If MJ is a genius, God's gift to mankind, what is Prince?

thesexofit said:

Schubert said:

"Black and White" is for children. Story, coloured book music. "Ta-na-na-na Ta-na-na-na"- Come on! And that little rap in the middle! Oh, and the Macauly Culkin videoclip! And the infantile lyrics! I loved it as a child. As an adult, however, I realize it is not serious music.

I know it's only pop music, but you shouldn't demean it because of it though. Fuck serious music anyway LOL. You can rip apart any artist like you have done to Michael. You picked an easy target with Michael LOL. And your point about his influence is baseless as again, there will never be anyone like him so why compare anyone to him? That was his greatest strength.

His amazing career from child star to the biggest star on the planet is something that by itself is amazing. He had done it all by his mid 20's. In that respect everything was going to be downhill after that point. He was not a Bob Dylan or Leonard Cohen or whatever "serious" music you bang on about. I love some of Dylans stuff but the comparison is pointless. Jackson was always commercial and thus always made music for pop audiences and yet you scold him for that? Do you scold Walt Disney or Charlie Chaplin for similar reasons? Are the Marx Brothers merely idiots?

No one said you have to like his music, but you can't deny the mark he left on this world. That to me, is what makes him a genuis. Talent is everywhere. Genius is not.

No. Pop can also be "serious music". Timberlake, for example, has made some fine music which I adore. It's just that Jackson's was childish and overall trash. I mean, "Black and white"? Really?I stopped liking that when I turned 18! The same way I stopped liking coloured books at 6.

[Edited 6/19/14 19:17pm]

Schubert said:

thesexofit said:

Seriously man, who gives a fuck if he was a musician. He could and did write songs by himself, but you know it's like the Paul McCarney/John Lennon thing. Paul is hugely talented, prolific, multi instrumentalist who could write hits in his sleep. John was not like this. Yet why is it that John is considered the "genius"? Again its the unique "x factor". Paul never wrote anything as magnetic as "Imagine" in my eyes, and Paul wrote an awful lot more songs and hits then John...

..... just something about John that Paul didn't have

...and Jackson was not a musician and was very slow at releasing music (unfortunately), but despite his horrible personal life, insane spending habits and no doubt huge ego, his music, singing and dancing speaks for itself in my eyes..

...most genuis's also seems to have huge personal problems aswell LOL. They say there is a very thin like between madness and genuis. Jackson definately fits that criteria LOL.

Jackson was NOT genius. Great dancer, great entertainer if you are 14 or 15, great vocalist and wrote some great songs. Genius? No.

And yes, genius have huge personal problems. Prince is one crazy MF, Mozart was immature and uncapable of anything that required adult emotions, Beethoven had his head on the clouds, Miles Davis isn't your go-to guy. MJ?

I can agree on your other guys, but Prince in not a genuis to me. Neither is Stevie Wonder nor Bob Dylan. Hugely talented and amazingly gifted, yes! Musical genius's? Yes! But you got to have the controversy, madness, hysteria, adulation, hatred and general facsination to be an all round genius in my book, and Mike had it, like it or not. Sure alot of that was not about his music, but again, no one like him in entertainment. Musical genius? No. All round oddball genius? Yes. His oddness makes him so fascinating. His constant search for a "childhood", his manniquins, neverland, zoo, charity work etc.... no question he had a huge ego, but that "delusion" is all too common with genius's unfortunately.....

And again, so what if he was child like? Again Walt Disney made "kids films", but that doesn't mean he didn't change the game in film and theme parks. Miles Davis's music to me is painfully boring and self indulgent showing off wankery, but I can see it as the game changer it was and give him his due as a "genuis". Prince did not change the game. Jackson did with "thriller". He had alot of help and great timing, but he put that shit over. He funded the video of "thriller", he did "motown 25". He got everyone buying that shit. That was genius to me. No one saw it coming either. Not on that scale anyway.

thesexofit said:

Schubert said:

Jackson was NOT genius. Great dancer, great entertainer if you are 14 or 15, great vocalist and wrote some great songs. Genius? No.

And yes, genius have huge personal problems. Prince is one crazy MF, Mozart was immature and uncapable of anything that required adult emotions, Beethoven had his head on the clouds, Miles Davis isn't your go-to guy. MJ?

