Gunsnhalen said:

I love me some ttd! But dude kind of killed himself Neither fish Nor Flesh is a fucking great album! but what was gonna be the big single? come on bruh To know someone softly could have been somewhat big. But the album was not gonna hve big hits either way. And his ego was bigger than kanyes after only ONE album! at least yeezy talked shit after a few albums in or so.

Besides i like his 90s albums best

Thank you. It's not that deep. The fact that the man is still whining about slitting his own throat two decades plus later. Amazing,

TD3 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

I love me some ttd! But dude kind of killed himself Neither fish Nor Flesh is a fucking great album! but what was gonna be the big single? come on bruh To know someone softly could have been somewhat big. But the album was not gonna hve big hits either way. And his ego was bigger than kanyes after only ONE album! at least yeezy talked shit after a few albums in or so.

Besides i like his 90s albums best

Thank you. It's not that deep. The fact that the man is still whining about slitting his own throat two decades plus later. Amazing,

Exactly!

Saw him in 1988. He was kind of a dick and acted that way on stage, breaking a guitar in half. He made the audience join him in a silent prayer. Played a bunch of covers too. Just seemed like he was trying to be something way bigger than his talent would allow.

WHEN INTRODUCING THE HARDLINE According to Terence Trent D'Arby hit in 1987, its gifted 25-year-old creator won instant accolades—and, the next winter, a Grammy for best R&B vocal. But D'Arby's increasingly arrogant and outlandish claims ("My album is better than Sgt. Pepper," "I will be as massive as Madonna, as massive as Michael Jackson"), delivered in a high-toned accent the Manhattan-born musician acquired in his adopted hometown of London, gradually turned bouquets to brickbats. After his second album bombed, D'Arby withdrew, eventually resettling in L.A. "Well," he says with a laugh, "the press got what they wanted!"

Sananda Maitreya--wow--an undenible talet. Dude did make a lot o' people pissed tho'. Some guys are just too much to handle

mjscarousal said:

I am just amused that some of yall really think he was invested in sabataging all these careers. When exactly would he have had the time? Trent has always been jealous and pressed over Michael. Even during the peak of his career he always said shady things about him even Prince. They weren't on the same label during the peak of his career so these claims kinda seem far fetch. By the late 80's and early 90's he didn't really have any maybe big cross over hits even when he was popular he never really had any cross over hits.

[Edited 10/13/15 1:22am]

about the same time that he was sabatoging his brothers career and janet's career

3rdeyedude said:

mynameisnotsusan said:

Goodness - I love the way he is, and he's always come across like this in print. I think he's hilarious and more insightful than most but talk about giving your critics ammunition! This shoulda been a hit - videos amazing but radio just wasn't playing him at this point

What's up with the off-key piano during the first 40 seconds? Literally painful to my ears. Doing crap like that probably didn't help his chances of getting this played on radio.

Germanegro said:

mjscarousal said:

When would MJ have had time to sabatage all these careers between touring, recording music, writing songs, traveling around the world, conducting interviews, appearances, charity work, etc. If MJ had all this power as some you think why didn't he win any grammy's for BAD? Surely if he had the power to sabatage all these careers, he would surely have the power to sabatage ballets to get grammys. I would argue that he was powerful because he was viewed as a threat because of the things he was trying to influence through his music but as we can see he didn't have that much control behind the scenes as we can see with how things transpired in his life. Its easy to blame MJ for mostly anything because he is the biggest star in the world but he is the biggest star in the world because everyone geniunely loved him not because he sabataged careers.

The love of fans paired with major-corporation backing of an artist goes a long way toward mega-success, and that includes Michael Jackson, too! In the mid-90s MJ was a multimillion-dollar selling artist loved by fans worldwide, with a 30-something year career; 16 of them as an adult solo artist. Considering his longevity in the music biz and command of an epic share of Sony's sales I feel it is reasonable to say that he had influence within the company to demand where it would place its A&R resources. Could my speculations be realistic? Here are my ideas of what might have occured between MJ and TTD plus a summary of busniess events following MJ's death.

Guerilla (Gorilla) Action?
Looking at things from a busniess perspective, if MJ perceived TTD as crowding his space at Sony he would do what he could to protect it! It was probably hard for MJ to ignore TTD's presence given his notorious bid for fame and ambition to expand his identity beyond an R&B singer/act into a rock musician-megastar. TTD regularly expressed his interest in The Beatles from his career debut, until today in fact, as a wishful challenger of The Beatles' sales records and as a fan. He might have desired to cover some Beatles songs on a record. In 1985 MJ famously bought the Beatles' catalogue to control the publishing rights to these songs (http://www.dailymail.co.u...logue.html). Also, TTD was having difficulties with the Sony execs contesting his artistic freedom. I speculate that MJ may have declined TTD's bids to buy rights to record Beatles' songs (and perhaps bade Sony execs to nix loan requests to front the expense). Perhaps this is how things went down. While this alone could not stop TTD from producing his own works, having his desired creative path blocked might have obscured his vision toward future productions. I imagine it is true what TTD says, that he felt stifled by the record company and beaten by the Mega-artist MJ in the circa-Vibrator stage of his career. Well--TTD and Sony parted ways, and that was the end of that. His career was deflated, and he looked toward a new path and assumed his new name, Sananda Maitreya. He would not have access to Beatles songs from his now-competitor Sony, nor be granted permissions from MJ.

Trail to Liberation
MJ never did sell any of the catalogue rights-ownership back to the once-bidding Paul McCartney--he greatly needed to retain some cash-generating holdings. At MJ's death in 2009 the publishing rights to the Beatles' songs were half-owned by the Jackson estate, and half by the Sony Corp. MJ had mega-debt ($500 million to $1 billion) and much of it was transferred to Sony as compensation for their loans to the artist (http://www.eonline.com/ne...m-j-s-dead). Forward to 2014 and the the Beatles' catalog publishing rights are aquired from Sony/ATV Music Publishing by a production company named Grace. One of this company's productions is an animated children's series (http://variety.com/2014/m...201129538/).

Lo and behold, in 2015 Sananda Maitreya is citing children's songs as an inspiration for his music today and he now has 3 covers of Beatles' songs featured on his new album The Rise of the Zugebrian Time Lords. The rights to the songs he always desired to record are now freed from his music-company competitor. Grace was willing to deal him recording rights to some of the songs. It was a long wait for Sananda to realize a piece of his dream.

Future Features?
Maybe one day in the future we'll be seeing Sananda Maitreya-scored children's animated features?

A lot of this is right on point. If they were both signed to Sony labels it's not too far-fetched to think MJ would've had the pull to have other artists on the label stunted a bit. A similar situation happened when Mariah Carey was married to Tommy Mottola and he would sabotage other artists on the label to keep them from getting in the way of her #1s. Whether MJ actually did that or not is another story..

The only thing I'd take point with is the Beatles songs. If he actually wanted to cover them in the 80s/90s he could've done so regardless, nobody can stop you from making a cover song as long as you pay the residuals.

^^ Thanks for reading my thoughts and checking me up on the details of covering others' songs . I had gotten that issue confused with the sampling permissions. There were certainly plenty of artists that did cover Beatles songs throughout the period of time I discuss, and the point of recording Fab 4 tunes may not have been a point of contention between MJ and TTD. It felt like such a shame when TTD disappeared from recording, but I am glad that he has continued on. I am one of those folk being entertained by what he is producing today.

I remember reading that Michael had tried to stop his lawyer (and now manager of his estate) John Branca from taking on TTD as a client. I think Branca kept TTD on anyway, but I can see how that would make him think MJ was fighting against him...because MJ was. But nothing TTD could not have overcome, if he had handled his business.

The mistake Terence made was to try to do everything on his second album. He should have stuck with the team that brought him success on the first album. All he needed to do was follow up with a strong second album with hits and he might be a higher profile artist/star today.

[Edited 10/15/15 7:31am]

People always say Mike bought The Beatles catalog. He bought ATV which includes Beatles songs. They were not the only thing in it.

Very interesting interview (thanks for posting) but did I read it correctly in that TTD's rocking the dreadlocks again in 2015?

MickyDolenz said:

People always say Mike bought The Beatles catalog. He bought ATV which includes Beatles songs. They were not the only thing in it.

Correct.... a clarification that's gotten lost in folklore. My goodness!

