For the non-stop adoration, ego stroking and sense of power.

Timmy84 said:

Because they fire the ones that say no?

Serena said:

Yeah I guess that's true.

Copycat said:

Sometimes it's just not worth it. I would've been fine with Michael being in a library every time we saw him.

I'd like to believe that MJ was a bit too trusting of people and that's why his problems increased throughout the years. Nobody has taken such a nose dive like MJ has. Its probably because he was too trusting, and also too stubborn.

Now if you look at Madonna. That's what you call a smart businesswoman. I'm sure she's been surrounded by a load of vultures her whole life too, but she knows how to handle herself well, and generate revenue.
[Edited 8/18/09 15:08pm]
[Edited 8/18/09 15:08pm]

Copycat said:

Bingo. And unlike Prince, Michael showed his pride for his ethnicity and heritage in public even when he was NOT facing problems. You couldn't pay Prince to acknowledge his race or say "I'm Black" until that issue started with Warner Brothers, and he hasn't said it again since that problem was resolved.

Ellie said:

I totally agree. I found it offensive and I'm not even a gung ho MJ fan. I don't see how legally he would be prevented from offering condolences to MJ's family or acknowledging that someone died. No one was saying he had to admit it was his fault.
I'm not sure who his supporters are. But I really don't see why he couldn't thank them in a private email or phone conversation, rather than a youtube video.
If he was worried about legal complications, he should have said nothing.
I really had no strong opinion about the guy either way before, but now I really dislike him. He seems freaky and cold.

One thing is clear Timmy,

He doesnt have much of an artistic legacy.

The Jackson 5 / Jacksons simply copied the popular sounds of Sly and the Family Stone and Motown.

Off the Wall and Thriller did benefit a lot from Quincy Jones production.

The Bad album was awkward allready, a very dated and forced sounding album in retrospect.

Dangerous was MJ trying to be hip with generic, mediocre R&B producers.

Invisible is even worse: some superstar living in his own mind, releasing an album the world isnt waiting for.

MJ is praised for being (originally) being an afro-american making it big in the mainstream, for his work with a gifted producer like Quincy Jones (right at that time that was, Jones hasnt really developed himself) , he is praised for his record sales in general.

People here seem to rate him based on commercial succes, that he was a fucked up individual sabotatiging his own musical career seems to be taken with a grain of salt

MJ might have been popular, but on an artistic level he is not a great artist, or an influential one, he was just a sell-out to superficiality and hedonism.

Ellie said:

I agree with everything you said ellie except the thing about the music, his last album was Invinicble with only two songs written by him, if you read the unreleased songs title during that area, you would find many songs written solely by him but didn't make the cut, Im sure there is still great music remained unreleased , the furutre will tell...

I mean, who the hell who would think that Mj would do cover version of the america's hit ballad "A horse with no name" ,think about it, maybe mj did few songs with akon, Ne-yo, william but Im sure he did alot of work by himslef in the studio.

seeingvoices12 said:

He recorded "A Place Without No Name" in 1998. And we know he had like 1,000 recordings pre-2005.
[Edited 8/18/09 15:20pm]

Riverpoet31 said:

I just love die hard prince floons still stuck in the eighties. you guys are TOO funny.

Riverpoet31 said:

Riverpoet31 said:

I criticised MJ alot whilst he was alive, not because I felt he was bad, but because i felt he had made some really bad choices. Having said that his music is a theme that has runs through my life since I was young, from songs like Looking Through the Windows to the disco sound of Don't Blame it On the Boogie to OTW to Thriller to the stuff he did in later years which I must admit was not his greatest stuff, imo. And I am sure there are lots of people like me who remember MJ in that same vein, so if people want to mourn and grieve this so-called "superficial" entertainer who had been around since he was 10 and whose music has been parallel to many people lives, then I don't see why you should have a problem with that. No one is forcing you to participate in his discussions . You shouldn't get yourself worked up just because you didn't like him and other choose to remember him as a great artist. As they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. In the end everything is subjective.

seeingvoices12 said:

don't pay any attention to him...he's just a die hard prince floon still stuck in the eighties.

whatsgoingon said:

Timmy84 said:

the year he recorded the song is not important, I said this to tell that we Just don't know what Mj was doing in the studio...

and 150 songs post-2005....

Well his artistic legacy I feel has a lot of value. The Jackson 5 may have been the psychedelic soul version of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers but some of their music is timeless I think. He had some great recordings during the Jacksons period and equally great songs especially in the first eight years of his Epic solo career. I would say the records between 1976 and 1996 had some artistic value to it, but that's just me and I'm not just saying that as a MJ fan but hey if you don't think so, that's on you. Too many personal issues probably affected his creativity tho.

seeingvoices12 said:

Well most of the post 2005 songs may have been his own productions. The dude was too scared his fans wouldn't like it so he didn't wanna release anything. Call it a mixture of perfectionism and the fright that it wouldn't be as appreciated as he would've liked it to be. Michael was all about trying to PLEASE everybody. If he was someone like Prince or something releasing all that records not giving a fuck, then that would have been cool but the fact that he was hesitant to put shit out show a mixture of "making it right" and "making it sell".
[Edited 8/18/09 15:28pm]

I stopped believing the "MJ held back all the great songs from Invincible" theory quite a while ago. He most likely had a load of great ones stashed up, and we do know Sony rejected the initial tracklisting. Yeah, no doubt he had better than Privacy and Threatened etc. but I think he just had so many hundreds of random tracks, demos and full recordings that he just had a collection of random songs and nothing for a coherent album. That would have been great 5 years later when iTunes and legal downloading became common practice, but not in 2001.

I remember that 1983 Jacksons Fanclub talk disc - the one with the 'Surprise Song' on the B-side - with them announcing the Victory album and tour plans. Michael said they probably had 20 songs but would end up using about 8. That's a fine way to work to whittle down to a feasible tracklist, not 100+ songs!

Madonna being the bigges vulture herself. I don´t know that much about her, seen only couple of interviews with her but never managed to figure her out - her true-self.

Anyways, I am still thinking how to intepret that naivity and what to imagine under this term. Does it mean that he dared to continue to believe in people while he shouldn´t have trusted anyone at all after all he experienced? If that´s the case, then I´d have to say, thank God for his naivety because without it he could have just easily commit suicide because how can you live your life not trusting anyone? I personally cannot imagine how I would handle everything he went through. I truly don´t know and I don´t want to judge him like that. I have always respected him for who he was and throughout the years, whatever was happening, in the end I never lost that respect for him, not because he would have never done any mistakes, but because overally he handled things with dignity and he sure had to deal with A LOT!!!

I wouldn´t say Michael didn´t have heart anymore in the last years. He did and that´s why he was so devastated by everything that happened to him. And I also don´t think he spoke one thing and did other. He only may not have had the strength anymore to do what he believed in and talked about.

Riverpoet31 said:

- riverpoet

Ellie said:

Plus most of those songs were unfinished recordings (In the Back, The Way You Love Me, Surprise Song was definitely a song that if he or the Jacksons really cared for it, they would've made worked, etc.)

He didn't even finish "Fall Again". I don't know what songs he did finish. Most of the "unreleased material" sounds demo-ish and, as you said, random. Michael would have ideas for songs (bboy posted Michael-penned lyrics on vintage paper sheets from songs he either recorded or didn't). Most of the songs he end up putting on the "Thriller", "Bad", "Dangerous", "HIStory" and "Invincible" albums were tracks he'd be working on during previous album sessions.

Like it has been reported, he didn't really record a lot of material with the guys he had worked with or was going to work on the album. Hell if he had went on the tour, we still probably wouldn't have gotten a new album because Michael would've been doing something else. He was also working on a classical instrumental album when he died and he composed some stuff but we don't even know if that's finished.

I bet at least about 600 of these 1,000 songs were even finished.

Riverpoet31 said:

If you're gonna troll at least use facts. You know he's not gonna be left out of history books just because you don't like him. People have and will shoot down the legacies of an Elvis, a Sinatra and now a Michael Jackson based on personal taste which is not a great measurement. I believe Mike was an absolute genius, that fact is easy to overlook because of the magnitude of his success. Last night I was re-listening to some of his home demos for off the wall, pre-quincy production and the key elements were all there. And for all the songs of of Off The Wall and Thriller, his were by far the best on each album, and don't forget he was 19,20 years old at the time of off the wall. Amazing songwriter. Can't say much about him as a musician because he never bothered to learn an instrument in a serious way but he did plenty. His videos set the bar, a bar so high that I really don't think they'll ever be topped.

dag said:

Who knows? I'm hearing so many other people at other MJ boards saying a lot of different stuff that they weren't even saying when he was alive. I do believe he was up to do the tours, we just don't know if he was forced to do more than 10 or what.

Timmy84 said:

You mean the fans or people around Mike.

dag said:

Yeah fans. Remember seeing the thread about someone saying when they saw him that he was "very thin" and said he was upset that he was signed to do 50 shows, that he only wanted to do 10 and that he felt like he was pushed to the corner? That differs from others (like Kai Chase and 'em) saying that Michael was "up to do the 50 shows" though he did say "they're killing me" (which can be interpreted into something comical). From other accounts, you could say MJ was joking, but the fans that claimed they were there to see him rehearse said he wasn't feeling up to do the shows.
[Edited 8/18/09 15:40pm]

Timmy84 said:

I don't think he was forced to do 50. He knew. He was probably just stiffed with the dates and didn't want them so close together. They looked alright to me, but I was only thinking in the mindset of people who aren't 12 ears out of practice with touring.

Ellie said:

Yeah that could very well be the case but some here would argue that they "weren't so close". It's just confusing.

Timmy84 said:

according to reports there are 200 New Finished tracks, who knows, till now no one knows the real numbers...

Timmy84 said:

There were some fans at the rehearsals? Why am I never that lucky? Do you happen to know what did they base their feelings on? Did they talk to him? Did he seem not as energetic or enthusiastic to them?
[Edited 8/18/09 15:43pm]