RODSERLING said:

MickyDolenz said:

Is that so? There's no tour for Saturday Night Fever, Footloose, The Sound Of Music, and other popular soundtracks. The Dirty Dancing soundtracks were mostly oldies of acts that in some cases did not exist anymore. How do The Beatles, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix, Robert Johnson, & Elvis Presley continue to sell? They can't tour. The Beatles sold more records after they broke up than when they were an active group. When they were touring, the Fab 4 mostly sang the same stuff from the early days since no one could hear them because of all of the screaming girls and the technology of the era. How did 1990s dance music groups like Black Box sell records? The girl in the videos and the album covers didn't sing on the records, it was Martha Wash. Martha didn't perform with them. Milli Vanilli sold big until they went on tour. The concerts is when people found out Rob & Fab weren't singing, because the tapes would sometimes skip. Their Grammy was taken away form them. Donny & Marie Osmond was touring up until a few years ago, but I don't see their albums racing up the charts.

People who go to a concert are usually already fans of the group, unless they're going to see a bar band or something. It's the same with tribute bands/singers. Do Elvis Presley impersonators make people in the audience want to buy Elvis albums? More than likely, the people going to see a tribute band already owns the albums. Like with The Musical Box, the folks who go to see them like Peter Gabriel era Genesis. Neither the real Genesis nor Peter Gabriel perform those songs. Steve Hackett does though. So The Musical Box and Steve Hackett is the only way to see that material live in concert.

[Edited 3/27/22 13:14pm]

Maybe because when an act is dead he can't tour anymore? This is not true for every album, but of course the more you tour for an album, the more you aell it. There's no wonder why MJ was almost obliged to go to tour for History, the sales were too weak. What was supposed to sell the album in the US, was the HBO show that was cancelled. Then, no wonder why every singles after You Are Not Alone were cancelled, or didn't receive airplay at all. Not only a tour sell the album for obvious reasons ( people attending the tour because they go with their family, friends, or just out of curiosity, decrease in price for History, every media telling about the event, huge exposition, people talking about it, good press coverage the day after, etc.). But it also make the marketing plan viable: it generates more money to pay the music videos, more tv ads, more single releases, etc. As we are talking about MJ here, you can easily see that effect on the Blood On The Dance Floor Album. It sold 4 millions in Europe alone (!) Mostly thanks to the European tour of History. An album of only 5 songs! The exact opposite was of course Invincible : without a tour, Sony fast cut the money for music videos, new singles, etc. And the album sold poorly. It desesperatly needed a world tour.

We have discussed this before and whilst the HBO cancellation was a big deal, Sony US had already made the decision it seemed not to bother with "Earth Song" in America. Despite coming off a landmark no.1 single, Sony US promoted "Money" instead will quite literally a dozen remixes and no video.

Completely different to what the rest of the world did with "History". Around this time, I think a few big albums had different singles in different territories, but Sony US were already looking at failure and the HBO thing just multiplied it.

Sorry, off topic again....

thesexofit said:

SoulAlive said:

PatrickS77 said: No,it would have been bigger and better than the Victory tour.A solo MJ tour in 1983,at the height of Thrillermania??

Victory tour was a strange one. Yes, it is basically a Michael solo tour as no new tracks from "Victory" were played, but I don't count it as a "Thriller" tour, but I can see Patrick's point.

Well, just to double down on my point: recent past tours of the Jacksons highlighted the Jackson's album and MJ's album. The previous tour had Triumph and Off The Wall material throughout. The Victory Tour highlighted MJ's latest album again - that being Thriller - and none of Victory album. That's a hard shift from the previous. They drew heavily from the past catalog.

So out of roughly 21 songs (including the J5 medley), you had 9 that were from MJ's solo career, 4 Jacksons songs (from only their previous two albums), and the three shortened songs in the J5 medley, plus 3-4 songs for Jermaine's solo career. Which means if you deleted Jermaines, you're down to 17 songs, and MJ had 9, so that's a huge majority of his material. Four songs were from Thriller, and four were from Off The Wall, plus "Ben."

MJ also flat out refused to rehearse any of the songs from the Jackson's new album.

In short, it was a Thriller-tour-adjacent. At least. I'm surprised they didn't bill it as Michael Jackson and The Jacksons. Cuz frankly, that's what it was.

TrivialPursuit said:

thesexofit said:

Victory tour was a strange one. Yes, it is basically a Michael solo tour as no new tracks from "Victory" were played, but I don't count it as a "Thriller" tour, but I can see Patrick's point.

Well, just to double down on my point: recent past tours of the Jacksons highlighted the Jackson's album and MJ's album. The previous tour had Triumph and Off The Wall material throughout. The Victory Tour highlighted MJ's latest album again - that being Thriller - and none of Victory album. That's a hard shift from the previous. They drew heavily from the past catalog.

So out of roughly 21 songs (including the J5 medley), you had 9 that were from MJ's solo career, 4 Jacksons songs (from only their previous two albums), and the three shortened songs in the J5 medley, plus 3-4 songs for Jermaine's solo career. Which means if you deleted Jermaines, you're down to 17 songs, and MJ had 9, so that's a huge majority of his material. Four songs were from Thriller, and four were from Off The Wall, plus "Ben."

MJ also flat out refused to rehearse any of the songs from the Jackson's new album.

In short, it was a Thriller-tour-adjacent. At least. I'm surprised they didn't bill it as Michael Jackson and The Jacksons. Cuz frankly, that's what it was.

As much as I love the "Victory" tour and the stadiums and Mike being so raw etc...its been alleged time and time again he was very against doing it so I do feel abit odd towards it. I do love the Jacksons and would kill for "Torture" or "Wait" live, but Michael needed to just chill and work on a movie or something.That and the awful block booking the tour started with just leaves me uneasy with the tour, despite it being fantastic LOL (and I know the block booking thing was not Michael's fault, but I have read alot of the tour and general shitiness behind the scenes in general)

Oh and at least Mike did "Tell me I'm not dreamin'" live. Thats a blast for me. A definate top 5 smash even without a video if CBS woulda allowed it. Mike got a film crew to record a show, as did The Jacksons themselves apparantlly, so at least pro shot footage does exist (as we know)...

MickyDolenz said:

thesexofit said:

RODSERLING said:

Superstition said:

Trying to psychoanalyze why a huge-selling album didn’t sell as much as a massive selling album by the same artist is kinda meh. It’s like asking why we don’t have an eclipse everyday. Just can’t happen. Thriller was groundbreaking in many aspect, and the shock and awe of a video like Thriller had already been done. MJ didn’t need to outdo what he himself had already done, so the question is itself kind of redundant.

Still, Bad had more music videos than Thriller, a worldwide tour, more singles, and a blockbuster movie as a vehicle. So it's nevertheless interesting to wonder where it didn't work as fine as planned.

Eh, I still don't see it as a big deal. Bad still sold huge. Just because other albums in the same period sold more doesn't really make a dent on Bad, imo. It's like getting hit by lightning once and then wondering why you haven't been hit again even though you're standing in a thunderstorm holding a metal pole. You can plan all you want to sell a certain amount, but Thriller's success is hardly the kind that can be totally planned out and replicated. Too many external factors outside of the content alone.

It's fun to discuss, I guess, but in my mind, the answer is simply Thriller is a once in a lifetime album, for the artist and music in general.

RODSERLING said:

The more you sell tickets, the more you will sell an album. That is called mathematics. Even an album that sells poorly initially, can be revigorated by a tour.

You think the only performers that tour are ones like Michael Jackson, Madonna, & U2? There's literally thousands of albums that come out every year all over the world. Most, if not all the artists do concerts. If touring helped that much to sell albums all of them would have blockbuster multiplatinum sales. A very small percentage of records (& movies) get any sort of popularity. The ones that do are mostly because of some kind of radio airplay. That's how folks become aware of certain acts in the first place. You think Drake is popular from touring, no because he's constantly played on the radio. I'm sure BTS is more popular than many rock bands who are touring right now, because rock is not played much on Top 40 radio anymore. Cardi B became popular because she was on a reality TV show. So when she put out a record she had instant success because people knew her from the show. Cardi didn't play in clubs and bars for years before getting a record deal like those veteran performers did. Jennifer Hudson, Carrie Underwood, & Kelly Clarkson came from American Idol. Lil Nas X has the longest running #1 song with Old Town Road. He didn't even have an album, just a bunch of remixes of Old Town Road. He was unknown before. But the song was everywhere, just like Psy's Gangnam Style years ago.

Again, not every tour is successful. You talk like every single tour is automatically popular enough to make a difference. Also if touring does make a difference, how do performers sell to areas that they don't go to that are not large cities? I guess the people in those small towns won't buy the records. What about that Prince tour where he gave away a CD with each ticket. The album made the Top 10 because of this, not because people went out and bought the album themselves. He was spiking the charts. If a family of 6 went to the concert, they got 6 albums. Normally 6 people in the same house is not going to buy 6 of the same CD. They'll buy one and if they're interested in the music, just play the one CD or maybe burn a copy of it.

MickyDolenz said:

Superstition said:

RODSERLING said:

You know, if the best selling artists in the world toured for years, there must have been a reason. Artists who don't sell that much, without a tour they would have sold less. That's all.