DonRants said:

See It First: Sananda Maitreya, aka Terence Trent D’Arby, Returns With New Video ‘Blanket on the Ground’

Billy Johnson Jr.

Senior Editor

October 14, 2015

Sananda Maitreya, formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby, has traded some of the bravado in the timbre of his earlier work (“Wishing Well,” “Sign Your Name”) for something happier and more tranquil for his latest, the recently released album, The Rise of the Zugebrian Time Lords.

Find the perfect example in his new video for “Blanket on the Ground” that premieres exclusively on Yahoo Music.

Sananda Maitreya, formerly known as Terence Trent D’Arby, releases new video, “Blanket on the Ground.”

For this new sound he calls “post millennial rock,” Maitreya fuses electric strings, playful bass groves, sparse xylophone chimes, and dramatic, pungent horns to set the mood for the song that declares nature as the ideal romantic setting.

As he sings “Blanket’s on the ground / Heaven’s all around / And I’m still in love with you,” the video finds a clown planning a surprise proposal for his lady. For the location he’s picked a quiet space in the woods for a picnic (hence, the blanket on the ground concept). The backdrop is complete with butterflies, a bright spring day, magic, and all things peaceful.

See Video Here:

https://www.yahoo.com/mus...31923.html

TD3 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

I love me some ttd! But dude kind of killed himself Neither fish Nor Flesh is a fucking great album! but what was gonna be the big single? come on bruh To know someone softly could have been somewhat big. But the album was not gonna hve big hits either way. And his ego was bigger than kanyes after only ONE album! at least yeezy talked shit after a few albums in or so.

Besides i like his 90s albums best

Thank you. It's not that deep. The fact that the man is still whining about slitting his own throat two decades plus later. Amazing,

Ive never been able to tolerate his pretentious ass long enough to get into his music.

Sananda feels that he is moved by spirits--generlly of good nature--to continue his writing of songs, and explains some of his vision and process for music projects starting from those done the start of the 2000s. This seems to match up to his efforts toward The Rise of the Zugebrian Time Lords.

Wait, so am I to understand that he fell down the Wishing Well? Ok, that was bad, but I couldn't resist.

^^Heh! Naughty! If the song wasn't so cool, Sananda himself might riff off of that one just the same.

babynoz said:

TD3 said:

Thank you. It's not that deep. The fact that the man is still whining about slitting his own throat two decades plus later. Amazing,

Ive never been able to tolerate his pretentious ass long enough to get into his music.

MickyDolenz said:

I wish he had a producer. Martyn Ware agrees in this article "he needs a sub-editor" which is the role he played in helping make his debut the splash it was.

Sandana is jealous that Lenny Kravitz was given free reign to produce his own music while TTD's label fought him. But guess what? Lenny excelled at writing songs with single potential. And so did his hero (don't kid yourself) Prince.

Gosh I find him so fascinating and frustrating at the same time. I know he's a great writer but if he had worked with a producer, ANYONE with another set of ears, then maybe those follow-up albums might have been better (and I don't mean watered down, I mean BETTER).

I like TTD's singles that hit in the UK. I could also see Michael Jackson swinging his dick around at Sony to maintain his American star status.

Was Michael Jackson the head of the illuminati or something?

bobzilla77 said:

Was Michael Jackson the head of the illuminati or something?

Don't get off track here. MJ simply had a lot of power at Sony, itself a powerful label. I heard Beyonce doing stuff like this to Amerie around 2007.

babynoz said:

TD3 said:

Thank you. It's not that deep. The fact that the man is still whining about slitting his own throat two decades plus later. Amazing,

Ive never been able to tolerate his pretentious ass long enough to get into his music.

The negativity.... Life is hard, man, and none of us have all the answers all the time. Anyone can do unfortunate stuff without thinking about it. It's been 25 years since bragging was done and people speak about it two decades later like it was a personal kind of thing. I would call it a media-focused campain gone awry--even if he did believe it at the time , and too bad for that. Dude is repping the good side, tho'--has messages in the songs of today that are uplifting for people. I would say in his case that "slitting one's throat" equates to bad caluclations in the past regarding media, paired with a record company that suppressed his craft. I'd instead call it a break from a gilded prison!

*I know*

Anyway, he has a song for you, too....

Germanegro said:

Cinny said:

Germanegro said: