PatrickS77 said:

LiLi1992 said:

alphastreet

Anyone who not grew up with Michael ...
When I first heard his child's songs, I was 17 or 18 ... I was like, "nice", but as a grown I was not interested in listening to the singing of the child.
in reality, even the extremely weak Invincible is superior to any of his early album, IMHO.
and this is not the position of "King of Pop fan", I like Destiny, Triumph more than Invincible.

I do not believe that outside the United States, many adults love to listen to his songs as a child ... they have no experience of growing up with these songs. that`s important.

Oh, geez.. I'm an adult (a real adult, not some 20 year old shit thinking she knows it all) outside the states and I do love listening to his Motown stuff. There are lots on lots of great songs. Also, the majority of his fans did grow up with him and realize that his careeer hadn't started with Off the wall.

I'm tired of your constant assaults on me ...
where I wrote "no one likes?"

I can say that my father hates King of Pop with a passion, but he likes some of his early songs and Jackson 5.
in the 70's my grandfather worked in the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and brought a lot of music albums, among them several albums Jackson 5.
Dad loved to listen to them in childhood, and then someone stole them.

so my father "has nothing against Michael, but until he grew up to be a madman."
experience that we have in childhood, it is very important.

and I realize that he has released albums before too, I even like some of the songs, but I do not put them on a par with his older albums, he had no creative control over his work at that age.

Emancipation89 said:

@ TheEmperorOfFunk

Of course Michael didn't all of a sudden become a bigger star after he died(I know that's not exactly what you were saying but just want to point out how ridiculous it sounds if anyone were to say this), he sold out 50 O2 concerts in almost an hour and I'm pretty sure that happened when he was alive. Shouldn't things like that also be examined? And throughout the years, how many countries did Michael perform in? How many arenas and stadiums did he sell out compared to Prince? Also, yes Michael had a lot of hits/compilation albums but if they sold a lot that means just that, Michael sold a lot. Meaning he could still recycle the same songs over and over and still sell more than Prince's brand new outputs. And that alone to be honest, already says a lot about their "popularity." It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which artist has been more commercially successful. Surely album sales and figures can't always be accurate but the gap is too huge between Michael and Prince to even use that as an excuse. It's like comparing Billy Joel to the Beatles.

Here are the international #1 Studio Albums by Prince: Purple Rain, Sign 'O' The Times, Batman, Lovesexy, Around The World In A Day, Diamonds & Pearls, Love Symbol, Graffiti Bridge, 3121, Come, Emancipation and Planet Earth. That is a total of 12 #1 Albums around the world.

Here are the international #1 Studio Albums by Michael Jackson: Thriller, Bad, Off The Wall, Dangerous, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1, and Invincible. That is a total of 6 #1 Albums around the world. Here we see Michael Jackson has half the #1 Albums Prince has.

Sorry but one closer look at what you've researched and how you used that to back up your argument tells me your entire writing is subjective because you failed to see the important details of the information. I'll play along. If we were to only count the "studio albums", apparently by your definition including soundtrack albums such as Batman, Prince has released 29 (not including Gurl6) and MJ released 10. Out of 29, Prince had 12 #1 albums internationally. That's roughly 40% his albums that went # 1 in at least one country. Of 10 albums, MJ had 6 #1 albums which is 60% of his releases. But if that doesn't wake you up here's another very important information you failed to acknowledge.

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

Not only Prince has quite limited audience compared to MJ, it seems like of all these 12 "international" #1 albums of his, half of them only went # 1 in one country. Come on, do I really need to explain to you how to read and analyze simple data? It is fair to say Michael was able to reach more audience not only in the US but globally even according to your standard.

In the end, I understand where you're coming from since I've read similar blog posts like yours over and over, some written by Madge fans who only look at how much money she's making from touring and think that's the most important thing in the world, Elvis/Mariah fans who think having more #1's is the most objective way to determine popularity, some even written by MJ's fans which unfortunately only tend to focus on like you mentioned, album sales, etc. It seems that people get so hung up on defending their favorite artist that they only tend to look at what they want to look. However I do believe there is a way to estimate popularity and you have to look at not just one thing but many different things, because they are not just musicians who put out songs and albums, or just performers who go around and do live shows, or just random celebrities who's level of fame can be easily determined by the number of articles written about them or paparazzi shots ended up on magazines, but rather all of that and even more; cultural icons. And the cold truth is Michael has always been the bigger, more global, more popular artist in terms of commercial success and the cult of celebrity than Prince. Of course more popular doesn't mean "better artist" =)

EXCELLENT post.

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

mjscarousal said:

Emancipation89 said:

@ TheEmperorOfFunk

Of course Michael didn't all of a sudden become a bigger star after he died(I know that's not exactly what you were saying but just want to point out how ridiculous it sounds if anyone were to say this), he sold out 50 O2 concerts in almost an hour and I'm pretty sure that happened when he was alive. Shouldn't things like that also be examined? And throughout the years, how many countries did Michael perform in? How many arenas and stadiums did he sell out compared to Prince? Also, yes Michael had a lot of hits/compilation albums but if they sold a lot that means just that, Michael sold a lot. Meaning he could still recycle the same songs over and over and still sell more than Prince's brand new outputs. And that alone to be honest, already says a lot about their "popularity." It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which artist has been more commercially successful. Surely album sales and figures can't always be accurate but the gap is too huge between Michael and Prince to even use that as an excuse. It's like comparing Billy Joel to the Beatles.

Sorry but one closer look at what you've researched and how you used that to back up your argument tells me your entire writing is subjective because you failed to see the important details of the information. I'll play along. If we were to only count the "studio albums", apparently by your definition including soundtrack albums such as Batman, Prince has released 29 (not including Gurl6) and MJ released 10. Out of 29, Prince had 12 #1 albums internationally. That's roughly 40% his albums that went # 1 in at least one country. Of 10 albums, MJ had 6 #1 albums which is 60% of his releases. But if that doesn't wake you up here's another very important information you failed to acknowledge.

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

Not only Prince has quite limited audience compared to MJ, it seems like of all these 12 "international" #1 albums of his, half of them only went # 1 in one country. Come on, do I really need to explain to you how to read and analyze simple data? It is fair to say Michael was able to reach more audience not only in the US but globally even according to your standard.

In the end, I understand where you're coming from since I've read similar blog posts like yours over and over, some written by Madge fans who only look at how much money she's making from touring and think that's the most important thing in the world, Elvis/Mariah fans who think having more #1's is the most objective way to determine popularity, some even written by MJ's fans which unfortunately only tend to focus on like you mentioned, album sales, etc. It seems that people get so hung up on defending their favorite artist that they only tend to look at what they want to look. However I do believe there is a way to estimate popularity and you have to look at not just one thing but many different things, because they are not just musicians who put out songs and albums, or just performers who go around and do live shows, or just random celebrities who's level of fame can be easily determined by the number of articles written about them or paparazzi shots ended up on magazines, but rather all of that and even more; cultural icons. And the cold truth is Michael has always been the bigger, more global, more popular artist in terms of commercial success and the cult of celebrity than Prince. Of course more popular doesn't mean "better artist" =)

EXCELLENT post.

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

You really think Invincible is weaker than his child solo albums? While I do agree that nobody could have sung those songs like Little Mike, those albums are pretty weak as well.

I don't think we'll ever see such a talented child /teen singer again, not in another 100 years at least. He had so much soul and he didn't need to write those songs as a kid, because the vocal performances he did were great! My fav solo Motown MJ albums are probably Got To Be There and Forever Michael...

PatrickS77 said:

LiLi1992 said:

alphastreet

Anyone who not grew up with Michael ...
When I first heard his child's songs, I was 17 or 18 ... I was like, "nice", but as a grown I was not interested in listening to the singing of the child.
in reality, even the extremely weak Invincible is superior to any of his early album, IMHO.
and this is not the position of "King of Pop fan", I like Destiny, Triumph more than Invincible.

I do not believe that outside the United States, many adults love to listen to his songs as a child ... they have no experience of growing up with these songs. that`s important.

Oh, geez.. I'm an adult (a real adult, not some 20 year old shit thinking she knows it all) outside the states and I do love listening to his Motown stuff. There are lots on lots of great songs. Also, the majority of his fans did grow up with him and realize that his careeer hadn't started with Off the wall.

Oh god yeah, I still have my vinyl of 'Forever Michael' which i um, 'borrowed' off my dad. i remember thumbing that thing in the late seventies, same with the gatefold 'Jacksons' album from '76. I certainly grew up listening to little Mike/teen Mike. I've re-bought all this stuff numerous times in different formats, only one reason for it, i like it.

Post death, 'Hello World', 'Live @ The Forum' and 'Come & Get It (The Rare Pearls) have been the BEST releases so far. Insanely great music there. I take his formative years very seriously, always have.

And what you guys arguing about bullshit trivia again for? So fucking stupid.

lol:

[Edited 2/16/13 8:10am]

Emancipation89 said:

GoldDolphin said:

I don't know, some people said that the grammys didn't fullfull his requirements of some sorts, I don't know how true that is. It sucks though and I remember that commercial! I don't understand how they couldn't arrange a proper tribute, with all of those people copying everything he had done. It's a shame he never got a proper tribute while he was alive, espcially the last 10 years of his life. Watching Prince feel all that love during the grammys the other day, made me think how it's a shame MJ never got that and he truly deserved that, espcially after all those stupid scandals. Thinking about it, the few people that were supporting him during his later years were people in the Hip-Hop community.

I wonder if they simply couldn't get a lot of people to do MJ tribute at that time. I'm probably over-thinking this but a lot of musicians were being really reserved when it comes to showing their support for MJ publicly after the trial, even if it was just solely about his legacy as an artist...that's how I felt. Who knows, maybe it really was MJ who didn't want to make an appearance at the Grammys to watch the tribute and wanted this to be cancelled. Michael could've really used a good award show tribute to boost his confidence imo and yes it would've been a great way to remind the public what he was originally known and famous for. I'm surprised the grammys and even the BET never gave MJ an all-star tribute when he was alive like they did with Prince. He really deserved it.