If you look at the Top 50 biggest selling acts in history, the majority of them are white males and mostly either American or British, sing in English, and make rock n roll. Why is that? Why aren't any there any Indian, Puerto Rican, or Chinese? No artists that made soul music, salsa, jazz, polka, gospel, disco, dance music, etc. How come there are few female artists of any race? How is it Pat Boone sold more than Little Richard & Fats Domino doing the same songs. Why did B.B. King have to do a song with U2 to get on pop radio and make a collabo album with Eric Clapton to finally get a Top 10 album after over 50 years making records? How did the Beastie Boys with Licensed To Ill outsell all of the rap albums before it? Why is it that when Billy Preston died, most of the coverage says he worked with The Beatles & Rolling Stones. It didn't mention he worked with Sam Cooke & James Cleveland.

RODSERLING said:

MickyDolenz said:

RODSERLING said:

Maybe because people do care about the Beatles ? You wanna go into a racial direction,as usual in every of your posts, quoting me artists from the 50's and 60's. That was absolutely not the discussion, I never told anything about that.

That is the discussion. You said that touring sells records. It doesn't matter what decade they were performing. Touring wasn't invented in the 1980s. So going by your criteria, mostly white male rock artists tour since they're the ones who have the most sales. It's also true that until recently, Charley Pride is the only black singer to really make it in country music. Others tried and weren't promoted or accepted. When Charley first came out, they didn't even send his photo out to radio stations for promotion. There's a few others that had some country hits were't strictly country like Ray Charles & The Pointer Sisters. Notice its the Eagles who is said to sold more than Thriller in the USA and not Lionel Richie, Gloria Estefan, or Whitney Houston.

Also many artists tour, not to promote a record, but because they weren't making money from their record sales because they had a rip off contract. Doing concerts is the only way they could make some money. Elvis Presley continued to tour because Colonel Parker made him.

MickyDolenz said:

MickyDolenz said:

RODSERLING said:

Elvis Presley from the 50's ? Oh please. Again, off topic. I never talked about that. You are still comparing contracts from the 50's with the ones from the 80's amd 90's. That's beyond ludicrous.

Elvis was still touring in the 1970s up until he passed. TLC is from the 1990s and they had a rip off contract. They sold millions of albums but were still in the hole to their record label Laface/Arista. Vanilla Ice was hung over from a balcony by Suge Knight in the 1990s.

Cinny said:

Bad definitely had an overall more plastic sound than Thriller!

.

- I always thought I was the only one who thought that. Unfortunately, the mid to end of the 80s favored this kind of production.

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

fun question: since seven out of the nine Thriller songs were released as singles,do you think Epic should have just went all the way and released the remaining two songs (“Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady In My Life”) as singles too?

It kinda was. It was called Spice Of Life by Manhattan Transfer.

MickyDolenz said:

SoulAlive said:

fun question: since seven out of the nine Thriller songs were released as singles,do you think Epic should have just went all the way and released the remaining two songs (“Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady In My Life”) as singles too?

It kinda was. It was called Spice Of Life by Manhattan Transfer.

RODSERLING said:

Lady In My Life, with a music video, amd a 12 with the long version, would have been top 10 in the USA I think. It would have been a classic just like the other songs released on singles.

I agree. Apparently some radio stations played it anyway, and joked about how it sounds like "gonna love you Morris Day". The extra verse was printed on the liner notes but edited out of the song. Very nice full version that should have been on Thriller 25. I wish they could fix it for a "THRILLER 40" - which would be this year!

Cinny said:

MickyDolenz said:

It kinda was. It was called Spice Of Life by Manhattan Transfer.

Stevie Wonder played harmonica on that.

Cinny said:

yeah,"The Lady In My Life" got some airplay on R&B stations.So that leaves "Baby Be Mine" as the one,neglected track that never really got the love it deserved it's a great song

MickyDolenz said:

SoulAlive said:

fun question: since seven out of the nine Thriller songs were released as singles,do you think Epic should have just went all the way and released the remaining two songs (“Baby Be Mine” and “The Lady In My Life”) as singles too?

It kinda was. It was called Spice Of Life by Manhattan Transfer.

I remember that song

SoulAlive said:

SoulAlive said:

yeah,"The Lady In My Life" got some airplay on R&B stations.So that leaves "Baby Be Mine" as the one,neglected track that never really got the love it deserved it's a great song

I still hear it on R&B radio today, mostly on the Quiet Storm program in the evenings and the soul oldies station. The local Adult R&B station also plays Baby Be Mine and Jacksons songs like That's What You Get & Blues Away. Probably the song they play the most often is Butterflies. Butterflies became one of those family cookout songs like the stuff on Malaco Records and songs like Hole In The Wall by Mel Waiters & Electric Boogie by Marcia Griffiths.