if he was really that upset with the sales of bad, then, he was being a fool. you can't will over 50 million people to buy an album. Bad was a good album. some said it was better than thriller, i never thought so, hell, dangerous actualy might have been his best album, it's only weakness was that he was following a template by that point when he should have been free as a bird, he was trapped. Personally, i think off the wall is still his best of a lifetime full of excellence. the organic sounds of real instruments have dated better than a lot of the synths and things he used later and q (got to give it up) produced the hell out of that album.
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When Nelson George was still writing for Billboard, he wrote that Bad was more consisten than Thriller. "We may deify or demonize them but not ignore them. And we call them genius, because they are the people who change the world." | |
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Exactly, trapped by the web of the Pop Ascension that called on him to embrace the concept of racial indifference, and that concept is what brought forth the calamities he spoke of in the song Scream.
"with such confusion, doesn't it make you wanna scream"
"you're bashed, abused, victimized within the scheme"
Off The Wall remains the quintessential r&b/soul album of all time to this very day and will always be
With the success of Thriller, there was no reason for him not to believe that Bad could surpass it, Bad was the compass that created the trajectory for the way the rest of his career was going to play out.
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and Nelson George wrote that AFTER he said this in an interview during the moment the BAD LP was released.
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that's been a popular opinion, for my money I'll take thriller, maybe it's because i was just beginning my love for music but i just think the songs and performances are better. and really, as i've said, off the wall might still be the best of this musical prodigy.
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....and then wrote this the following March "We may deify or demonize them but not ignore them. And we call them genius, because they are the people who change the world." | |
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i once joked (back before he died, i used to joke, guilt free about mj, but after, i just can't do it, the man had a hard time with this society) "he went from one hit singing "it don't matter if you're black or white" to "scream". come now scorp, many black folk with success suddenly become colorblind, usually they get that wakeup call though. I personally try not to be to hard on MJ, it was a tough thing to deal with made even tougher by the cold reality that no matter how much bleach he used or how nonexistent that big nose became, he would never be accepted as white. Therefore, i don't blame him, I blame his naivety and I blame this society as much as him. Just look at all of us, we all are mixed up, every one of us, black folk talk about white folk but they love everything the white man loves, they worship money and material things even more than the white man does, and white people, as much as they want to put down everyone else, they do everything they can to be like black people, even when it makes no goddamned sense. It's a crazy country, we can love it hate and even do both.
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but see, it really was not joking matter, because when that Bad video debuted on CBS in August of 1987, for myself personally, the entire situation at that moment told me this was going to end tragically in a way we've never seen and that's exactly what happened 22 years later because......................the transformation and everything that came with it led to this man's isolation and the way he was socially readjusted, it imprisoned him
and everyone who played a role in this from the cohorts who drove him to do it, to the artist, and to those who supported it, has responsibility.......it's really not about white superiority as much as it is about Race Superiority and this is the reason why we are driven to pick and choose what elements to emulate when it comes to gaining degrees of privilege, and other elements to shun when privilege won't be granted otherwise......THIS is the game MJ was driven by and this is why he said 12 years after reaching the pinnacle, when he said in the song Scream
"Yall keep changing the rules, I keep playing the game, I can't take it much longer, I think I may go insane"......
if things were the way they should be, privilege would not be a measuring stick for success and there wouldn't be a wake up call for anyone.....
and here's more insight into MJ's thinking.....he was led to believe his transformation would lead to neverending "liberty"...he said this in the song They Don't Really Care About Us when he mentions these words
Tell me what has become of my rights
He wasn't naive.....
I'm a leave this alone for the time being
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he was naive enough to sing "it doesn't matter if you're black or white". Put it this way, pop stars, all of them, are out of touch, they really are, it's the nature of the beast. Bruce, MJ, Elvis, whoever, they aren't in touch with the grassroots, and I'm still shocked, honestly shocked that Prince was said to be a regular troll here on the org, i can't picture any star of his caliber giving a fuck what the proletariat think about them, and in the case of the org, i really feel bad that he had to read all this bullshit from hating ass fans. Anyway, I don't know that MJ got encouragement to bleach his skin from the associates around him, I think he got the idea like the rest of us do, through being brainwashed from birth that anything other than white is fucked up. From what I know, (I wasn't there, and i doubt youwere either) he had white people on his team who would tell him to knock off the mutilation and the surgery. I've never heard of anyone trying to encourage him to bleach his skin, anyone with any sense of normalcy would realize how much of a freak it would make him. And as for your quotes of his songs, i've mentioned already that I don't really know how seriously to take SOME of the lyrics as they seemed to be part of his schtick, obviously, by the time of history and blood on the dance floor, he had plenty of troubles. The women of billy jean and dirty diana were usurped by a judgemental white power structure, hell, even billy jeans lyrics took on a wierd prophetic bent in the light of the molestation trials, only instead of a woman not being his lover and no one believing him, it was a child not being his lover and no one believing him, kind of eerie when you think about it.