Oh and about Justin haha personally I see more Prince influence than MJ in him these days..

[Edited 2/14/13 15:12pm]

You are right, there was a lot of reservation from the industry and the general public and though there were many people who supported MJ, like Amy Winehouse, Björk, Beyonce, Ne-yo, Britney Spears, Kanye and many rappers and r&b singers, it was not "good" to talk nicely about him. I remember an interview with Mary J Blige with Oprah, where she was talking about inspirations and she said "I'm listening to Thriller because of Quincy Jones great work" or something like that and she didn't mention Michael at all, so while people still cited him as an influence they always tried to minimize him and try to make Quincy Jones to be the genius. I'm glad American Idol did their tribute and if I remember correctly he was going to appear as well, but got sick or something.

mjscarousal said:

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

We analyzed the charts, all the albums I considered through the prism of the charts.
I understand that such a personal preference (though once again, really love MJ solo albums as a child can basically people who grew up with these songs, but not the one who heard them as an adult.)
why I prefer to separated 4 childs and 6 adults?
when we speak of the charts, the album, released by a child, difficult to compete with albums of adults, because the audience is inherently more limited demographically (initially unequal).
the conversation was not about sympathy for these albums in the first place (although I am not a big fan), but about the competitiveness and comparability of these albums with the rest of his work.

I like some of the songs, especially the vocals., but the albums as a whole are rustic musically (do not know what word to choose the right ... not a sophisticated music), IMHO

LiLi1992 said:

mjscarousal said:

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

We analyzed the charts, all the albums I considered through the prism of the charts.
I understand that such a personal preference (though once again, really love MJ solo albums as a child can basically people who grew up with these songs, but not the one who heard them as an adult.)
why I prefer to separated 4 childs and 6 adults?
when we speak of the charts, the album, released by a child, difficult to compete with albums of adults, because the audience is inherently more limited demographically (initially unequal).
the conversation was not about sympathy for these albums in the first place (although I am not a big fan), but about the competitiveness and comparability of these albums with the rest of his work.

I like some of the songs, especially the vocals., but the albums as a whole are rustic musically (do not know what word to choose the right ... not a sophisticated music), IMHO

I think you are right in some ways about people hearing his child albums and not liking them as much as the adult ones, because I think it has to do with them not having the same fondness of that particular sound of the 70s. Some fans also view it as a continuation of the Jackson 5 sound and there are a lot of fans who simply aren't fans of The J5 but love MJs career after Off The Wall.

I think it's important to seperate The Jackson 5 and MJs solo work at Motown to his later work with The Jacksons and MJ solo at Epic. Musically it's not longer the same artist and he was in charge of his sound when he was an adult. Perhaps one could include his album Forever Michael that came out 1975 as part of his solo albums list, because that's the time when The Jackson 5 are trying to gain more control over their music and eventually leave for Epic as The Jacksons. (Lets not forget the main reason the J5 left Motown was because they felt their -motown- image didn't fit them anymore and the brothers were already writing and producing their stuff and weren't allowed to do anything with it)

[Edited 2/16/13 9:27am]

Lil MJ was so adorable!

Emancipation89 said:

@ TheEmperorOfFunk

Of course Michael didn't all of a sudden become a bigger star after he died(I know that's not exactly what you were saying but just want to point out how ridiculous it sounds if anyone were to say this), he sold out 50 O2 concerts in almost an hour and I'm pretty sure that happened when he was alive. Shouldn't things like that also be examined? And throughout the years, how many countries did Michael perform in? How many arenas and stadiums did he sell out compared to Prince? Also, yes Michael had a lot of hits/compilation albums but if they sold a lot that means just that, Michael sold a lot. Meaning he could still recycle the same songs over and over and still sell more than Prince's brand new outputs. And that alone to be honest, already says a lot about their "popularity." It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which artist has been more commercially successful. Surely album sales and figures can't always be accurate but the gap is too huge between Michael and Prince to even use that as an excuse. It's like comparing Billy Joel to the Beatles.

Here are the international #1 Studio Albums by Prince: Purple Rain, Sign 'O' The Times, Batman, Lovesexy, Around The World In A Day, Diamonds & Pearls, Love Symbol, Graffiti Bridge, 3121, Come, Emancipation and Planet Earth. That is a total of 12 #1 Albums around the world.

Here are the international #1 Studio Albums by Michael Jackson: Thriller, Bad, Off The Wall, Dangerous, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book 1, and Invincible. That is a total of 6 #1 Albums around the world. Here we see Michael Jackson has half the #1 Albums Prince has.

Sorry but one closer look at what you've researched and how you used that to back up your argument tells me your entire writing is subjective because you failed to see the important details of the information. I'll play along. If we were to only count the "studio albums", apparently by your definition including soundtrack albums such as Batman, Prince has released 29 (not including Gurl6) and MJ released 10. Out of 29, Prince had 12 #1 albums internationally. That's roughly 40% his albums that went # 1 in at least one country. Of 10 albums, MJ had 6 #1 albums which is 60% of his releases. But if that doesn't wake you up here's another very important information you failed to acknowledge.

