HiStory as a track was the best and worst of Michael in one epic track. It was overly sacharine on the one hand yet biting and angry and filled with drive and determination on the other. It was lush and over produced on one side and raw and gritty on the other.

It's a song I have a love/hate relationship with for those reasons. And while it is as catchy as all get up, it is still not I would want as the last song from Michael (if Sony were planing on doing that).

Thankfully (for the moment) they are letting Michael's work stand on it's own merits. And from the way itunes is selling, the fans are voting with Black or White, Billie Jean and Man In The Mirror. All songs that (in my book) are more superior songs.

Swa

it would have been great if he had re-released it himself as a single disc
full album.

instead of "blood on the dancefloor" he could have revisited that History
album and added a few tracks to it like "blood" and "morphine".

the history album is quite good on it's own but i tend to skip the slower
more mushy tracks like "childhood" and "smile". i always felt that the cd
kind of collapses toward the end when it starts out very good.

Well the album is about 7X platinum...US Sales alone.

20X Platinum worldwide...

thats good enough....dont know what you guys mean

paisleypark4 said:

I would guess that's doubled. They tend to do that with double albums. It seems a little implausible that HIStory has sold as many copies in the USA as Dangerous. I could be wrong though.

AlexdeParis said:

and is that even SALES or is that the RIAA number of copies in print, because if you go to Best Buy, they've got copies of HIStory falling off the shelf, there's so many of them.

AlexdeParis said:

Yeh, it's actually 3.5 million sold in the US, 20 worldwide.

Harlepolis said:

Blood On The Dancefloor ahs some brilliant tracks on it - in fact better than alot of HIStory IMO. HIStory was reasonably solid, but some tracks were totally disposable. D.S., Come Together, 2 Bad, Little Susie - none worked for me. I agree songs like Childhood, Money, Scream, TDCAU, Stranger in Moscow are as personal as MJ probably ever got. Scream, Stranger in Moscow & TDCAU are personal favourites of mine.

Ive been listening to BOTD a lot this week - listening to Morphine is actually quite chilling, particularly the Demerol part. The title track is a classic MJ &Teddy Riley groove, and all the other new tracks are strong cuts - stronger than much of HIStory i feel.

Also the remix of HIStory from this album was realeased as a single in Europe i thnk.

The HIStory era was a complete success in Europe. YANA, Earth Song (!!!), TDCAU were the biggest hits out of it.

funny, the album may have sold 20 mio (I always thought it was 15 mio), but you gotta double that and he sold like 40 mio CDs.

from wikipedia.com


http://en.wikipedia.org/w...re,_Book_I

Isn't there a stick for MJ stuff?

CrozzaUK said:

I cant agree. They were only 5 songs. Superfly Sister and Morphine are quite demolike in my opinion. However the other tracks are quite grand and I would even had liked them to replace "Little Suzie" "Smile" and "Come Together". I wish those were just bonus tracks or B-Sides...especially Come Together already having been heard on Moonwalker...could have been left for "Bad" instead.....it was better than Leave Me Alone.

Im going on and on...however I think History and Blood On The Dance Floor was his true self shinging through. It was his Velvet Rope. Janet probably took inspiration from the album to create VR, just as she did for Rhythm Nation.

dreamfactory313 said:

Agreed!! I LOVE 'Stranger In Moscow' - it's a beautiful track, and the stand-out on 'HIStory' imo.

The album as a whole, though... Some GREAT points, some low points. I wish he'd got rid of some of the saccharine ballads, they sorta ruin the flow for me. And 'History' is one of those tracks that I can never make my mind up about. Love the verses, HATE the chorus. It's very 'MJ', though - can you imagine anyone else composing it?

dreamfactory313 said:

what about The White Album. It sold more.

I really like the radio edit of the album version of this song. Not only does it eliminate all of the extensive interlude-ish talking by the fake news anchors, it tightens the song up. a lot. to the point where it doesn't wear out its welcome as it does in its album form.

graecophilos said:

According to Wikipedia:


http://en.wikipedia.org/w...hite_Album

Looks like the White Album is at least a million copies shy.

love it.

On Wikipedia, albums that sold less than 20 million copies worldwide aren't even counted. See for yourself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/w..._worldwide

dreamfactory313 said:[quote]

graecophilos said:

except that the 19 million number seems to be applied to their US sales

what about the rest of the world? if it's certified for 19 million in the US alone, surely that beats HIStory's 20 million worldwide number.

paisleypark4 said:

"Leave Me Alone" is his best song!

errant said:

While global figures of that album haven't been known, I don't think you're far off that the album's overall sales easily tops HIStory's.

kenlacam said:

There is, but as long as the board doesn't get flooded with silly MJ topics, from what i read earlier, the mods are holding fire, besides this is four pages deep and would be a bit unfair to lock now, it's relatively interesting too, to me at least.

I always disliked this song intensely, skip, skip skip!. the end was so over the top.

Massively cheesy, it's like MJ's 'Arms Of Orion' or 'Graffiti Bridge' to equate it to a horrible P song.

Marrk said:

BINGO! It's MJ's 'Graffiti Bridge'. And one was enough.

Timmy84 said:

According to a 2003 Rolling Stone article, the White Album has sold 9.5 million in the United States presumably. I doubt that its sold an additional 10.5 million in the last 6 years.

http://www.rollingstone.c...hite_album

Im just looking for facts here.

dreamfactory313 said:

if it sold 9.5 million in the US, meaning that it is indeed certified as 19 X platinum as a double album in the US... which is the same way you account for History's 7 million copies.

if we're counting both albums twice for being double discs, then the White Album's worldwide sales are surely more than the 20 X 2 that we get for HIStory's worldwide sales.

errant said:

I would love to know how many the White album sold worldwide. Even an estimate would be nice. I knw its difficult to track worldwide sales. There are alot of sites that have it dead wrong about the HIStory album being the top selling multidisc album ever. Peeps have got to get their facts right. If this is true.

dreamfactory313 said:

HIStory did 3.5 million (since it was certified 7x platinum). I forget but someone said the album sold because of the hits here but I'm not sure. I'm sure they played disc two too because of "Scream" and "You Are Not Alone".

As for the Beatles, yeah 9.5 + 9.5 = 19 million. 3.5 + 3.5 = 7 million. The RIAA always counted albums twice.

Timmy84 said:

Yes, Ive always understood that. I'm trying to figure out worldwide sales and why so many people say that HIStory is the top selling multidisc album worldwide.

dreamfactory313 said:

I'm trying to figure that out myself. Some say it did 40 million units (20 million copies). But I'm not too sure about that number either in units.

I think I've paid about $35.00 for the "History" cd.

errant said:

Maybe not, you never know. The White album was no St Peppers that's for sure. Not as good as Revolver either imo.

saleswise across his massive career (that may or may not be over, depending on his legacy, unreleased recordings etc) Mike will eclipse eveybody in time, i'm sure.
Although sales don't = quality exactly (though he is/was talented to a massive extent) i'm happy and content to have supported this man for so long.

And will continue to do so too.