I tried get thru Mj's cd the past couple of weekends and something became very obvious. Mj's music does not hold up very well without the videos. My question is, where would Mj be, without his videos and the level he took the video 2?

Graycap23 said:

Well that's your opinion, i never listen to his stuff and associate the song with the videos. Do i think about Iman while listening to Remember The Time? do i hell.

The music stands on it's own.

I listened to Dangerous the other day and I still think it's a great cd. It stands on it's own IMO. Same with Off the Wall.

Graycap23 said:

Funny, I was thinking this when I was listening to FAT by Weird Al. Video def beats the song.

In terms of MJ, I think the videos were an extension of the song. The only song I think where the video makes the song better (and more listenable) is Black and White, Leave Me alone and Scream. For the most part I think his songs hold up well with or without video.

He'd be a great singer even without the videos. Of course the videos turned him into a superhypermega-star, but the first insane hype surrounding him (that I remember witnessing) was the live performance of Billie Jean on the Motown special. That was not a video, exactly, and everyone was talking about it the next day.

So without video, but with live performance/dancing, MJ is still a legend.

Purely musically, he's a great singer who eventually suffered a bit of the same perfectionism that Axl Rose went through in the past 10 years that prevented them from simply doing good music in the obsession to create supermegahyper-star music.

But strip it all away and look at the 10 year old kid who sang with the emotional maturity & control of a seasoned pro, and he's still something of a genius.

I also do not listen to his music thinking about his music videos. I can get lost in his music itself without watching the video.

I dont...i usually listen to the non single tracks.

I listen to the MJ songs where he didn't do videos, his music holds up.

I think Off the Wall shows that he's great even without videos.

Yes I know there are videos to Rock With You & Don't Stop, but they are not what carried the album. It's the quality of the music.

I actually prefer his most basic videos i.e. Don't Blame it on the Boogie and DSTYGE. I was never a big fan of videos like Remember The Time, Scream and Black & White.

NDRU said:

The Jacksons albums and the Jackson 5 music, not to mention his earlier solo work during the Motown days I can imagine without a video. Post-Thriller, I do find great MJ material where sometimes you can imagine a video but it holds up without it.

Even some of MJ's videos weren't as GOOD as the songs.

YES I SAID IT!

whatsgoingon said:

Even the Billie Jean video was simpler compared to what he did later even though it was wild at the time of its release in '83.

He'd still rank high. The videos are just icing. Most of the songs I love, old and new didn't have videos anyway.

Timmy84 said:

I was thinking about that video, though, in comparison to other dance videos. Nowadays you'd have quick cuts of hips, arms, spins, etc. That video had slow motion shots of him dancing, almost like a highlight clip of an athlete. He was good enough to warrant it. The videos were simpler, but spotlighted him as a great performer/dancer right at his prime.

The Thriller videos stand out to me, but then the music does too. I don't like it as much as Off the Wall, but I like it more than everything after it (with the exception of a few songs) and it really would have been huge even without videos. Those were the days of pop radio, too, not just MTV.

NDRU said:

Yeah I agree.

The music stands on its own. The videos helped you to see the sounds even more vividly.

The music always stood out regardless of the videos.

graycap you are struggling for your anti-floon cause huh? with all the made up super-invented wanting to sound deep and intelligent about Michael.

let it go for a few months-maybe a year and then come back with your P&R buddies with your destroy MJ attempts.

Evvy said:

lol.....I like Mj so I don't get your anti comments.

Graycap23 said:

MJ music is not that good, the none hits tracks are so boring, by the way not all the vids are cool, the Bad and Dangerous stuff are ridiculous.

His music is timless so...

JackieBlue said:

No video for "Human Nature" or "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" or "Working Day and Night" or "Keep the Faith"...

BTW, the "Remember the Time" video is a masterpiece, but I was in love with the song before the video first debuted.
[Edited 7/20/09 12:26pm]

I personally think the bigger or more hype up the video the worse the song. Give me "Get on the Floor" or "Show Me The Way to Go" over Bad or Scream anyday.

"Infact if you go to a black club and they play anything Jackson it is more likely be "Rock With You" than "Black or White."

whatsgoingon said:

But what does the hype of the video have to do with anything? Very few (if any) of his songs have had a video debut before being released to radio or on album. Who hadn't heard "Thriller" or "Smooth Criminal" (just to use two examples) before the videos were released?

AlexdeParis said:

So u are saying that the music was not hyped even more because the video's?

AlexdeParis said:

Well I can't say for "Thriller" but I knew about "Smooth Criminal", "Black or White", "Remember the Time" and the like in its video before I heard it on the radio.

Timmy84 said:

That's because you're a baby.

Videos enhance the music,but I don't really think of the videos when I'm listening to his music."Billie Jean" is an incredible song even if it didn't have a video.

Graycap23 said:

For the most part, yes. I'm sure there are some people who can't separate music from video, but I've never been one of them.

AlexdeParis said:

Well, I have to wonder that people already had the "Thriller" album but saw the video of it before they heard it on the radio.