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

Not only Prince has quite limited audience compared to MJ, it seems like of all these 12 "international" #1 albums of his, half of them only went # 1 in one country. Come on, do I really need to explain to you how to read and analyze simple data? It is fair to say Michael was able to reach more audience not only in the US but globally even according to your standard.

In the end, I understand where you're coming from since I've read similar blog posts like yours over and over, some written by Madge fans who only look at how much money she's making from touring and think that's the most important thing in the world, Elvis/Mariah fans who think having more #1's is the most objective way to determine popularity, some even written by MJ's fans which unfortunately only tend to focus on like you mentioned, album sales, etc. It seems that people get so hung up on defending their favorite artist that they only tend to look at what they want to look. However I do believe there is a way to estimate popularity and you have to look at not just one thing but many different things, because they are not just musicians who put out songs and albums, or just performers who go around and do live shows, or just random celebrities who's level of fame can be easily determined by the number of articles written about them or paparazzi shots ended up on magazines, but rather all of that and even more; cultural icons. And the cold truth is Michael has always been the bigger, more global, more popular artist in terms of commercial success and the cult of celebrity than Prince. Of course more popular doesn't mean "better artist" =)

If you know already that's not what I was saying then why include it in your response? Now as to everything else you make some valid points but the article wasn't about seeing who was the most popular as i have already said popularity is unmeasurable contrary to your opinion. It was about chart success which is measurable. Sure Attendance is measurable and could be added but then I would have to see average ticket prices and what were the incentives to go (I.E free albums, paraphernalia etc;) and how would that be measured? It starts to become a sticky mess. Chart success is straight forward raw numbers. Say what you want about a "big gap" and that it's my "excuse" but record sales are extremely loose estimates. The minimal estimate for Thriller is 30.9 million with the maximum being an impossible 100+ million copies. I dont care if youre an MJ fan or not this is just too unreliable. Especially since Purple Rain estimates anywhere from a minimum of 13.8 Million to a maximum of 30 million. Also Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge and Batman are considered Studio Albums that served for the movie. NOT the other way around. Every single one of those albums were released BEFORE the movie came out and are listed as Studio Albums. The article has been changed multiple times due to it being a work in progress. Of all your opinions the one point you make that I will definitely add (aside: This is why I posted this article to hear new ideas and implement them) is:

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

This is really Great info and definitely gives the reader that While Prince scored #1 albums they were not as big as MJ's. Lastly as to the 60% vs the 40%..All I have to say is MJ chose to release 10 solo albums Prince chose to experiment more with music try different things and release everything. to punish or reward artists for efficieny like they are Quarterbacks is senseless. They released what they released. Basically it's like punishing David Bowie because he had X % of Hit albums vs his releases against Adele cuz she went 2/2 with #1 albums. Thank you for your contributions I will be sure to add what I said I would.

LiLi1992 said:

I'm tired of your constant assaults on me ...
where I wrote "no one likes?"

I can say that my father hates King of Pop with a passion, but he likes some of his early songs and Jackson 5.
in the 70's my grandfather worked in the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and brought a lot of music albums, among them several albums Jackson 5.
Dad loved to listen to them in childhood, and then someone stole them.

so my father "has nothing against Michael, but until he grew up to be a madman."
experience that we have in childhood, it is very important.

And I'm tired of the little Ms. Knowitall, who thinks that what she thinks is the standard of what everyone is (should be) thinking.

And if your father "hates" (why, what did MJ ever do to him, that he has to "hate" him) MJ because of what supposedly happened to him later on and only likes earlier songs, then it is his loss that he can't seperate the person from the music and his opinion is not really valid.

LiLi1992 said:

I understand that such a personal preference (though once again, really love MJ solo albums as a child can basically people who grew up with these songs, but not the one who heard them as an adult.)

And again, a sweeping generalization. A case of where you think that that what you think should be applyable to everyone else, which is total bs. People that didn't grow up with Michael's Motown music can genuinely love that music. The music was good.

Marrk said:

Post death, 'Hello World', 'Live @ The Forum' and 'Come & Get It (The Rare Pearls) have been the BEST releases so far. Insanely great music there. I take his formative years very seriously, always have.

And what you guys arguing about bullshit trivia again for? So fucking stupid.

GoldDolphin said:

I don't think we'll ever see such a talented child /teen singer again, not in another 100 years at least. He had so much soul and he didn't need to write those songs as a kid, because the vocal performances he did were great!

Yes, yes and yes.

TheEmperorofFunk said:

Emancipation89 said:

@ TheEmperorOfFunk

Of course Michael didn't all of a sudden become a bigger star after he died(I know that's not exactly what you were saying but just want to point out how ridiculous it sounds if anyone were to say this), he sold out 50 O2 concerts in almost an hour and I'm pretty sure that happened when he was alive. Shouldn't things like that also be examined? And throughout the years, how many countries did Michael perform in? How many arenas and stadiums did he sell out compared to Prince? Also, yes Michael had a lot of hits/compilation albums but if they sold a lot that means just that, Michael sold a lot. Meaning he could still recycle the same songs over and over and still sell more than Prince's brand new outputs. And that alone to be honest, already says a lot about their "popularity." It shouldn't be too hard to figure out which artist has been more commercially successful. Surely album sales and figures can't always be accurate but the gap is too huge between Michael and Prince to even use that as an excuse. It's like comparing Billy Joel to the Beatles.

Sorry but one closer look at what you've researched and how you used that to back up your argument tells me your entire writing is subjective because you failed to see the important details of the information. I'll play along. If we were to only count the "studio albums", apparently by your definition including soundtrack albums such as Batman, Prince has released 29 (not including Gurl6) and MJ released 10. Out of 29, Prince had 12 #1 albums internationally. That's roughly 40% his albums that went # 1 in at least one country. Of 10 albums, MJ had 6 #1 albums which is 60% of his releases. But if that doesn't wake you up here's another very important information you failed to acknowledge.

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

Not only Prince has quite limited audience compared to MJ, it seems like of all these 12 "international" #1 albums of his, half of them only went # 1 in one country. Come on, do I really need to explain to you how to read and analyze simple data? It is fair to say Michael was able to reach more audience not only in the US but globally even according to your standard.

In the end, I understand where you're coming from since I've read similar blog posts like yours over and over, some written by Madge fans who only look at how much money she's making from touring and think that's the most important thing in the world, Elvis/Mariah fans who think having more #1's is the most objective way to determine popularity, some even written by MJ's fans which unfortunately only tend to focus on like you mentioned, album sales, etc. It seems that people get so hung up on defending their favorite artist that they only tend to look at what they want to look. However I do believe there is a way to estimate popularity and you have to look at not just one thing but many different things, because they are not just musicians who put out songs and albums, or just performers who go around and do live shows, or just random celebrities who's level of fame can be easily determined by the number of articles written about them or paparazzi shots ended up on magazines, but rather all of that and even more; cultural icons. And the cold truth is Michael has always been the bigger, more global, more popular artist in terms of commercial success and the cult of celebrity than Prince. Of course more popular doesn't mean "better artist" =)

If you know already that's not what I was saying then why include it in your response? Now as to everything else you make some valid points but the article wasn't about seeing who was the most popular as i have already said popularity is unmeasurable contrary to your opinion. It was about chart success which is measurable. Sure Attendance is measurable and could be added but then I would have to see average ticket prices and what were the incentives to go (I.E free albums, paraphernalia etc;) and how would that be measured? It starts to become a sticky mess. Chart success is straight forward raw numbers. Say what you want about a "big gap" and that it's my "excuse" but record sales are extremely loose estimates. The minimal estimate for Thriller is 30.9 million with the maximum being an impossible 100+ million copies. I dont care if youre an MJ fan or not this is just too unreliable. Especially since Purple Rain estimates anywhere from a minimum of 13.8 Million to a maximum of 30 million. Also Purple Rain, Graffiti Bridge and Batman are considered Studio Albums that served for the movie. NOT the other way around. Every single one of those albums were released BEFORE the movie came out and are listed as Studio Albums. The article has been changed multiple times due to it being a work in progress. Of all your opinions the one point you make that I will definitely add (aside: This is why I posted this article to hear new ideas and implement them) is:

Purple Rain was #1 in: US, Australia, Canada, Netherlands

ATWIAD: US, Sweden
SOTT: Switzerland

Batman: US, Switzerland, NZ, UK, Canada

Lovesexy: Netherlands, UK, Sweden, Switzerland, NZ

Graffiti Bridge: UK

D&P: Austrailia

Love Symbol: Australia, Austria, UK

Come: UK

Emancipation: Switzerland

3121: US

PE: US, Switzerland

vs.

Off the Wall: Australia

Thriller: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Italy, UK, Spain, Japan, Switzerland, US

BAD: Austria, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan, NZ, UK, Norway, Spain, Poland, Sweden, Swiss, & US

Dangerous: Norway, UK, Austria, Australia, Brazil, Germany, New Zealand, Spain & US

History: Australia, Germany, Brazil, Belgium, Swiss, UK, Canada, France, Italy, New Zealand, Norway & US

Invincible: UK, Denmark, Australia, Belgium, Sweden, Swiss, Norway, France, Germany & U.S.A.

This is really Great info and definitely gives the reader that While Prince scored #1 albums they were not as big as MJ's. Lastly as to the 60% vs the 40%..All I have to say is MJ chose to release 10 solo albums Prince chose to experiment more with music try different things and release everything. to punish or reward artists for efficieny like they are Quarterbacks is senseless. They released what they released. Basically it's like punishing David Bowie because he had X % of Hit albums vs his releases against Adele cuz she went 2/2 with #1 albums. Thank you for your contributions I will be sure to add what I said I would.

MJ chose to release 6 albums, the other ones he released with Motown were part of a contract that his father made for him, hence he had no decision in the making of those albums. He had more control with with The Jacksons albums than he ever did with the J5 or solo MJ at Motown. So perhaps you should include the Jacksons (since he was co-producer in some of those albums) instead of his motown albums. MJ also tried to experiment with his music and it's heard in his 6 albums that were released and we don't know what might be in his vaults, lets remember he was working on a lot of movie soundtracks during the 00s since he was interested in working with movies.

The minimal estimate for Thriller is 30.9 million

I'm sorry, but what planet?
or do you mean 1984?

or US only?
29 x platinum in the U.S. and 2 х diamond in Canada already gives us 31 million and is the only North America.

Europe will give us at least another 15 million (CA only).
Thriller has sold more than 50 million are obvious

real variation in the range of 55-70 million copies.
numbers outside of these - fantastic.

PatrickS77 said:

LiLi1992 said:

I'm tired of your constant assaults on me ...
where I wrote "no one likes?"

I can say that my father hates King of Pop with a passion, but he likes some of his early songs and Jackson 5.
in the 70's my grandfather worked in the Soviet Embassy in Mexico and brought a lot of music albums, among them several albums Jackson 5.
Dad loved to listen to them in childhood, and then someone stole them.

so my father "has nothing against Michael, but until he grew up to be a madman."
experience that we have in childhood, it is very important.

And I'm tired of the little Ms. Knowitall, who thinks that what she thinks is the standard of what everyone is (should be) thinking.

And if your father "hates" (why, what did MJ ever do to him, that he has to "hate" him) MJ because of what supposedly happened to him later on and only likes earlier songs, then it is his loss that he can't seperate the person from the music and his opinion is not really valid.

I'm tired of your crazy fanaticism, too, but have never offended you, did not it? ... so keep your opinions about me to yourself ... you have hundreds of fan sites MJ, where you will never see my presence.

My father thinks MJ pedophile ... this is sufficient reason for him. History Copyright Beatles (his favorite band) also annoys him.

he does not like him as an artist, too: an unnatural voice, vulgar movements, etc.
"hate" may be too strong a word, he strongly dislikes him..

Why did you miss the words constantly? I always insert the word "most", "many", "usually", "basically", etc.
I am not so categorical as you.

LiLi1992 said:

mjscarousal said:

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

We analyzed the charts, all the albums I considered through the prism of the charts.
I understand that such a personal preference (though once again, really love MJ solo albums as a child can basically people who grew up with these songs, but not the one who heard them as an adult.)
why I prefer to separated 4 childs and 6 adults?
when we speak of the charts, the album, released by a child, difficult to compete with albums of adults, because the audience is inherently more limited demographically (initially unequal).
the conversation was not about sympathy for these albums in the first place (although I am not a big fan), but about the competitiveness and comparability of these albums with the rest of his work.

I like some of the songs, especially the vocals., but the albums as a whole are rustic musically (do not know what word to choose the right ... not a sophisticated music), IMHO

Well I agreed with the other points you made actually and you are right.

I just was commenting on the Invincible being better than all of his solo Motown projects remark

Like I said, I like Invincible and actually find it to be underrated but it still is weak interms of Michaels catalogue (adult catalogue specifically)

I wouldnt say that his solo Motown music is the greatest music ever made but he has alot of classics from those albums more than Invincible. Those songs are also more mature unlike his J5 material with his brothers. On Invincible I would say Butterflies is the only real classic. Dont get me wrong that album has alot of gems but then at the same time it has alot of filler. Those old Motown albums (are half covers and half new material) do not have to much filler and they are some of MJs best moments as a singer.

I would take Aint No Sunshine, Music and Me etc over songs like Heartbreaker, Invincible, Cry, etc

It has nothing to do with growing up with those songs because Im a young MJ fan like yourself and when I was growing up I mostly listened to Invincible, Thriller, BAD, Dangerous etc I didnt get into "Little Michael" until like a couple of years ago. I guess its all a matter of preference but to me suggesting Invincible is better than ALL his solo Motown albums is a bit exaggerated especially when that consists of his stronger material as a kid.

I know alot of non MJ fans who actually prefer his singing/music as a Little Michael. I personally think his singing as a child and as an adult is still one of the best vocals we have ever seen in pop music.

GoldDolphin said:

mjscarousal said:

EXCELLENT post.

@ Lili

I guess music really is a prefrence/subjective because I actually think MJs solo albums with Motown trumps Invincible (although I do like Invincible it still is his weakest album out of his catalogue even weaker than his child solo albums to me. I still think Butterflies is one of his best vocal performances as older MJ though)

Songs like Music&Me, People Make The World Go Round, With a Child's Heart, Ben, Aint No Sunshine etc are some of his BEST vocal performances of his career. I just cant imagine anybody singing those songs the way Little Michael did. Although he did not write them, he did make the songs his own. I love the Stylistics and they did People Make The World Go Round but with MJ's version you might think they were two seperate songs the same with the Aint No Sunshine.

You really think Invincible is weaker than his child solo albums? While I do agree that nobody could have sung those songs like Little Mike, those albums are pretty weak as well.

I don't think we'll ever see such a talented child /teen singer again, not in another 100 years at least. He had so much soul and he didn't need to write those songs as a kid, because the vocal performances he did were great! My fav solo Motown MJ albums are probably Got To Be There and Forever Michael...

I agree, they are.

I dont think the material is strong comparing it to Michaels more stronger works or other stronger works in general but I think they are better than Invincible as an overall album. Dont get me wrong Invincible has alot of gems on there but it has alot of filler to. I do think Invincible is underrated though.

mjscarousal said:

On Invincible I would say Butterflies is the only real classic. Dont get me wrong that album has alot of gems but then at the same time it has alot of filler. Those old Motown albums (are half covers and half new material) do not have to much filler and they are some of MJs best moments as a singer.

Whatever Happens, I think.
often used by modern dancers and I think that its status will grow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rhFPuMPbHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XLGYxeL1iQ

it's a great song.

Yes, they prefer, I also know people, even in my family.
it's easy to love little Michael, he was incredibly charming.

but we talked about the other thing.... about the fans of the albums/love for these albums ... it's a little different than "he was such a sweet, handsome boy with the awesome voice" or "was such an angel, what happened?" etc.

Each of these albums has some amazing songs: All The Things You Are, People Make The World Go Round, One Day In Your Life, etc. these songs are better than 2/3 songs on Invincible ... Of course, if I take all of his child albums (4 albums), I can gather up a collection of 12-13 songs, which will exceed the Invincible, but there are 4 different albums.. and all of them are very average, IMHO. so yes, I believe that his adult albums - it's a different league! + creative control!

LiLi1992 said:

mjscarousal said:

On Invincible I would say Butterflies is the only real classic. Dont get me wrong that album has alot of gems but then at the same time it has alot of filler. Those old Motown albums (are half covers and half new material) do not have to much filler and they are some of MJs best moments as a singer.

Whatever Happens, I think.
often used by modern dancers and I think that its status will grow

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rhFPuMPbHM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XLGYxeL1iQ

it's a great song.

Yes, they prefer, I also know people, even in my family.
it's easy to love little Michael, he was incredibly charming.

but we talked about the other thing.... about the fans of the albums/love for these albums ... it's a little different than "he was such a sweet, handsome boy with the awesome voice" or "was such an angel, what happened?" etc.

Each of these albums has some amazing songs: All The Things You Are, People Make The World Go Round, One Day In Your Life, etc. these songs are better than 2/3 songs on Invincible ... Of course, if I take all of his child albums (4 albums), I can gather up a collection of 12-13 songs, which will exceed the Invincible, but there are 4 different albums.. and all of them are very average, IMHO. so yes, I believe that his adult albums - it's a different league! + creative control!

They still exceed Invincible which is the point

I love all his music... for the record I never said all his solo Motown albums were better than ALL his adult albums. I just said they were all better than INVINCIBLE only.

1.The songwriting and production are stronger on Forever, Michael than Invincible.

2. I think CBS and the Estate should wise up and give more respect to his Jacksons years. Hip-O Select has kicked their ass. The quailty of music that Hip-O Select has released is 10X better.

mjscarousal said:

They still exceed Invincible which is the point

I love all his music... for the record I never said all his solo Motown albums were better than ALL his adult albums. I just said they were all better than INVINCIBLE only.

I understood you from the beggining ... you think that these early albums are better than Invincible
Got to be there > Invincible
Ben > Invincible
Music and me > Invincible
Forever Michael > Invincible

My formula is slightly different
Got to be there + Ben + Music and me + Forever Michael > Invincible.

but each of these albums, has 2-3 good songs and a bunch of filler, most of these songs are not good nor bad, they just faceless. so no, I would still rate any of his adult album higher than any of his child's album.

Invincible is weak by his standards.
I can not describe in words my disappointment when I first listened to (or rather tried to) this album.
given that I prefer his later period (1987-1997), I expected to hear something even more mature and life-affirming than History. the main problem - a lot of repetitive and unnecessary songs.
I can cut to 9-10 songs and it will be a good album.

LiLi1992 said:

mjscarousal said:

They still exceed Invincible which is the point

I love all his music... for the record I never said all his solo Motown albums were better than ALL his adult albums. I just said they were all better than INVINCIBLE only.

I understood you from the beggining ... you think that these early albums are better than Invincible
Got to be there > Invincible
Ben > Invincible
Music and me > Invincible
Forever Michael > Invincible

My formula is slightly different
Got to be there + Ben + Music and me + Forever Michael > Invincible.

but each of these albums, has 2-3 good songs and a bunch of filler, most of these songs are not good nor bad, they just faceless. so no, I would still rate any of his adult album higher than any of his child's album.

Invincible is weak by his standards.
I can not describe in words my disappointment when I first listened to (or rather tried to) this album.
given that I prefer his later period (1987-1997), I expected to hear something even more mature and life-affirming than History. the main problem - a lot of repetitive and unnecessary songs.
I can cut to 9-10 songs and it will be a good album.

I think Forever Michael and Got To Be There are on the same level as Invincible because they have great songs but also fillers just like Invincible. I think Invincible is a good album compared to all the other crap that came out in the 00s but it's weak in his catalogue. I also wish it could have been more risky and less safe, I loved his 90s stuff and espcially the raw songs and songs of HIStory and Blood On The Dancefloor! It was so different and yet so Michaelesque. I love that he tried to bring back the soulfulness with Invincible (even though he never lost it lol) but in a time where everyone was trying to be Thriller Michael Jackson (think Sisqo,Nsync, The backstreet boys and so on) he should have went the other direction. It was a mistake to go back to something he had already done, because people knew and expected so much more from him.

Musically, Invincible was good, but more promo would have not hurt. I think YRMW was a good single and I remember people playing it from cars, so he must have done something right I really do think that releasing a single like Whatever Happens rather than Cry which is the type of single we already got from MJ and was popular with R.Kelly at the time for his own work would have worked out for him. I think Latin influences really suit his style and I would have loved to see more of that in the future.

CANUHELPME said:

2. I think CBS and the Estate should wise up and give more respect to his Jacksons years. Hip-O Select has kicked their ass. The quailty of music that Hip-O Select has released is 10X better.

Yep. They should hand over what they have left to Hip-O-Select. I want expanded Jackson albums more than just scraping the barrel with Michael's solo demos/outtakes.

alphastreet said:

Musically, Invincible was good, but more promo would have not hurt. I think YRMW was a good single and I remember people playing it from cars, so he must have done something right I really do think that releasing a single like Whatever Happens rather than Cry which is the type of single we already got from MJ and was popular with R.Kelly at the time for his own work would have worked out for him. I think Latin influences really suit his style and I would have loved to see more of that in the future.

i think Invincible was a wonderful album, and it is slowly becoming one of my favorites. I strongly feel that it could have been Michael's STRONGEST album if the tracklist would have been a little different.

i think A place with no name, Another Day, and Shout should have made the album over a few that were choosen.

I always thought if anyone else had came out with Invincible they would've gotten props for it. But because it was MJ, of the course the critics shitted all over it.

mookie said:

Scorp said:

another one of my all time favorite MJ songs

universal theme message

when I saw the crowd in that stadium participate in this moment

by raising up those placards to create that montage of children's faces

that brought a tear to the eye....that was beautiful stuff

that took allot of planning to pull off

and MIKE was speaking in his real voice before the song started playing

I've never seen this before. This was nice.

alphastreet said:

Musically, Invincible was good, but more promo would have not hurt. I think YRMW was a good single and I remember people playing it from cars, so he must have done something right I really do think that releasing a single like Whatever Happens rather than Cry which is the type of single we already got from MJ and was popular with R.Kelly at the time for his own work would have worked out for him. I think Latin influences really suit his style and I would have loved to see more of that in the future.

I agree and I love when he sings in spanish, his pronounciation is flawless almost as if he knew how to speak spanish. He was going in that direction I believe, I think R Kelly mentioned some years ago that the song Taxi Cab (on his Love letter album from 2010) was a song that he wanted MJ to record or that he had written for him and it has a latin feeling.

mookie said:

I always thought if anyone else had came out with Invincible they would've gotten props for it. But because it was MJ, of the course the critics shitted all over it.

VERY TRUE

LiLi1992 said:

mjscarousal said:

They still exceed Invincible which is the point

I love all his music... for the record I never said all his solo Motown albums were better than ALL his adult albums. I just said they were all better than INVINCIBLE only.

I understood you from the beggining ... you think that these early albums are better than Invincible
Got to be there > Invincible
Ben > Invincible
Music and me > Invincible
Forever Michael > Invincible

My formula is slightly different
Got to be there + Ben + Music and me + Forever Michael > Invincible.

but each of these albums, has 2-3 good songs and a bunch of filler, most of these songs are not good nor bad, they just faceless. so no, I would still rate any of his adult album higher than any of his child's album.

Invincible is weak by his standards.
I can not describe in words my disappointment when I first listened to (or rather tried to) this album.
given that I prefer his later period (1987-1997), I expected to hear something even more mature and life-affirming than History. the main problem - a lot of repetitive and unnecessary songs.
I can cut to 9-10 songs and it will be a good album.

Were saying the same thing Ive been saying this whole time that MJs solo Motown albums have filler on it and are not that strong by themselves but ALL of them compared to Invincible are

ONCE AGAIN, I love Invincible and actually find it to be very underrated although its definitly MJs weakest album. I definitly would have taken off some songs to make it better as well.

Here are my favorite cuts from Invincible

Unbreakable-------I know some may not like this song but I love it and I think it was a good album opener

Break of Dawn---- probably my favorite song on the album.... tooooo sexy for words

Heaven Can Wait

Butterflies

You Rock My World

Speechless

You Are My Life---- I know some folks think this song is corny but I love it, so f^&* it

Whatever Happens

Threatened