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when MJ declared that it didn't matter if you're black or white, that was an extension of his proclamation where the precursor to that was Man in the Mirror....and I love MITM to the core, still listen to it all the time, but rather than changing the spirit from within, which MJ didn't need to do, when he said "if you wanna make the world, a better place, take a look at your self, and then make a change", he applied that principle to further his transformation even more, and this is when the amazing message within his music began to be undermined by manifestation of what he did to himself physically.
and this is the root of the reason why his work, the majority of his music post-Thriller gets overlook by the greater public, songs such as Smile or a Break of Dawn or the self title track to History, or even a Gone Too Soon, especially something as dramatic and profound as Earth Song, one of my favorite MJ songs ever.
yes, we all make mistakes, and we are predisposed to certain types of thinking through years of social conditioning during our formative years........but then you ultimately have choices and free will that fits into that equation.
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and then he wrote this book some 15 years later after all the smoke had cleared out
https://www.amazon.com/De...0142004081
[Edited 7/27/17 7:20am] | |
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Glad this mess is over. Hopefully Quincy keeps quiet about Michael from now on. After all the questionable things he has said about MJ, he really shouldn't say anything about MJ at this point. [Edited 7/27/17 7:36am] | |
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This case came down to the documents and math. Not personal stuff. Good night, sweet Prince | 7 June 1958 - 21 April 2016
Props will be withheld until the showing and proving has commenced. -- Aaron McGruder | |
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Good read and good to know; but that book he published after mj's death appeared to recant anything positive after Thriller era once again, possibly cause of the transformation and his perception of it. This was apparent when he wrote something to the effect of state of shock, dirty diana and give in to me being wannabe rock songs...his narrative clearly demonstrated that mj's changes were clouding his perception on the musical evolution, and though he may have been writing what a lot of folks were thinking, he also has the power and intelligence to look at it deeper, challenge the public consciousness a little more, and would be interesting to see what he writes in the future about mj, if ever again [Edited 7/27/17 8:33am] | |
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Respect as in, pay the man his dues. I don't have to agree with what he's said and I don't, but I can try to understand it was coming from a place of anger, sadness and helplessness over what happened to mj, even if how he articulated it publicly wasn't the best way to go.... | |
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my album: https://soundcloud.com/theroseparade
2004-2008 demos: https://soundcloud.com/th...aradedemos | |
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Ill respond to this later and explain how there's hidden meaning within the words being said | |
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Frustration maybe? | |
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you guys can believe that if you want but anyone who's been as sociable and in the spotlight for as long as q has knows how to contain anything like that if he knew it was making him look bad. I think it was just what I said, kind of a gloating thing, kind of a "you left me and you couldn't make it on your own". | |
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I'm aware of the man in the mirror lyrics and the irony about them, he didn't write that tune though. Ya, you could say he lived it out in distorted fashion. I don't know if the later work would have gotten credit or not without all the craziness, no one can say. Like elvis before him, he had plenty of great work that got ignored, so did Prince, it happens. MJ's major issue was he just wasn't productive enough, not from a commercial standpoint, from a creative standpoint, it's a shame. I understand why, the fame, the allegations, but it's still a shame.
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I meant frustration out of pain because of how MJ's life turned out to be. | |
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ok, and that's why he brought up how michael thought he was "losing it". of course he scoffed at that and had made statements that he could see musical fads comeing a million miles away. | |
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I can't understand how is it possible a song like Bless His Soul has been so overlooked for so many years, or the whole Destiny album for that matter. | |
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We will have to agree to disagree. Quincy said disrespectful things about MJ during the trial, not just after he died. He was not a good friend to Michael. There is no excuse for any of his behavior. Friends do not do that, period. [Edited 7/27/17 18:26pm] | |
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I agree.. if you consider someone to be your "brother" why try to defame them? Why disrespect them and their children? I don't see how anyone could excuse that behavior. Its not like Quincy was some random producer, MJ identified Q as a friend and so did he, so he should be held to that standard. He was a fake and not a geniune friend. I sense Quincy was jealous of MJ as well. [Edited 7/27/17 18:32pm] | |
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haven't heard that one, i'll check it out. I loved the recently, (for me) discovery "if you don't love me" great, motown derived song, shame he didn't release it, i could see why, didn't fit the gothic, dark vibe he was going with, he should have maybe given it to another artist. | |
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For me one of his worst songs i have listened from him. Take a listen to the Destiny album. | |
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really? even worse than some of the thriller and bad outtakes? I couldn't get into those at all. I loved it. edit, ive heard the album before, it didn't strike a bell, i'm listening now, it's ok. [Edited 7/27/17 19:06pm] | |
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Just ok? and you didn't like Thriller and Bad outtakes but you did like IYDLM? to each his own i guess. | |
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it only relistened once, usually though, if i like something, i'll like it on first or second listen. of course several of the other songs on the jacksons albums were fantastic. i just listened to ifdlm again, i still love it, but could see why it wouldn't work for him, that was not the kind of stuff he was doing then, like i said, it could have been a hit for someone else like centipede or muscles. | |
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