean
P.Y.T
The Lady In My Life

here's a snippet of Starlight

bboy87 said:

Details,please!! Is it true that "Billie Jean" had a longer intro?

We'd all worked ourselves into a near-frenzy. Meanwhile, back at the studio, Larkin Arnold, the head honcho of black music at Epic, was popping champagne, anxiously waiting to hear the final mix.

This was it, the big moment: Rod, Bruce, Michael, his managers Feddie DeMann and Ron Weisner, and myself sat down and listened to the final test pressing of a record that was to be the follow up to "Off The Wall". It was a disaster. After all the great songs and the great performances and great mixes and a great tune stack, we has 24-karat sonic doo-doo. There was total silence in the studio. One by one we crept across the hall for some privacy; more silence ensued.

We'd put too much material on the record. To be really competitive on the radio, you need big fat grooves to make a big fat sound. If you squeeze it into thin grooves, you get tinny sound. We had twenty-eight minutes of sound on each side; we knew there was nothing to discuss. Smelly would say, "Oh no, that's the jelly- that's what makes me want to dance," which would end the conversation every time. With vinyl, you had to be realistic; it had to be under nineteen minutes of music per side. This was now all about physics first, then music. On CD's it didn't matter, because it's digital. Deep down inside we must have known all this all along as we were working, but chose not to deal with reality in our fatigue and musical euphoria.

We were in trouble and tears were streaming down Michael's face. He said, "What do we do now?". "The Girl is Mine" single was already out in the marketplace and charting at number 2 with a bullet: the album was late. The record company wanted the masters that afternoon.

We told Larkin Arnold, "In its present state, this record is unreleasable".

We took two days off and in the next eight days we put it dead in the pocket, mixing one tune per day. Rob cut one verse from "The Lady In My Life", and Smelly finally agreed to give up some of the jelly in the long, long, long intro to "Billie Jean".

From Quincy's 2001 book:

No worries. Sorry about the typos, I typed out the anecdotes about Michael from Quincy's book about a year and a half ago.

The long intro can be find in the extended version. I can't seem to find it now tho.

Timmy84 said:

Isn't it posted by any chance on Youtube ?

Timmy84 said:

Isn't it posted by any chance on Youtube ?

Shango said:

Shango said: