Michael Jackson: Classic or Dud?

as an aside. i love it, when, in 'earth song', he suddenly shouts 'what about the elephants!?', as though he just remembered about the elephants. he's really upset about the environment and that, and then, all of a sudden, there's the elephants, and its like the final straw...

I would hate to live in your parallel universe of horrifically-dated Michael Jackson songs. Personally, I'm happy here in my world surrounded by "Rock With You", "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", "She's Out Of My Life", "Billie Jean", "Wanna be Startin' Somethin'", "Human Nature", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Smooth Criminal", "Liberian Girl", "Leave Me Alone", "Dirty Diana", "Jam", "Remember The Time", "Who Is It?", "Why You Wanna Trip On Me?", "Scream", and "You Are Not Alone". I'm also glad that, in my world, an artist doesn't have to have a good song out right now to be considered a classic.

The solo stuff... Oh my god. So many great songs. He's certainly one of the few artists who can claim to have touched that many people emotionally.

I can almost see how "Dirty Diana" could be considered embarassing, but "Jam" is pure rockin' fun and "Scream" may be simplistic sermonizing but DAMN does it make me want to shake my booty.

I will not rise to the obvious Janet-fan baiting. :)

Always a source of fun, MJ. Often of late that fun has not been musical but I would probably enjoy his greatest hits a lot more than I'd guess just reading the tracklist. Just for "Thriller" though he'd be a classic.

Jarvis v Jackson: a heterosexual harrassing a homosexual in public and getting lots of right on people's applause for it. Something a little worrying there, no?

For the social, aesthetic, philosophical, satirical implications of the Man, the Myth: classic.

Classic for that. Classic for Billie Jean. Classic for being bonkers.

And, for Nick's information, "right-on" people like myself were on Jarvis's side because Jackson, that night, was arrogant and offensive in his presentation of himself as a godlike figure, and of course his proximity to young children would always have seemed creepy anyway. But I'd concur with Tom in that large parts of MJ's back catalogue are classic, as is the man and the myth as a whole, though a lot of the "Dangerous" era now sounds like really embarrassing clock-chasing.

Jarvis hardly confirms to the stereotypical check-shirted homo- baiting jock image does he? It was boorish behaviour, but I'm sure that something other than sex-hatred was on his mind when he stormed the stage. Quite what was, I'm not sure, other than a dislike of bombast.

Jackson is a shining example of how pop performers can extend this fakeness into the realm of their own identities. Seen in this light, the incident was a culture clash between UK and US values on the question of the mutability of identity. The US, a nation of immigrants and self-made people, has always been more Nietzschean about this.

It was also, ironically, a man who lived in a monarchy attacking a citizen of a revolutionary republic because he'd been enough of an upstart to grab the title 'king' for himself, rather than leave it to Prince Charles or whoever.

If we attacked every performer who's ever styled himself 'Earl' or 'Duke' or 'King' we'd end up harrassing half the black jazz and pop greats.

Regarding Nick's allegations that it had something to do with homophobia, I believe you're projecting your own preconceptions onto this episode.

Classic for the past music, but now I hate him with the burning fury of a supernova.

The next King Of Britain says stuff like 'Modern architecture is a hideous carbunkle' and 'Genetic engineering is an affront to the Creator'.The American King Of Pop builds Neverland and performs genetic experiments on monkeys and himself while grabbing his crotch and singing about 'keeping it in the closet'.

I know who gets my vote, er, sorry, constitutional allegiance.

Musically, my radio-drenched youth would have been poorer without him. But frankly, over the long term I think Janet ended up kicking his butt.

I Want You Back
A.B.C.
The Love You Save
I'll Be There
I Wanna Be Where You Are
We Got a Good Thing Goin'
Shoo Be Do Be Do Da Day
Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)
Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
Rock With You
Off the Wall
Workin' Day and Night
Billie Jean
Wanna Be Startin' Something
P.Y.T.
Thrilller
Bad
The Way You Make Me Feel

(80:54 - chronological, It was difficult to cut "Dancing Machine" since it really shows the midpoint of his voice change. I know there are a lot of great latter day tracks missing here that would be good on a MJ solo stuff only disc).

HIStory and Dangerous are ridiculously underrated. Sure, they're a big departure from Off The Wall and Thriller, but they sounded distinctive and considerably more courageous than a lot of other pop pap out at the time. Forget Black Or White or the execrable Childhood, listen to Jam, She Drives Me Wild, In The Closet, Who Is It, Scream, They Don't Care About Us, Money, Tabloid Junkie, 2Bad, HIStory, even the remix album had high-calibre tracks like Morphine and Ghosts, and none of these sounded remotely like anything else on pop radio at the time. I happen to think they sounded mighty funky.

The most recent album is a total dud though, mostly because (apart from 2000 Watts) it's full of songs that sound like they really really care about being hits, and really really want to sound like all the other songs that have been hits recently. For the first time ever it is Michael Jackson trying desperately to sound like something other than himself, and it fails miserably.

Almost everything else is CLASSIC, CLASSIC, CLASSIC.

Even Off The Wall and Thriller are just PRETTY GOOD despite getting the collective nod from most sides as being the over-exposed weirdo's golden era.

But he's a hands-down classic for his legacy as a freakshow media juggernaut alone, ongoing as it is into it's fourth goddam decade!

Whoever saw such a public spectacle than this ageing, trans-racial, trans-gendered, trans-humanist effigy - shyly, yet boldly parading himself through the media hoisted upon his own shoulders?!?

IMO it was what you call "watering down" that made it better than other R&B.

hey! ageism! and not true for everyone.. alex in nyc is a lot older than that! (yeah?)

And Geir, I don't quite understand your question.

If it's the former, then I don't have much of a view either way, it's not great, but in the spectrum of bad lyrics I think it's insignificant.

If it's the latter, I strongly disagree. I never saw ANYTHING remotely offensive or anti-Semetic about that line - surely it's crystal clear (though it didn't seem to be to the world media) to any person who, er, can read, that it was basically saying "yeah, do whatever the hell you want to me, kick me, call me a kike, I remain unbowed"? The whole controversy was absurd. The fact that he eventually changed the lines (to something stupid like "do me, sue me, kick me, strike me") is even more absurd. He should have stuck to his guns.

I just turned 36. Michael Jackson is, was, and invariably always will be a deplorably overrated side-show freak. Shun him.

via NewsNow this was on the news wire:

The Essential Michael Jackson To Be Released
http://www.undercover.com.au/news/2005/jun05/20050630_michaeljackson.html

Sony-BMG will release the 2CD Michael Jackson compilation, 'The Essential Michael Jackson' on July 15.

Stay tuned...

(almost)

Using the term "Jew" (a noun, an ethnic identifier - NOT A VERB) to connote a negative, stereotyped behavior is totally anti-semitic. gimme a fucking break.

Just bugs me.

It's on-the-nose.

Um, the Stones? McCartney? Robert Plant? Ozzy? (I know, I shouldn't take the bait...)

But let's be honest, he's funkier than those dudes.

in the genitals?

However, he isn't even one hundredth of the Godlike creature that his fanatical fans have turned him into.

Uh, a fan of Michael Jackson's music!

I stand by every word of it.

I just coughed up a cup of coffee for laughing.

classic (though I'd rather listen to Prince)

I was kinda surprised when I bought HIStory that he says "stop fucking with me" on Scream

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/7927497.stm

Page last updated at 08:42 GMT, Friday, 6 March 2009

Jackson eyes $400m comeback plan

By Ian Youngs Music reporter, BBC News

Michael Jackson announces his comeback

Michael Jackson could earn more than $400m (£283m) from a comeback deal involving new music and movies as well as concerts, his promoter has revealed.

The pop superstar has announced 10 gigs at the O2 arena in London this summer.

Randy Phillips, head of AEG Live, which is staging the gigs, said they had a wider deal that could cover a world tour and a 3D film based on Thriller.

He also said: "We're talking to him about helping him figure a new plan for the release of singles, new music."

Last tour

Jackson appeared at the London venue on Thursday to announce his comeback concerts.

He billed them as "the final curtain call" and "my final show performances in London".

Speaking afterwards, Mr Phillips said: "These will be the last shows in London. Whether he will go on from here around the world... this will be his last tour.

"All he's agreed to are the London shows at this point."

He said AEG Live had a "broader relationship" with Jackson.

"We have a film development deal that's part of this to do a film, Thriller 3D," he said.

It would be a new film that could star Jackson himself, he said.

Asked how much Jackson could earn from the ventures, Mr Phillips replied: "If we complete the full three-and-a-half year plan, he could gross over $400m in that time. London could be north of $50m (£35m)."

The star made a five-minute appearance in front of hundreds of screaming fans on Thursday to announce the 10 London dates.

I'll be performing the songs my fans want to hear - this is the final curtain call
Michael Jackson

Is the King of Pop still a thriller?

His first words to fans were: "I love you so much.

"This will be it. When I say this is it, it really means this is it," he added.

"I'll be performing the songs my fans want to hear."

Jackson had been expected to appear at the 02 arena at 1600 GMT, but arrived an hour and a half late for the announcement.

The first concert at the 20,000-capacity venue will be on 8 July, with tickets costing between £50 and £75. They go on general sale on 13 March.

Jackson last toured 12 years ago. In 2006, he performed at the World Music Awards in London, but disappointed fans by singing just a few lines of We Are The World.

Michael Jackson: Child Molester or Pedophile?

Add on top of that the fact that in real life he's such a freakshow that punks and anarchists everywhere shuld curl up and die with envy, and there's really no question.

OTM. IMO GG Allin has got nothing on Michael Jackson. While obviously MJ is less of a freak than GG, dude went from being the most famous person in the world to a freaky looking creep and child molester, and has lost probably millions of fans as a result: it's not how low you go but how far you fall.

Good lord, who cares that MJ out-freaks an idiot like GG Allin? Is that supposed to be a compliment?

While the court cases have definitely mattered and cause his downfall, they are not the main reason. I think a lot of people are able to say that, well, he seems kind of weird and maybe even creepy, but he was found innocent, and then he should be viewed as innocent.

His downfall has more to do with the constantly detoriating quality of his output. "Off The Wall", "Thriller" and even "Bad" were all fantastic. "Dangerous" and "HIStory" were not, but still quite good. But then, "Invincible" contained hardly anything of value at all.

I think what he would need now is to do an album with Quincy Jones again. Q has earlier showed the ability to get the best of him, and also to take influence from current music, but without losing sense of the typical Jackson style. If the music holds up, people (well, not all, but most) can forgive him for being creepy as long as he isn't proven creepy in an illegal way.

The BBC got approx. 9000 hits over the weekend for people typing in "bbc.co.uk/O_2" presumably in an effort to find out ticket information

Touring your old hits is always a secure way of getting income for somebody whose artistic prime was in the past. Just as Rolling Stones or AC/DC.

Agree with Geir. But I feel as if those first two MJ albums were mostly inspired by the (at the time) new drum machines and synths. I don't know how easily MJ could return to that sound.

Although, looking at shots of his home studio, it looks like MJ's got an eye for "old school"... I saw Distressors and an MPC-60. Chouette!

Regarding his creepiness. After watching that Bashir documentary, I found him to be far less creepy than expected. Considering that he's an extremely famous, vitiligo'd, surgery addicted, child-abused, multi-millionaire, gay dad and (chaste) pederast, he seemed kind of... normal? Like he'd be fun at a dinner party? Bashir, on the other hand, would have two glasses of wine and start talking about boning chicks.

pretty amazing how often the phrase child molester appeared in the thread despite the second case being thrown out, and the first never going to criminal court (and rumors flying that Jordan Chandler may come forward and say the allegations were false)....

Your post and this one are the only two times the words "child molester" are in this thread.

WS!

http://yazmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/pm45o46150.jpg

michael s. jackson ws all this white girls

Your post and this one are the only two times the words "child molester" are in this thread.

― LOL me a LOL (Whiney G. Weingarten), Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:18 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

Michael Jackson: Child Molester or Pedophile?

― ilxor, Sunday, March 8, 2009 11:19 AM (4 months ago) Bookmark

OTM. IMO GG Allin has got nothing on Michael Jackson. While obviously MJ is less of a freak than GG, dude went from being the most famous person in the world to a freaky looking creep and child molester, and has lost probably millions of fans as a result: it's not how low you go but how far you fall.

― samosa gibreel, Sunday, March 8, 2009 10:40 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink[/i]

he really did like that massive going up a key thing like in man in the mirror didnt he? listening to a lot of songs i didnt really play that much before, ive noticed he uses it a lot. you are not alone, earth song (i think), heal the world, i think he ruined quite a few otherwise good songs with this device.

http://www.gearchange.org/FAQ.html

you should be aware that it may make you physically sick

he mostly did that on his ballads, yea.....course God knows many of those weren't penned by him, and that's a device the Diane Warrens of the world live by. (not that he ever used her to my knowledge but that's besides the point)

http://www.aprilwinchell.com/images/mjdress.jpg

"While obviously MJ is less of a freak than GG"

GG's freakishness is completely explicable given his horrible but probably not too uncommon upbringing. MJ's freakishness is kind of singular.

At the very least, GG had nothing to hide. Hell, he was damn proud of his....ummm... indiscretions.

so are most neo-Nazis....big deal

and MJ didn't molest nobody. INNOCENT!11!!1111

pass the Jesus Juice.

I just shit.

Who is "WS!" and why is he eating himself and not me?

Kind of amazing hair-on-fire footage

rage, the national broadcaster's late-night clips show over here, are playing pretty much everything tonight in order.

That's a shame.

haha, oh alex.

COUNTDOWN - 2nd September 1984 Thriller Dance Competition

^^ have big hopes that this will bring the lols.

i want to find my disc 2 of HIStory. it ain't bad like everybody says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsEQU_237cM

Michael Jackson's previously unreleased anti-abortion song, "Song Groove (Abortion Papers)". On the 25th anniversary edition of Bad.

Sister don't read, she'll never know
What about love?
Living a Christian soul
What do we get, she runs away
What about love?
What about all I pray

Don't know the worst, she knows a atheist
What about God?
Living is all I see
What do you get, things she would say
What about love?
That's all I pray

Those abortion papers
Signed in your name against the words of God
Those abortion papers
Think about life, I'd like to have my child

Sister confused, she went alone
What about love?
What about all I saw?
Biding a life, reading the words
Singing a song, citing a Bible verse

Father's confused, mother despair
Brother's in curse
What about all I've seen?
You know the lie, you keep it low
What about heart?
That's all I've known

Those abortion papers
(Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)
(Hee Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)
Those abortion papers (Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)
I'd like to have my child (Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)
Those abortion papers (Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)
(Hee-Hee Hee-Hee).

Those abortion papers
(Hee-Hee Hee Hee-Hee)

lol that atheist line cannot be right but still, what

I can't make out what the word is there but it's definitely not "atheist"

One of the best pop voices ever. 9 or 10 excellent songs. No masterpiece albums. Incredible stage presence...perhaps best ever. Career went to shit after 1982 in terms of song quality. I'd still undoubtedly say classic.

hi

Here are twenty-five, uh, jams.

Nice list!!

Mine would include Remember the Time in the top 10 i think -- one of my faves to dance to

and I have a terrible soft spot for Man in the Mirror - i think it's just how high he goes in the chorus, it gets me

I like it better as I age. I need to make a....CHANGE.

Before I click on this, I hope to see 'Stranger In Moscow' on there...

...and it is! :D

"who is it" too low

what number is higher than #1

I am really missing the full-on melodrama of Earth Song in this list

DJP: "WHAT ABOUT 'EARTH SONG'!?"
Backing singers: "WHAAAAT ABOOUT IT!?!"

loooool

#1 and #2 really the truly acceptable choices for those slots.

nice choices from Off the Wall, and Leave Me Alone is a sentimental fav cos the tune goes through my head whenever I'm aggravated.

sad at the lack of "Another Part of Me" tho. but maybe we didn't all love CAptain EO

I will argue until the day that I die that "The Way You Make Me Feel" is his most underrated single (followed very closely by "Who Is It")

I remember me and my brother making one of those silly joke recordings where you record interviews and use fragments of song recordings to answer questions, and using "Who Is It?" as one of the samples for someone answering the door.

it's also a killer song.

Dangerous as a whole I always remembered as this forgettable album and it's true it doesn't quite have the hooks of previous Jackson, but it's a serious classic. "Why You Wanna Trip On Me" goes hard. some of the hip-hoppy shit around the nu-jack swing makes it sound dated (well, as does the new-jack swing itself), but idk, New Jack Swing is always welcome nostalgia for me.

"Heal the World" can get fucked tho.

I blame "Heal the World" for making ppl's eyes roll so hard that they couldn't really get on board with Earth Song (which I almost typoed as "Earth Dong")

Dangerous >>> Bad

xxposts
ah, when "Bad" was released, as a fanboy of MJ since "Thriller", I was kinda disappointed.
the only song I found good enough was "TWYMMF".
It's definitely one of the best songs post "Thriller".

"Earth Song" is sooooooooooooooooooooo much better than Heal the World.

his ballads were often hit and miss - "She's Out of My Life" is classic, as is "You Are Not Alone", "Human Nature", "Man in the Mirror" (does that count?), but the stuff like "Heal the World" or "Lady in My Life", "The Girl is Mine" is so *screeching halt*

"Lady in My Life " is great !!

I miss Alex in NYC.

MJ has always been a talented dud—no more, no less. The fact that critical institutions have canonized him in the wake of poptimism's Orwellian victory is a blight upon the musical landscape.

Hi

Oh hey.

pomenitul otm

wait Neanderthal is Alex in NYC?!? how was I unaware of this

Lol i am not

I couldnt fill those shoes if i wanted to

haha ok nm

gr8 b8 m8, as they say.

I miss Alex in NYC.

MJ has always been a talented dud—no more, no less. The fact that critical institutions have canonized him in the wake of poptimism's Orwellian victory is a blight upon the musical landscape.

usually professionals will notify your relativs after you've been Baker Acted.

Omg

Seriously, though, I never got into the Killing Joke but I always enjoyed Alex in NYC's curmudgeonly contributions. At least he tried to uphold some basic standards, which is an infinitely more interesting approach than the "it's all subjective anyway except when it gets political in which case Anglo-American pop music rulez all lol" circlejerk that so much of musical discourse has devolved into in the past, say, 15 years.

From 2001:

For the music: Dud of course. Sorry gotta go with Alex here. Never liked him, but thanks to the zillion times you still hear the music everywhere it all becomes utterly meaningless.

For the social, aesthetic, philosophical, satirical implications of the Man, the Myth: classic.

― Omar, Tuesday, April 24, 2001 8:00 PM (fifteen years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Now here's a position I can actually respect, because it does what so few are still capable of nowadays: it dissociates the celebrity from his music.

The impression you are currently giving off is that you only respect opinions you agree with.

Now here's a position I can actually respect, because it does what so few are still capable of nowadays: it dissociates the celebrity from his music.

― pomenitul,

You are talking an awful lot of shit for someone who hasn't read what people have written about his music.

Liking MJ, much like liking Beyoncé, is no longer an 'opinion' in 2017. It's a requirement.

show us your draft card

You are talking an awful lot of shit for someone who hasn't read what people have written about his music.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:09 PM (forty seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

There are better ways to waste one's time.

show us your draft card

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, March 1, 2017 12:10 PM (twelve seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First off, I'm not American. Second off, assuming you're at all serious, thank you for exemplifying the attitude I'm denouncing here.

well, you step into a thread annoucing with the clarity of the addled that MJ is a talented dud and imply that admirers are bedazzled by his celebrity – I'm sorry your feet are hurt from getting stepped on

I quite like it when others prove my point, so please, no need to apologize.

this is like watching a tetherball match where one dude wraps the ball around the pole every time and the other guy curiously insists he's the winner

paedophile

I would think my opinions about MJ are well known around here but if not... he's got some good tunes up through Off the Wall, p much everything after that I have no interest in. I'm not impressed/engaged by his singing style, tics or mannerisms, the lyrical subject matter, the melodies, the production or really anything at all, and so much of it is over-exposed to the point that I actively never want to hear it again. Like Star Wars, over the course of my lifetime my reaction has progressed from infatuation to active loathing, due in no small part to the religious fervor surrounding his celebrity and the constant drumbeat of "YOU MUST LIKE THIS" from all corners. But setting that circus aside and focusing on the material itself, imo his discography is middling - some early on highs (ABC, I Want You Back, Dancing Machine, I Want to Rock With You, etc.) followed by a preponderance of ridiculous, silly and depressing lows, and it's maybe telling that the majority of stuff I do like all predates his assuming full control of his music; the quality of the input from collaborators like the Motown machine and Quincy Jones is undeniable, I have no reservations about attributing a lot of the things I like in MJ's music to people other than MJ. Generally I don't find his singing engaging, esp not as he got older and it primarily alternated between scat-exclamatory-nonsense and his paper-thin tenor. Post-QJ I don't care for his taste in drum and synth sounds at all, everything way too thin and glossy. And most of the time I don't care at all what he's singing about, about his trials and tribulations as a tortured man-boy fantasist just dgaf.

Οὖτις otm

http://i626.photobucket.com/albums/tt349/esmeralda84_2009/Gif%20Bad%20Video/25iais6.gif

probably mentioned upthread but John Jeremiah Sullivan's MJ essay is great
http://www.gq.com/story/michael-jackson-john-jeremiah-sullivan-tribute

Ok, for one thing

The fact that critical institutions have canonized him in the wake of poptimism's Orwellian victory

Lol no. Off the Wall and Thriller, at least, have been in the canon since well before I started reading music criticism in the mid-90s.

Of course taste and all but I guess someone who doesn't find any joy and pleasure in anything he did, at least, from "I want you back" to "lady in my Life" simply doesn't enjoy the same things in music as I do.

nobody has to like anything obv but the idea that anybody who likes...you know...music recorded in recording studios that isn't Estrus/In the Red style live-to-tape stuff...wouldn't find Thriller absolutely breathtaking strictly from an engineering standpoint...is pretty weird

it's a lot like Steely Dan or Fleetwood Mac. you ain't gotta like it, but if that doesn't sound amazing to you, I'm a little curious about your aesthetic priorities, because from a mixing standpoint alone, Thriller is a total masterpiece. the chord walkdown after the chorus of "Human Nature," sure that's fucking breathtaking and there's a reason jazz acts started covering it immediately as soon as the album hit the streets, but who knows, maybe Quincy Jones at the peak of his game isn't your thing. but the production on Thriller? gtfo w/any take other than "of course that's great"

love the demo recording of "Human Nature" by Steve Porcaro. imagining Quincy Jones listening to it for the first time and getting the lightbulb over his head.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWdy5i_44sQ

the walkdown with the alternating major and minor 7ths is missing from the porcaro demo, which is kind of shocking, because for me & for people I've talked to about it that's the hallelujah moment, just so lush

Quincy Jones' whole crew were fusion guys, not just Toto but Louis Johnson, Ndugu Chancler, Greg Philliganes. That's one reason why Thriller plays like the pure-pop realization of Earth Wind & Fire's late 70s run. I doubt Maurice White ever got $800,000 and 10 months of studio time to make a record. He didn't have Bruce Swedien, either.

That's not to take away anything from those great EWF records or suggest they're anything less than fully realized, btw.

oh yeah but I totally hear you. EWF is one of my favorite bands of all time and their records are perfect, but Bruce Swedien breathes rare air. His work with Rufus, some of the best-sounding music anywhere ever. put that guy on an EWF record and something magic would happen, I don't doubt.

nobody has to like anything obv but the idea that anybody who likes...you know...music recorded in recording studios that isn't Estrus/In the Red style live-to-tape stuff...wouldn't find Thriller absolutely breathtaking strictly from an engineering standpoint...is pretty weird

Whatever Mr. I-Hate-The-Beach-Boys. I could say the same thing to you about Pet Sounds. We just prefer different emotionally crippled manchild schticks.

I am a massive fan of both the Beach Boys and Michael Jackson, for whatever it's worth.

And I don't begrudge anyone for their personal revulsion towards MJ given what we know or have reason to suspect about the man. But I also don't think it has fuck-all to do with the music itself. Lyrics are another matter, probably.

some people dont like slick music, big deal. beach boys / pet sounds is total Estrus style in-the-red production, come on now

e just prefer different...schticks

I think I've explained several times that there's something timbrally going on in the BB harmonies that has always, since childhood, made me feel physically ill, so no, this isn't about giving a fuck about any "narratives." it's just about sound. (I also don't like the songs the Beach Boys write, lyrically or musically, so I struggle to listen to the production afforded to the songs I don't like, lyrics I don't like, and the weird dog's-ear thing that happens when they do the soaring-sliding thing and I always feel like I'm going to vomit)

i appreciate the Beach Boys but i'm kinda the same way. and ugh i'm a giant Cubs fan but JCLC do you remember the song i believe the BB remade as a Cubs jingle? they'd play it on every WGN radio broadcast and it made me want to die.

Barbara Ann...I think that was the one they redid.

beach boys prolly diddled waayy more kids than MJ

And I don't begrudge anyone for their personal revulsion towards MJ given what we know or have reason to suspect about the man. But I also don't think it has fuck-all to do with the music itself

Would you say the same thing about Gary Glitter?

so I struggle to listen to the production afforded to the songs I don't like, lyrics I don't like, and the weird dog's-ear thing that happens when they do the soaring-sliding thing and I always feel like I'm going to vomit
)
cool, we reach. you *do* get why I don't care about post-OTW MJ after all (although swap out "soaring-sliding thing" for "bowchicka-ah-jamawnit-cha")

beach boys prolly diddled waayy more kids than MJ

this is a weird thing to say but I guess it hinges on how you define "kids"

lol at ppl pretending that not enjoying anything mj did after off the wall is somehow an iconoclastic opinion

or the fiction that liking beyoncé is now a requirement under the new authoritarian state of music criticism. i guess getting ppl like this is the inevitable side effect of having so many polls based on the 'acclaimedmusic' trashheap

#allgenresmatter

Please explain, dyl.

here's my rambling take on Michael in the disco era, looking his underrated (imo) work leading up to Thriller plus a peek at the pre-MTV music video "scene"

https://medium.com/@markcoleman57/dancing-with-michael-jackson-remembering-music-video-before-mtv-a0c18b063581"> https://medium.com/@markcoleman57/dancing-with-michael-jackson-remembering-music-video-before-mtv-a0c18b063581

Uhhhhhh...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e62M-5-7ajY

Classic.

On his worst single.

love it. your piece i mean.

was checking out xcape, the posthumous album, this apparently was adapted from an 83 demo of paul anka song, just beautiful

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG08ukJPtR8

Lowkey have been loving that since it came out

that song was getting played constantly when it was "finished" and it was always a joy to hear. I think they did a great job making it sound both modern and like one of those later Jacksons hits

rest of the album was kinda weird though, pretty 'good' in a sense but there's definitely something going on with the vocals that's a bit creepy

The breakdown with the "Working Day & Night" percussion gets me in the gut every time

i'm pretty impressed with this so far (only up to "place with no name" which is great)

pretty 'good' in a sense but there's definitely something going on with the vocals that's a bit creepy

not picking up on this, you thinking too much autotune?

I wish I could wipe JT's glassy-eyed smirk from the video, but it's a jam

Ditto; it's an extremely well edited video aside from including JT

I wish I could wipe JT's glassy-eyed smirk from the video, but it's a jam

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 14, 2023 9:26 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglinkI wish I could wipe JT's glassy-eyed smirk from the video, but it's a jam

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, February 14, 2023 9:26 AM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

on the plus side, when i was just listening to it i honestly couldn't tell he was on the song

not picking up on this, you thinking too much autotune?

it's not all the tracks but there are a few that feel so cut and paste where you can tell it was assembled from a bunch of different takes, which I think is kind of odd given his vocal approach. clearly they wanted all those MJ signature vocal tics but they all sound like they're pulled from different recordings, so it has a real stuttered flow to it. and yeah the autotune is a bit much in spots, like "Slave to the Rhythm" right now kinda sounds like an AI bot during the verses. admittedly this is just kind of how pop music is made nowadays, so maybe it's just knowing MJ was dead when it came out really that makes the necromancy apparent. it's actually a bit uncomfortable knowing it's probably better than an album he would've made while he was still alive.

ah gotcha

what went wrong after 1995? were the accusations proved on trial? who were mj enemies?

wonder who transcribed the lyrics to billie jean home demo

https://i.imgur.com/0FO8ae5.png

is there anywhere you can hear him directing his siblings singing the choir to billie jean as he's writing it? or is that just a story I read somewhere

on another note can't believe "Chicago" is one of his most popular songs now? maybe a tiktok thing

I happened upon Nelson George's Thriller: 40 the other night: while I certainly think a close examination of how the music is made, the context in which it occurred, should be the paramount rationale, I was struck that no mention was made of the fact that even then Jackson's megalomania was ascending; his obsession with being the biggest and the best deserves to be interrogated, in light of History in 1995, where his fixation on his near deification becomes particularly demented. You don't have to talk about his paedophilia or his efforts to erase his physical connection to his heritage to acknowledge that he was deeply disturbed.

the story that sticks out is after Thriller sets a record by selling something like 80 million copies, he tells everyone he wants Bad to sell 160 million. which apparently he was serious about! its like if the night after Wilt scored 100 points he went out and said "I'm gonna score 200 in the next one"

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/leaving-neverland-michael-jackson-dan-reed-1236571986

What about this notion that after your movie came out, if one thought logically, the movie should have taken Jackson down. But in fact his popularity rose after your movie, and streaming numbers on Jackson’s music rose and they only continue to grow. Since then, we’ve had the MJ Broadway musical, which is a huge hit and tours. So what does that say?

It says that people don’t care that he was a child molester. Literally, people just don’t care.

None of the allegations in Leaving Neverland have been seriously challenged, right? But there was enough noise online from those simplistic debunking (videos) that people found it easy to give themselves permission to like Michael Jackson’s music again, if they ever stopped liking it.

I think a lot of people just love his music and turn a deaf ear. And short of having actual video evidence of Michael Jackson engaged in sexual intercourse with a 7-year-old child, I don’t know what would be sufficient to change these people’s minds.

I’m not trying to stop anyone from consuming his music. I’ve never advocated canceling Michael Jackson. Book burning is for the Middle Ages and the Taliban. I just think if you’re going to enjoy his music, let’s also consider the fact that he liked to have sex with children and see how that affects your enjoyment, in all honesty.

Great interview.

ya pretty interesting working through why MJ is apparently invincible, it's not like big names haven't been taken down before, but Michael Jackson might be *too* big a name

also I think everyone understands MJ had a pretty messed up life that made him unlike anyone else on the planet...I remember watching this doc about him a while ago and at one point he goes to the mall to buy a bunch of expensive art, I guess word gets out that Michael Jackson is there and within minutes a huge crowd amasses to get a glimpse of him. this was probably in like 2003 or something too, he hadn't had a major hit in like a decade and there was an entire generation coming up who primarily knew him as a child molester, and yet he was still big enough to cause a major commotion everywhere he went. the thing with Michael Jackson is it's been like this for him for basically his entire life, he probably has very few memories of a time when he wasn't a major star, I have to think living your life that way causes a very real form of brain damage. I mean Michael Jackson was clearly an insane person, even in his prime...by all accounts when he said he needed Bad to sell twice what Thriller did he literally meant it. So for me a big part of the Michael Jackson story is just what happens when we turn people into these unaccountable gods who can do no wrong and how that inevitably leads to them doing some incredibly evil shit

I'm afraid that his rape of young boys has been folded into general Michael Jackson Weirdness.

there was an entire generation coming up who primarily knew him as a child molester

I don't know that this has ever been really true? It seems like every generation still goes through a Michael Jackson phase at a certain age (and has to reckon with it later). I'll have to ask the Youths at work.

growing up in the 90s it seemed to be the main thing kids my age knew about him. most of the insane media coverage he was getting that I can remember revolved around these trials, along with him dangling his baby over a balcony and whatever he was doing to his face. all the music seemed to be secondary until he died and then suddenly it was everywhere, in my experience that's when I think my generation really began its MJ phase, now that he was no longer around raping children I guess it was okay to admit you liked his music

i keep meaning to start a thread about how canonical/historical artists are never really canceled based on things they did when they were in their prime but i can guarantee it would get annoying very very quickly so i never do. people still listen to led zeppelin and james brown despite the horrific shit they did as people. once you reach a certain level of importance there's just not much you can do that will keep people from listening to your music.

completely ignore the fact that this guy was worse than Jeffrey Epstein

hmm idk if rhetoric like this really helps your case

xp I do wonder if that's a thing of the past, gotta think the young folks getting into JB or Zep genuinely didn't know about any of that stuff until later, now there's comment sections on everything and a platform for anyone you victimize so it's a lot harder to keep that stuff quiet

Not exactly a thing of the part with MJ it seems.

... the past, even.

It's an interesting year for the band I play in to finally release an album of MJ music (via New Orleans brass band arrangements), a recording project that started 14 years ago. It's complicated, but the main way I rationalize it is that this music meant so much to my friend who arranged it, it's not really my or anyone's place to take that away from him.

I'm trying to recall when the (obviously tasteless) "big hand/little hand" Michael Jackson joke first started making the rounds. Simultaneously timestamps the general understanding of MJ's (at the time at the very least suspected) crimes and sadly also our collective ability to make light of them.

I finally watched finding neverland last weekend. i pirated it because i don't have HBO, but I had no idea HBO had buried it from their platform. Fucking disgusting.

You (anyone) can get it here, at least for the time being:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1EasEAE3MWbsYDZN0rUgqD-LvTgnHq63A

there was an entire generation coming up who primarily knew him as a child molester

I'm around frogbs' age and I just want to echo Jordan that this claim is patently untrue

was in the pub friday and one of the regulars (mid-late 40s) was saying how excited how she was to see the film.
i began to ask re the whole kid thing, and she put her hand up to basically tell me to be quiet and said 'i don't believe any of it, it's all rubbish'.
was quite an interesting moment.

I'd say there was a similar reaction to Bill Cosby, but Cosby didn't seem to trickle down through the generations as easily as MJ did.

I think a lot of people of believe don't the Michael Jackson allegations.

he fucking did it
is how i break it down to an extent

(xp) Don't know what happened to that sentence but you get my drift.

Yep. Last week I was chatting with my guitar instructor about “canceled” musicians and MJ came up. He totally believes that he was set up.

He was not found guilty and that’s what 90% of the public probably believes.

Dismissing his crimes is, in the present day, to be pro-child abuse and little else

Well, there you go, that's just how it is!

my view was always that he probably did it but there was enough plausible deniability that I could still justify listening to his music, I mean lets face it there were a couple fishy aspects to the story and the media really seemed to love the "Wacko Jacko" thing. the conversation actually came up at a bar for me too, I said something like "I think it's like 95% likely" and she countered "no, it's 100%", which led me to look into what was in this documentary (I don't really want to watch it myself) and yeah can't see myself willingly listening to his music again

I'm around frogbs' age and I just want to echo Jordan that this claim is patently untrue

It was true in my social circles, Jackson and Paul Reubens— 80s inescapables that we knew predominantly as 90s pre-teens/teens as being “perverts”, even if the discussions about their actions were limited to schoolyard titterings

Yeah, as a tween in the mid to late 90s, I feel like we certainly spent way more time telling horribly offensive "jokes" about his proclivities than we did listening to his music but it might have been a short window.

idk fgti, I am having a real hard time believing that a bunch of kids who grew up as prime Pee-Wee's Playhouse age would, in a few mere years, would primarily know him him as "the Sarasota masturbator."

This is useful: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/10-undeniable-facts-about-the-michael-jackson-sexual-abuse-allegations

there were other allegations leveled against Reubens that I never even knew about until I watched his documentary; they were false, I guess they came up at some point when I wasn't paying attention to popular culture (late 90's?).

Like I can 100% see a bunch of Xennials knowing like Bob Crane primarily as a pervert because they were too young to know him from Hogan's Heroes, but MJ and Pee-Wee were like foundational texts of the '80s, there's absolutely no way

Or, to use a better example, a xennial knowing OJ Simpson mainly as an accused murderer because his football career ended in the '70s and his acting career wasn't exactly ubiquitous

you have to consider that kids grow up fast and the touchstones of one kid's childhood can be next to unfamiliar to someone just a few years later.

I am also of the generation under discussion. The release of Dangerous and MJ appearing on the Simpsons basically coincided exactly with my entrance into tracking pop culture, and so I got this one brief phase of MJ as comically larger than life King of Pop. By the time HIStory came out his legend was already collapsing under its own weight, and then from that point on his cultural footprint was mostly nothing but scandals and molestatio rumors for the next several years. Point is, kids who were a couple years older than me lived through Bad and probably had an experience more like what you're describing, Whiney. But kids who were just a couple years younger and first started paying attention in like 1996, it's easy for me to imagine he was just a walking scandal and weirdo

I didn't grow up in the 80's though. When I was in grade school all his big hits were basically considered classic rock and the kids I knew were way more into the Weird Al parodies than the originals. I do vaguely recall seeing the "Black or White" video but I don't think I really became aware of him until some time around when the HIStory album came out and to me it seemed like he was very much a punchline by that time.

I was in college in the mid '90s when a writer at the college paper who loved R&B and hip-hop said casually that he considered Thriller one of his favorite albums; the admission caught the people in the conversation offguard.

i'm a '90s kid and i feel like he was definitely known as a weirdo pervert more than some kind of giant of pop music. things change fast. the baby dangling incident was huge, and his facial appearance/evolution was starting to become impossible to ignore. my first exposure to his music was via Weird Al's "Eat It" and Chris Tucker in "Rush Hour."

it wasn't until high school when i started to become a music obsessive that i put all the pieces together with Motown, Jackson 5, Quincy Jones, and started to understand his importance for R&B and pop music. but when i was a kid he was definitely just a weird dude and the butt of many jokes more than he was some kind of icon

i also wouldn't be surprised if i saw MJ's episode of Celebrity Death Match before i ever saw the Thriller music video

lol "They Don't Care About Us" ranks among his top ten most streamed tracks on Spotify.

frogbs aren't you like 45?

My knowledge of Reubens pre-allegations was limited to an awareness (but not a viewing of) of the Big Adventure movie— my awareness of Jackson was limited to “Man In The Mirror”. Some kids (like myself) were only allowed to watch PBS and watch PG movies! I listened to rap radio with headphones on after lights out and knew every word to every song by Digital Underground but had no knowledge of Jackson or Reubens’s contributions— if anything, the high-water mark of being inundated with Jackson’s music, for me, was Free Willy followed by “Scream”— and both were years later after Jackson had been “exonerated” from those initial allegations.

"Thriller" was the first album I (b. 1975) ever bought. I got the LP at the local supermarket, when local supermarkets carried such things. But honestly that is the only MJ thing I ever paid for, and iirc the only MJ I ever listened to on purpose, at least at the time. His music - and videos - remained ubiquitous, of course, but by the time "Bad" was released I had aged well out of his music ("Raising Hell" was released the year before) and iirc I knew him first and foremost as a tabloid weirdo who every few years did something egregiously strange that only added to the weirdness.

lol "They Don't Care About Us" ranks among his top ten most streamed tracks on Spotify.

I mean it's a banger

"He never had a childhood" is a genius bit of manipulation marketing. It's hard to imagine it working applied to just about anyone else, ever. Certainly not the likes of Paul Gadd. Genuinely still parroted out by so many today, with seemingly no pause for reflection whatsoever. Grooming the entire planet certainly takes some doing

Stranger In Moscow has to be the best song ever about feeling a little sad that half the planet wonders if you're a child abuser

I don't know if this counts as a conspiracy theory as it's largely vibes-based, but my feeling after her recent statements about this film is that Paris accepts that her dad was an abuser.

"He never had a childhood" is a genius bit of manipulation marketing. It's hard to imagine it working applied to just about anyone else, ever.

I think it's different because he was so incredibly famous as a child, and grew up in public. A whole lot of people became fans when he was a child.

was Dangerous a New Jersey? He felt less ubiquitous by that time but I was a high school senior into college radio by then

I'd say there was a similar reaction to Bill Cosby, but Cosby didn't seem to trickle down through the generations as easily as MJ did.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, April 23, 2026 11:59 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

at least growing up, Cosby was a comedian but I guess I also perceived him as some some sort of moral authority (America's Dad, etc) whereas even as popular as MJ was he always seemed like a fundamentally strange person, so I think it was a lot more damaging to Cosby's rep for that reason

US perspective:
Dangerous def gives off NJ vibes. Starts off very strong, but those three non-top 10 singles before the Free Willy tune were definitely a step backward from the last couple albums. Pretty clear that things would be more challenging going forward, even without the allegations.

"He never had a childhood" is a genius bit of manipulation marketing.

um i guess? i always read "he never had a childhood" as a polite way of saying he was abused. it's commonly understood now as far as i am aware that csa is part of a cycle of abuse. i think most informed observers would say that what mj experienced in childhood is directly linked to him being a child abuser later on. it doesn't come out of nowhere. i understand how a certain way of emphasizing that can minimize culpability and responsibility.

another issue is that the big arms of the music industry and the film industry are shadowed to a degree by child sexual abuse that i don't think most people are really aware of. being in and of that world does not exactly lead to some kind of fundamental reckoning and change. it's mostly an enabling enterprise.

Comedy and sitcoms don't cross generations nearly as well as music, and I personally find it much harder to engage with an actor or comedian's work after learning dark things about them, compared to musicians.

HIStory being packaged with a disc of greatest hits was sort of the kiss of death, a tacit admission that his new stuff wasn't good enough to sell on its own, especially since no one cared about sales numbers quite like MJ did. my impression at the time was that Janet was a bigger star hence why he got her to appear on "Scream" and its multimillion dollar music video.

my impression at the time was that Janet was a bigger star hence why he got her to appear on "Scream" and its multimillion dollar music video.

100%. Def an insurance policy. Says as much in this new-ish book about the making/promotion of History: https://www.trouserpressbooks.com/store/p/youve-got-michael

Michael Jackson was strange for a long time, I feel like there was a year and a half after Thriller and then he started acting pretty goddamn weird. He was def 'weird' in the public eye for a much longer time than he wasn't

when did the chimp and Neverland Ranch stuff start becoming common knowledge? Feel like it was before Bad.

All of that stuff started happening between Thriller and Bad.
If I remember correctly, he was originally having fun planting crazy stories in the press, then quickly lost control of the narrative. Whoops.

it was around 86 that the bubbles the chimp/sleeping in a vapor chamber/skin changing color stuff started going wild.

probably didn't help that he looked like a completely different person on Bad

the story I heard is when his hair caught on fire for that Pepsi commercial in '84 it never grew back and given how image conscious he was that might've been the thing that sent him over the edge

The tipping point really seemed to be in that span of like 1993-1995 that included iirc the first serious child abuse allegations, the marriage to Lisa Marie Presley (!), cancelling a tour due to pill addiction, the second marriage (and fatherhood?), the lame self-hagiography of HIStory (with its own attendant "They Don't Care About US" controversies), and the authoritarian statue of him floating down the Thames.

HIStory being packaged with a disc of greatest hits was sort of the kiss of death, a tacit admission that his new stuff wasn't good enough to sell on its own, especially since no one cared about sales numbers quite like MJ did. my impression at the time was that Janet was a bigger star hence why he got her to appear on "Scream" and its multimillion dollar music video.

― frogbs, Thursday, April 23, 2026 4:36 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know I keep harping on this, but this seems like a lot of thought and analysis at the time from someone who knew Michael Jackson "primarily" as a child molester

its possible to know multiple things about a person

I mean I guess I'll clarify "at the time" = when I started watching MTV, so probably a couple years after it was released. this would've been '97 or '98 so yes Janet seemed like a much bigger star, didn't know the video was a couple years old at that point

but yes whenever he was brought up amongst friends or classmates the first thing that would come up tended to be the (alleged) kiddie fucking, in fact I remember on the playground there used to be this game where we'd chase each other around and say "I'm Michael Jackson!!" until the teachers stopped us, I recently found out my kids' classmates do the same thing but with Diddy instead of MJ

also MJ seemed like a central figure in the early online shitposting days of like 2001 and I assure you none of it was about how good Thriller was

I'm parent to an 11 and a

[sorry accidental send] 14 year old and both of them have been fed Michael Jackson content by algorithms, enough that I hear them mentioning him -- as a "greatest of all time" guy, as a "most successful musician of all time" guy, as the "King of Pop." The estate, I think, has social media teams massaging the algorithm daily, their position is that in the long term the monstrous behavior won't matter and the publishing will continue to yield. they actively work on this, and this new doc is part of that, and it's really disappointing to me that ?uest is all-in on it.

