This is very interesting, and very effective. I've got a bootleg of MJ live in Romania on the Dangerous tour, and before Smooth Criminal, there's a strange spoken word/chanted section with a mass of people, somewhat like the intro to Janet Jackson's Rhythm Nation. It's very hard to make out, but from what I can hear:

(heavy panting)..."...(a lot of garbled speech)...up ahead, a neon sign emerged from the fog. the letters glew red hot, in that way I knew so well, branding a message into my mind, a single word: Hotel."

then there's some finger clicking and harmonising on "doo doo...", then he launches into Smooth Criminal as we know it. It's a very strange, very eery intro. Does anyone know more about this, what it means, where it's from, etc?
[This message was edited Tue Nov 25 22:49:33 PST 2003 by MrSquiggle]

Sounds like the version that's on the "Moonwalker" video. Not really that stange when u see it.

He's been using that since the Bad tour.he first used it on Heartbreak Hotel then changed it to Smooth Criminal as more songs from Bad were added to the tour.He's used it on all subsequent tours.

I don't know where it's from, but it sounds like 'Streetwalker' written around that time inspired it a bit, but that's just my opinion.

intha916 said:

Nope, I've seen Moonwalker and it's not what you're thinking of. There is a bit in Moonwalker where the song shuts down and everyone howls for a few minutes which is equally unexpected and effective, but it's a different thing completely.

Marrk is right...Michael wrote it purely as the intro to HEARTBREAK HOTEL years ago, even before the BAD Tour & liked it so much that when he dropped Heartbreak Hotel for the Dangerous Tour he still thought the intro worked with SMOOTH CRIMINAL.

Jolajeph

There are quite a few bootleg videos/CDs of The BAD Tour in Japan with HEARTBREAK HOTEL including the INTRO on. It does sound much better as the intro to that song rather than Smooth Criminal.

Jolajeph

This Place Hotel

jthad1129 said:

We know what it's really called thanks.

That's right Marrk!

It was originally called Heartbreak Hotel but was changed to This Place Hotel for obvious reasons (at the time) but then MJ changed it back for the BAD Tour setlist.

Jolajeph

jolajeph said:

why was it changed at all?

AaronUniversal said:

'cause people kept ripping into mj saying hi copped the title from Elvis Prisley...instead of saying "so what", mj said he had never ever...(ever)...heard Elvis' song...quietly all subsequent prints of Triumph had the song changed to "This Place Hotel"...

i guess the simpler answer is...mj=

(i wonder if he reqrets the change after whitney went out and released her own Heartbreak Hotel... )

I always wondered why the title was changed. I used to have a cassette that listed the song as 'Heartbreak Hotel', but when I got Triumph on vinyl it was listed as 'This Place Hotel'

sosgemini said:

there are literally HUNDREDS of songs with the exact same title as another, also popular, song. what's the big deal? he's retarded to go through all of that