I can agree on your other guys, but Prince in not a genuis to me. Neither is Stevie Wonder nor Bob Dylan. Hugely talented and amazingly gifted, yes! Musical genius's? Yes! But you got to have the controversy, madness, hysteria, adulation, hatred and general facsination to be an all round genius in my book, and Mike had it, like it or not. Sure alot of that was not about his music, but again, no one like him in entertainment. Musical genius? No. All round oddball genius? Yes. His oddness makes him so fascinating. His constant search for a "childhood", his manniquins, neverland, zoo, charity work etc.... no question he had a huge ego, but that "delusion" is all too common with genius's unfortunately.....

And again, so what if he was child like? Again Walt Disney made "kids films", but that doesn't mean he didn't change the game in film and theme parks. Miles Davis's music to me is painfully boring and self indulgent showing off wankery, but I can see it as the game changer it was and give him his due as a "genuis". Prince did not change the game. Jackson did with "thriller". He had alot of help and great timing, but he put that shit over. He funded the video of "thriller", he did "motown 25". He got everyone buying that shit. That was genius to me. No one saw it coming either. Not on that scale anyway.

Nothing wrong with being childlike. Mozart was childlike and I love that about him. However, MJ's music is childish, that's what I'm saying.

So, what about Thriller? What about the fuckin' music videos? Who CARES? We're talking about music and talent here, not about childish and tacky music videos who took fortunes to make. Not about sales. Not about hits. Not about the #1 music video. Not about the music video with the biggest budget ever.

"Motown 25"? The show in which Jackson did playback?

thesexofit said:

Schubert said:

Jackson was NOT genius. Great dancer, great entertainer if you are 14 or 15, great vocalist and wrote some great songs. Genius? No.

And yes, genius have huge personal problems. Prince is one crazy MF, Mozart was immature and uncapable of anything that required adult emotions, Beethoven had his head on the clouds, Miles Davis isn't your go-to guy. MJ?

All round oddball genius? Yes. His oddness makes him so fascinating. His constant search for a "childhood", his manniquins, neverland, zoo, charity work etc.... no question he had a huge ego, but that "delusion" is all too common with genius's unfortunately.....

I never said Bob Dylan was a music genius. He bothers the shit outta me. I'd rather have me some Britney Spears and I'm nnot joking at all.

Oddball? Yes. Genius? No.

Exactly. You also forgot to mention him spending billions on himself while singing "We are the world", him not paying anyone who was on his payroll, him desfigurating himself, him being a pathological liar and an overall freak of nature. Just watch "Living with Michael Jackson". Really, do watch it!

And what about his lovely family? Is Joe Jackson still the "Father of the Year"?

Schubert said:

thesexofit said:

All round oddball genius? Yes. His oddness makes him so fascinating. His constant search for a "childhood", his manniquins, neverland, zoo, charity work etc.... no question he had a huge ego, but that "delusion" is all too common with genius's unfortunately.....

I never said Bob Dylan was a music genius. He bothers the shit outta me. I'd rather have me some Britney Spears and I'm nnot joking at all.

Oddball? Yes. Genius? No.

Exactly. You also forgot to mention him spending billions on himself while singing "We are the world", him not paying anyone who was on his payroll, him desfigurating himself, him being a pathological liar and an overall freak of nature. Just watch "Living with Michael Jackson". Really, do watch it!

I've seen the documentary LOL. Looks like your taking the Michael hatred personally. Doesn't deny his sheer eccentric genius. And no I don't care about sales but "thriller", which isn't even my fav MJ album. But it was a phenomenom, and again, that just adds that it took some sort of oddball genius to fund the video "thriller", call up CBS boss about marketing it properly, insist it would be a hit despite even his own producer telling him it wont be... a crazy guy. And "motown 25" was playback, but it was the sort of "event television" usually only reserved for sports finals and sitcom finale's. And "thriller" alone does not make him a genius, but it all adds up to me.

His business acumen was underated too. Sure we talk about his odd life, music videos and album sales, but he had a business savy that was again, unique. And yes Iam mainly talking about buying the ATV Beatles catalog in the mid 80's. The amount of profit he made off that is 100's of millions and then some, that was genius. To gamble and have naysayers telling Mike not to buy it and him doing it anyway, that was genius.

Again, it's not just about his music to me, it's his whole fascinating persona and general all round

individuality and stuborness and sheer arrogence to be himself that makes part of his mad genius. You need to look at the bigger picture.

Jackson is not a songwriting powerhouse nor a musican. His vocals as a child were amazing though and he had that raw talent before motown molded him. Little denying that. He did write some of his own most well known songs aswell, and even his own songs had qualities, be them good or bad, that no one else had. A song like "do you now where your children are?" is so uniquely Jackson that you can't imagine anyone else writing or singing it. Fair enough if you hate his songwriting, and find his dancing overated or whatever, but he had that rare originality that makes his genuis justified.

No two genius's are the same. And as we both said, all have their demons, ego's and all round craziness, but Prince is not on that level to me. And I love Prince's music, but he isn't up their with MJ, nor will he ever be or even care to be. Mike seemed to live a tragic life and his larger than life greek hero tragedy and fall from grace is one that will be remember for many years to come.

Nope,not *ANY* of those acts have managed to achieve what Michael did.Good try,though

Schubert said:

SoulAlive said:

If it's soooooooo easy to do what Michael did and if it doesn't take a lot of talent to do it....let's see YOU try to do it,and try to accomplish what he did! Good luck

No, I won't. But Britney Spears, Bruno Mars, Lady Gaga, Nsync, Usher, Chris Brown have.

Which tells one something.

Yes the voice is a fucking instrument, duh.

You made a new account to post this dribble?

.

Hear it from someone that worked with him and we can close this thread, Rob Hoffman:

.

"One morning MJ came in with a new song he had written overnight. We called in a guitar player, and Michael sang every note of every chord to him. "here's the first chord first note, second note, third note. Here's the second chord first note, second note, third note", etc., etc. We then witnessed him giving the most heartfelt and profound vocal performance, live in the control room through an SM57.
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He would sing us an entire string arrangement, every part. Steve Porcaro once told me he witnessed MJ doing that with the string section in the room. Had it all in his head, harmony and everything. Not just little eight bar loop ideas. he would actually sing the entire arrangement into a micro-cassette recorder complete with stops and fills.".

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Genius is subjective, performances could get cheesy, but the man was a damn remarkable musician, without question.

[Edited 6/19/14 20:07pm]

thesexofit said:

Schubert said:

I never said Bob Dylan was a music genius. He bothers the shit outta me. I'd rather have me some Britney Spears and I'm nnot joking at all.

Oddball? Yes. Genius? No.

Exactly. You also forgot to mention him spending billions on himself while singing "We are the world", him not paying anyone who was on his payroll, him desfigurating himself, him being a pathological liar and an overall freak of nature. Just watch "Living with Michael Jackson". Really, do watch it!

1.

His business acumen was underated too. Sure we talk about his odd life, music videos and album sales, but he had a business savy that was again, unique. And yes Iam mainly talking about buying the ATV Beatles catalog in the mid 80's. The amount of profit he made off that is 100's of millions and then some, that was genius. To gamble and have naysayers telling Mike not to buy it and him doing it anyway, that was genius.

2.

Again, it's not just about his music to me, it's his whole fascinating persona and general all round

individuality and stuborness and sheer arrogence to be himself that makes part of his mad genius. You need to look at the bigger picture.

3.

. A song like "do you now where your children are?" is so uniquely Jackson that you can't imagine anyone else writing or singing it. Fair enough if you hate his songwriting, and find his dancing overated or whatever, but he had that rare originality that makes his genuis justified.

1. He was such a shrewd and savy businessman that he had 400 million in debt and never paid anyone on his payroll. Tom Meserau is yet to receive his wages.

2. Mad? Yes. Genius? No. And who cares about the Thriller music video. What's the relevance of that? It's a cheesy music video which contributes nothing to the actual musical (MUSICAL) panorama.

3. "Do you know where your children are?". Now THAT is Michael Jackson-ish. Scarily Michael Jackson-ish. Ans that's not a compliment.

Please use that handy dandy discuss anything and everything MJ

http://prince.org/msg/8/408236