Re "Scream" there is no question that MJ was riding on Janet's cooler-than-cool vibe by that point. I don't remember her ever being associated with him -- she was her own person. I inhabited a very much non-R&B environment well into the late '90s and Janet never fell out of favor.

Janet held all the cards for that single release. She even picked the video director (she wouldn’t take part otherwise). Then the label had to convince Mike the director was HIS idea. Good times lol

omg janet picked mark romanek? i mean that does make sense

i mean he as far as 'most successful musical act of all time' goes it's either him or the beatles and no one else is even in contention, but that's not a remotely interesting conversation

'greatest of all time' is just obviously not true, like as far as pop stars go janet and prince are right there

The degree to which America legit canceled Janet so that I'm only hearing her stuff on a/c radio again for the first time in 20 years still stuns me

yeah and inviting justin timberdouche back to do another halftime show was fucking abominable

I think he’s the greatest entertainer of all time and it’s kind of disingenuous to suggest otherwise

i wouldn't go that far about justin timberlake

yeah no

will kempe was shakespeare’s top comedy guy AND he morris danced from London ti Norwich

I think he’s the greatest entertainer of all time and it’s kind of disingenuous to suggest otherwise

although a common position, a deeply weird one. an extremely talented guy, best popular dancer since Astaire I can buy, but "greatest entertainer"? in the top 20 maybe. the idea that he's the Pele of popular music is absurd, he has two solid albums.

otm

exactly yeah

bad-era MJ was my first exposure and i thought he was weird and creepy as hell, trying to act all hard and coming across extremely uncool

the idea that he's the Pele of popular music is absurd, he has two solid albums.

Two solid albums is underselling him quite a bit. It also suggests that the non-album stuff (live performance?) doesn't move him up to the Pele level, which doesn't really seem all that reasonable to me. Perhaps you're just not a fan, which is fair enough.

Plenty of good stuff on the albums after Thriller though, certainly (I assume you're saying OTW and Thriller are the "solid" ones?). Also, his best tracks on The Jacksons' Triumph are easily the equal of Thriller and Off The Wall. We can agree that he wasn't Shakespeare or Plato without suggesting he wasn't absolutely all-time.

rank mj and stevie and al green and prince

(musically, i mean -- not in the child-fucking sense)

Are we forgetting the Jackson 5?

Indeed.

I hear thise singles in the wild more than anything post-Black or White.

I hear a few songs from Dangerous now and then but nothing after that, not even "Stranger in Moscow" which is one of my favorite songs of his

xposts to Joan and the ppl otming them

You guys are nuts. On both a critical and commercial level, Thriller is a masterpiece. It's literally the best selling studio album of all time. Being the best popular dancer of the last, what, 60 or 70 years is not exactly a small feat. Plus basically having the best and most important run of music videos of the entire artform's history. And ultimately being so popular and adored that he was basically the most famous person on the planet for like 20 years. MJ's run wasn't like Weeknd streaming numbers or some shit, it was crossing over to punks and grandmas and childrenl I mean if you guys want to be contrarian "Well, actually Girl Unit's "Wut" is better than 'Billie Jean'," be my guest but there's certainly never been a more captivating and beloved figure in my lifetime

And, yes, obviously I would rank Stevie and Prince over MJ in terms of music but that's not what we're talking about

he fucked little kids though tbh

Those things don't cancel each other out

there is that

oh right

I mean how many kids we talkin

It’s not a masterpiece, cmon use your ears

if we're comparing to the Beatles though, I will say modern blockbuster pop albums resemble Thriller much much more than they do Sgt Pepper, sure they're different eras but comparatively they weren't really that far apart, I mean he scored his first #1 the same year as Abbey Road and did a duet with McCartney. that said idk if his influence was exactly a good thing in the long run

His influence on Usher? Every R&B singer since the mid '90s?

Even if you discount the solo career entirely, it's hard to overstate the cultural impact of the Jackson 5/Jacksons. For a certain generation it seems like they were everyone's first concert or musical love (judging from the ton of interviews I've consumed from musicians who were big in the 70s/80s).

there's certainly never been a more captivating and beloved figure in my lifetime

How soon we forget the Amazing Kreskin

there's certainly never been a more captivating and beloved figure in my lifetime

forgetting bill cosby

Keep the jokes coming, I’ll still be right

oh whineypaws

Obviously MJ is one of the biggest pop stars of the past century, by any metrics. His artistic legacy is vast. But I don't know that you can (or I mean, I can't) make a case that he's a more major artist than Prince or Madonna, of his biggest contemporaries.

I love Prince and I was never attached to MJ, I liked his songs but he didn't particularly resonate with me. My perspective as an '80s teen was that Prince was a lot more important and exciting, so that's how it will always seem to me.

Anyway, I do mostly change the channel on MJ songs now. But not "Smooth Criminal" or "Wanna Be Startin Something" or "Rock With You."

i don't think anyone is trying to dispute 'most popular' 'most successful' etc. but that isn't the same thing as 'greatest'. i'm not outsourcing my opinion to someone's grandma!

Stevie and Prince over MJ in terms of music but that's not what we're talking about

it's the biggest part of what we're talking about

what is even the point of arguing about this

I don't know, but this IS the Michael Jackson: Classic or Dud thread.

fair

the frenzy around him moonwalking on Motown 30 seemed sorta like the last vestiges of "old showbiz", like it really does seem like from a different era where "entertainment" meant something kinda different and folksier or something? song and dance men and such. i don't know i guess it's just that everybody dances now.

I mean, it was a already a television event (which is something we don’t really have at that level anymore, outside of Super Bowls) and then the guy with the number one song and album in the country gets up and performs an obscure move that’s part dance and part illusion. It’s like imagine if Taylor Swift played the Super Bowl halftime show and out of nowhere started shredding like Buckethead

xp I do get the impression Jackson appealed to fans of the "Golden Age" musicals of the past. For example Fred Astaire was an outspoken fan of his dancing and even looked at Jackson as someone who kept that tradition alive. That might've carried some weight with the older demographic because the '80s was the last time old Hollywood had a large presence in pop culture, most bizarrely through Reagan's presidency, but it was also visibly slipping away: this was the decade James Cagney, Ingrid Bergman, Bette Davis, Cary Grant, and yes, Fred Astaire would all pass away among many, many others.

Just to back up frogbs here, growing up in the 90's Michael Jackson did indeed seem like a has been and child predator was the first thing you'd think of when he was mentioned. This wasn't a universal millenial experience - a lot of my friends like him because they got into him as kids - but for the rest of us he didn't mean shit, while Janet was indeed still a credible pop star. This changed after his death, as these things tend to.

i was in high school when he died and remember that he'd been a fairly inescapable cultural presence even before then, certainly far more than any other legacy act, but that really kicked into overdrive with his death. i was aware of the existence of the allegations against him but not really any specifics but it didn't matter to me because i had zero interest in him then. my classmates who liked him didn't seem to really care except one obsessive fan who'd fiercely defend him and get very upset about any criticism of him. some adults understandably seemed to loathe him but broadly i didn't have the impression that the allegations were taken that seriously by most people i knew, i guess because he'd been acquitted in the 2005 trial?

i still never want to hear "thriller" again, i've heard it enough for one lifetime

Some of the subjectivity here baffles me. Variations on "I didn't like him" and "Madonna meant more," etc. Madonna, Prince, Springsteen, Lionel Richie, and his other peers simply didn't touch his album and single sales, chart positions, and multigenerational appeal. Only Madonna touches him as a cultural phenomenon, but, again, Like a Virgin wasn't selling a million records a week, nor was she liked by your neighbor and grandma.

I like Madonna and Prince more too, but that's not what Whiney's claiming.

i started the conversation by drawing a distinction between 'greatest' and 'most successful' etc. and obviously he is the latter but there's not even anything to discuss there so i'm kinda confused that that's what people want to keep bringing it back to.

even if he wasnt a child molester, i'd still pick girl unit's wut over billie jean

I “love” how the effort to prove one ilxor wrong gives everyone an excuse to joke about CSA. It’s so not funny.

Having said that, 20 year old coworker took control of the aux and put on Off the Wall last week.

I will say modern blockbuster pop albums resemble Thriller

If anything, I would say "Thriller," which imo is uneven by design/at best, resembles the same sort of all over the place pace of the Beatles. A banger here, a novelty song there, a sonic experiment here, some filler there ...

But yeah, especially for people who were there at the time, MJ's cultural ubiquity trounced all his peers, no matter what one thought of his music. Granted, this was also the monoculture era when even kids dressed up as pop stars - MJ, Madonna, Michael, Prince, et al. - for Halloween. Maybe they still do?

I do think the Beatles albums at least have some sense of flow to them, they feel like they've got a beginning and an end (well, White Album aside), MJ's records on the other hand work just fine on shuffle, skipping the songs you don't like

more than that though I think Thriller was designed from the ground up to be the biggest pop album ever, casting as wide a net as possible. none of the singles sound like each other and it's got several guest spots - McCartney on one (extraordinarily shitty) tune, Eddie Van Halen on another, Vincent Price...none of whom were previously associated with one another or related by genre. correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think anyone else was doing anything quite like that back then. whole lotta people did it after though and I think the music industry, who probably made more money off Thriller than everything else that year combined, actively pushed their major artists to make blockbuster albums like that ever since

An interesting thing about doing the brass band versions - MJ music works so well because the melodies are so indelible, to the extent that even in the originals it doesn't really matter what he's saying (and I often don't know, and never cared). Whereas if you think about arranging Prince tunes for horns, so suddenly notice how many verses are literally one note and don't work without the lyrics (and charisma).

Heh, had a sudden flashback to the two times I saw Prince with his inexplicably huge 11-piece (!) horn section, once in an arena, once in a small club. Iirc the brass added next to nothing.

(the record is on Bandcamp btw, not streaming until next month I think: https://digdown.bandcamp.com/album/brass-jackson-the-music-of-the-king-of-pop)

I do think the Beatles albums at least have some sense of flow to them, they feel like they've got a beginning and an end (well, White Album aside)

Revolver, to me, sounds like sequencing was thrown to the wind.

McCartney's spot on Thriller wasn't surprising in the moment because he'd just done "Ebony and Ivory," so it was like "Oh, he's singing with another Motown star, I guess that's his thing now." But yeah, enlisting all these white icons of various kinds was obviously deliberate, and he made a very conscious run at MTV despite its overwhelming whiteness.

But just going back to his cultural/commercial stature, absolutely he was huge on the landscape. But as a prime consumer of pop culture at that time, he also to me was a bit apart from it? Everything he did was news, you heard about him all the time, but in the way you hear about Elon Musk or something now. He wasn't exactly the cultural zeitgeist? There were almost five years between Thriller and Bad, and while MJ stayed famous of course through all that, with his tours and the Jacksons album that nobody cared about even though it sold a lot, he wasn't like THE towering figure that his sales along might suggest. In the period between those two albums, you had Born in the USA, three Madonna albums and four Prince albums. Michael Jackson was there, but ... again, I was a teenager, maybe he appealed more to younger kids, but MJ absolutely did not dominate the '80s teen consciousness, he had plenty of competition even at his peak.

that his sales alone....

And also yeah half of the things you heard about him in that era was what a weirdo he was. He started to become more of a Howard Hughes figure than just a pop star.

I feel like there's room here for a comparison to Kiss. If you heard them in the 70s when you were young enough to not have heard any actually good rock bands yet, the cartoonish personas drew you in and you are probably still a fan today, in your late 50s. Similarly, if you saw/heard Michael Jackson as a child in the 80s, nothing anyone can say will ever break your love for him. He will forever be your standard for The Greatest Entertainer/Pop Musician Of All Time. (See also: the Catholic Church saying, "Give me your children for the first ten years and they are mine forever.")

Growing up in the 80s, I don't feel that he had any kind of Midas touch with punks, metal fans, alternative kids (never mind grandmas). Of course some of them liked some of his songs but I never got this feeling that fans of other types of music thought he stood apart from the pop mainstream, and the schism was much wider in those days.

xpost I'll give your comparison this, "State of Song" is as bad as anything Kiss ever did.

And, yes, obviously I would rank Stevie and Prince over MJ in terms of music but that's not what we're talking about

i was born in 1990 and while a lot of my peers growing up didn't care much or at all about mj, he was the first artist i got really into and loved

aside from vague familiarity with things my mom would play in the car when i was a toddler (deee-lite, "she drives me crazy" etc.), my first real awareness of current pop culture developed around 96-97 (space jam soundtrack was the first current album i played repeatedly lol), but even then i mostly played cd's my mom gave me after finding that i really liked the pure disco compilation she'd gotten to put on in the background for birthday parties and so on. that meant saturday night fever, donna summer's on the radio comp, but mostly mj's albums. i would skip around a lot and mostly hone in on favs which were generally the singles, tho i didn't know that's what they were and ofc for thriller and bad damn near everything was (deservedly) a single anyway. but also some lesser (or non-)hits were favs: "who is it", "give in to me", and even "heal the world" from dangerous. the latter in particular, with its cloying, semi-cinematic, ethereal intro with the kid's voice-over, was obviously in retrospect quite hamfisted in its approach (not to mention morally repugnant given his actual relationship to children), but i felt like it was speaking directly to me and i found it so moving, sometimes to tears. i remember wanting to share that song with some school friends but no one seemed to care lol, they were all busy bumping hanson (i had that album too, but didn't really care for it aside from "mmmbop")

i had the history comp and played the first disc incessantly but almost entirely ignored disc 2 aside from "they don't care about us". i knew about "scream" and its video but thought it was more of a spectacle than a good song. i had absolutely no idea that "you are not alone" had been a hit (and years later would learn that in the industry it was perceived as having been artificially boosted by chart-rigging shenanigans, the first of several questionable #1s during that particular late-90s era of chart manipulation)

i knew janet was a star in her own right but didn't really know her music yet. but around 1999 i became the sort of pop obsessive who knew every song that top 40 stations and mtv were playing, and by 2000 it was abundantly obvious janet was a much bigger deal than he was. when "you rock my world" came out, i remember being a bit underwhelmed and thinking it was just reheating things he'd done better before. i remember watching mtv and seeing a segment of ppl being played the song on times square off a walkman or something and being asked what they thought, most reactions being ppl bobbing their heads and politely saying "yeah, this is good! still the king of pop!" but i distinctly remember one dissenting opinion from a woman who said, "i don't know, i feel like he's struggling to keep up with janet" and deep down i knew this was the truth. the song was on the radio briefly, rising to its chart peak very quickly then being ejected almost as fast. now that i am a loser who's learned far more about the charts than anyone should ever care to, i can look up callout america market research reports published in r&r from the time and see that it was testing unusually poorly among top 40 listeners, rivaled only by mariah carey's "loverboy" (boosted to #2 on the hot 100 from the lower half of the chart in last-ditch loss-leader retail marketing efforts arguably pioneered by "you are not alone") in how badly it was going over. but back then i didn't need to know any of that to realize that it was just not relevant to what pop was in 2001. i didn't get the invicible album and found his public complaints and conspiracy theorizing about the muted reception rather embarrassing.

i don't actually remember when i first heard of the allegations. i knew from the jump that he was weird -- like, duh, of course he is, how could a guy who can do all that not be? i watched the martin bashir doc with my mom when it aired and her reaction was essentially stan-denialism, that it was all so unfair and journalists just want sensationalism for ratings. i didn't know what to think -- her reaction was not entirely wrong but i mean, come on, some of the things mj himself was saying on camera were pretty fucked up. things definitely seemed odder than they should have been.

i still loved his music but didn't listen to it much for years. when he died while i was in college the guy who ran the lab i was working in set up a projector at the far end of the room and played a bunch of his videos all day. when the playlist ran out i'd go over and queue up some of the somewhat deeper cuts that most americans don't know, your "give in to me"s and such. i wasn't surprised by his death bc it was obvious things were not all right with him and probably never had been for my entire lifetime. at first i thought i didn't really "care" but over that weekend i saw some tributes on tv and ended up sobbing inconsolably in my bedroom. my friends knew i was an mj fan -- my cell ringtone was the intro to "human nature" for a long time -- and went with me to this is it, which was a good movie. one remarked that, tbh, the jackson 5 material was better than all his solo stuff! i didn't disagree exactly, but she had not had the experience with his music that i had.

i started looking more into the allegations more in later years after reading bios, seeing the neverland doc, etc. to me it's obvious he abused these kids. the man had a profoundly messed up life and became more famous than anyone probably ever will again. and thank god for that.

sorry, this post ended up being way longer than i wanted it to be, at first i thought it'd just be two sentences on my own personal maybe-not-typical-but-also-not-completely-atypical 90s-kid experience of mj but eh, so it goes. i have no interest in this recent wave of biopics so i probably wasn't going to see it anyway, but the first trailer i saw made it abundantly obvious this would be a sanitized production. maybe i'll track down a dvd of the jacksons: an american dream instead

anyway yes, he's an all-time great popstar and who gives a fuck if he only had two Great Albums (i was reliably told that poptimism had finally returned to this site??). also -- and i felt this way even in my semi-stanning days -- off the wall, despite its all-time classics, is an overrated album and the "well ackshually" opinion about it being his one good album and much better than thriller is (ackshually) the predictable heterosexual man opinion, and also RONG. (my dad would often say he fell off after no longer working with quincy jones)

Re: metal, the "Beat It" EVH story is pretty interesting. Quincy called Edward to appear on the track, but DLR didn't want EVH doing anything outside of Van Halen because he thought it would dilute the brand, let alone its namesake (EVH is uncredited on that Nicolette Larson track). So Edward more or less snuck out to the studio to record the "Beat It" solo, iirc convincing Quincy to change the song's key to suit the idea he whipped up (one of his best ever solos). Shows how MJ and Quincy both had their ears to the ground but were also casting a wide net to ensure the album's (albeit scattershot) relevance.

(my dad would often say he fell off after no longer working with quincy jones)

your dad is right

lol perhaps the biggest indicator of mj's relevance to the top 40 demographic in the early 2000s is that "you rock my world" was not a hit despite the heavy push and the alient ant farm cover of "smooth criminal" did become one semi-accidentally

I was praising "Give In to Me" on a former ilxor's FB comment yesterday. The first third of Dangerous sounds like MJ thinking, "What if we combined 'Rub You the Right Way' and 'Smooth Criminal' so that it sounds a bit like Nitzer Ebb?" The paranoia levels are fairly high: I last heard the album when a pretty good 33 1/3 came out that doesn't shy away from MJ's authoritarian pedophilia; not sure I'm going to anytime soon.

i mean yes my dad was right but mj did still make great music (at least singles)

MJ was an often inspired producer in his own right.

dyl's post is basically word-for-word my experience. after he died i did dig through the later catalog for whatever gems were there. "morphine" is pretty staggering, because, even though janet and jam & lewis arrived at that industrial/r&b sound before he did, he spent a longer time in that mode and made it as weird as he possibly could. there are some ok jams on invincible ("butterflies" is the one that comes to mind) but nothing that rises to the level of anything on history. guy loved singing r. kelly's worst tunes.

i was a half-hearted defender of him, mostly going off of john jeremiah sullivan's mj obituary's conclusions about his abuses, but i haven't been able to listen to him since leaving neverland came out. a writer i admire once wrote something like "i'd take freedom from the abuses of important men who did great work over all of their great work" and i agree with it

See, "Morphine" is an incredible self-produced and self-written track he could not have done with QJ.

i mean yes my dad was right but mj did still make great music (at least singles)

I agree though idk -- like I'm less sympathetic to a poptimist framing now so for example when "man in the mirror" was new, I bought the 7", I studied that shit like an alphabet, it seemed so meticulous and complete to me -- every vocal phrase attenuated so precisely, the build so exacting, that modulation at the climax a platonic ideal of That Kinda Thing...a record that does exactly what it's trying to do! to the letter! Who else can do that? Celine Dion and that's about it from where I stand. However my aesthetics changed & my view of all that is a lot dimmer now and when I listen I go, ok well, not really much song there, all those meticulous vocal phrases effectively let me hand-wave the silliness of the lyric if I wanna but I just no longer have to need to wanna, but yeah...he was still on a number of good singles but it really felt like his ability to discern between which ones were great or no is already showing signs of wear on Bad

every time I see the movies advertising “Michael” I think it’s the 1996 John Travolta movie

that movie's a Hague-level violation too

Thank you Alfred for speaking some truth to ILX Brain

every time I see the movies advertising “Michael” I think it’s the 1996 John Travolta movie

― The New Blockader (Boring, Maryland), Friday, April 24, 2026 10:06 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think we all know who is to blame for this

lol perhaps the biggest indicator of mj's relevance to the top 40 demographic in the early 2000s is that "you rock my world" was not a hit despite the heavy push and the alient ant farm cover of "smooth criminal" did become one semi-accidentally

And I had plenty of school aged peers who probably heard the Alien Ant Farm cover when it came out before they ever heard the Michael Jackson version.

I think this thread demonstrates the subtle differences in cultural experience and perspective between being born in the early 80s, and being born in the late 80s.

https://i.ibb.co/GvrzvcPc/michael-1200-1200-675-675-crop-000000.jpg

IMO the big difference with the post-Quincy albums is they're all so damn long - Dangerous, HIStory, and Invincible are all exactly 77 minutes (give or take a second or two) and from a guy who I don't think really had a front-to-back solid album (OTW aside) it tends to just make you think "god, when will this be over" half the time

i’ve probably said it before, maybe even on this thread, but at the height of my fandom, in the post-thriller afterglow, i was reading some interview with him in some teen mag or something and he said that if he didn’t have to eat to survive he just wouldn’t eat, he thought it was “a waste of time” and that was my first inkling that something was very wrong w him

in terms of a world-conquering mix of fame and talent, people who could fly into any city in the world and be immediately mobbed by shrieking fans, i feel like we’re talking about basically 4 20th century acts, and i don’t know if you can really rank them

- the beatles
- michael jackson
- charlie chaplin
- elvis

if we're talking America you have to include Garth Books on that list, who apparently has outsold all of those people in the USA and has moved over twice as many units as Michael Jackson did

he said that if he didn’t have to eat to survive he just wouldn’t eat, he thought it was “a waste of time” and that was my first inkling that something was very wrong w him

i thought this through all of my teen and college years. tbf something is very wrong with me

Planet Garth is its own place for sure

he said that if he didn’t have to eat to survive he just wouldn’t eat, he thought it was “a waste of time” and that was my first inkling that something was very wrong w him

IME loads of people in the UK think like this, and my old housemate from NZ who ate the same mince/tomatoes/spuds every day and called it "fuel". Not saying you're wrong.

i was like, but, strawberries??!

I got heavily into Michael Jackson when I saw "Moonwalker" in the cinema, I would have been 9 years old. After that I listened to my cassette of Bad a lot, it was my first proper favourite album that had nothing to do with my parents, I even read his autobiography when I was 10. When I re-watched Moonwalker a while back, well it had the most bizarre and nonsensical plot I've ever encountered - from the wikipedia synopsis:

The segment begins with three orphans (Sean [Lennon!], Katie, and Zeke) sneaking through a big city to see their friend Michael going out for the evening. As Jackson stands in front of the door, he notices a falling star before he is ambushed by men with machine guns. The film then backtracks to show Jackson and the children playing in a meadow in happier times.

As they are playing, their dog Skipper runs away, and as Jackson and Katie look for him, they uncover the lair of Frankie Lideo a.k.a. Mr. Big, a drug-dealing mobster with an army of henchmen. Leading an operation called "Bugs and Drugs," he wants to get the entire population of Earth addicted to drugs, starting with children. As Mr. Big continues work on his operation, he discovers that Michael and Katie are spying on him.

The story returns to the ambush in front of Jackson's apartment. Unknown to the gangsters, Jackson wished on the falling star and escaped the gunfire, leaving only his overcoat. Upon realizing he has escaped again, Mr. Big orders his henchmen to track down Michael with dogs. He is eventually cornered in an alley, where he wishes on another falling star and turns into a Lancia Stratos Zero sports car that mows down several of Mr. Big's henchmen. Jackson is pursued through the city streets until he loses the henchmen.

Meanwhile, the children scout out Club 30s, where Jackson had told them to meet him, and find only an abandoned nightclub. As Jackson arrives, Katie sees a silhouette of him turning back from a car into himself. The door of the club opens with a gust of wind, and Jackson walks in to find it filled with men in suits and swing dancers. The children gather outside a window of the club and watch Jackson dance to "Smooth Criminal". Mr. Big lays siege to the club and kidnaps Katie.

Jackson follows them back to Big's lair and ends up surrounded by his henchmen. Mr. Big appears and taunts Jackson by threatening to inject Katie with highly addictive narcotics. While Katie manages to wriggle free, Mr. Big decides he has had enough and orders his men to kill Katie first then finish off Jackson, just as a falling star passes by. Jackson transforms into a giant robot and kills most of Mr. Big's soldiers, then turns into a spaceship. Mr. Big gets into a large hillside-mounted energy cannon, firing on the spaceship knocking it into a nearby ravine. The children are his next target, but the spaceship returns from the ravine in time to fire a beam at the cannon with Mr. Big inside, destroying it and finishing the villain once and for all. The children watch the ship fly into the night sky with a shower of light.

Mr Big is, naturally, Joe Pesci.

While I was watching this it occurred to me that everything in there, from Michael Jackson's fashion and music to the cars and spaceships was 100% what a 9-year-old boy in 1988 would find cool and exciting, even beyond what a focus group could think up. I was the intended audience and I lapped it up.

xp when strawberries are good, they are GOOD! But more often they are not good. Also the problem with blueberries.

see also: captain eo

xp

I'm parent to an 11 and a

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, April 23, 2026 4:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

[sorry accidental send] 14 year old and both of them have been fed Michael Jackson content by algorithms, enough that I hear them mentioning him -- as a "greatest of all time" guy, as a "most successful musician of all time" guy, as the "King of Pop." The estate, I think, has social media teams massaging the algorithm daily, their position is that in the long term the monstrous behavior won't matter and the publishing will continue to yield. they actively work on this, and this new doc is part of that, and it's really disappointing to me that ?uest is all-in on it.

― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Thursday, April 23, 2026 4:36 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I just had to sit my 16 year old daughter down for the "Michael Jackson talk" a few weeks ago. It's crazy how unaware most Gen Z-ers are to MJ's extracurriculars.

not really much song there, all those meticulous vocal phrases effectively let me hand-wave the silliness of the lyric if I wanna but I just no longer have to need to wanna, but yeah

This is what I was getting at, I sort of hear all his songs as instrumentals. Doubly so after hearing them so much as actual instrumentals.

Nowadays the main thrill (no pun intended) of Off the Wall/Thriller is hearing peak record industry. The mythos of assembling all the best musicians, writers, producers, and engineers together with giant budgets to pursue perfection in the pre-digital era (and make as much money as possible).

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXYSLbPjnJn/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

Questlove praising the film and Michael's "humanity"

Paris Jackson has slammed the film as 'full of lies'.

xp saw that too. I love Questlove, but jfc that take...

in fairness i see a lot of notable musicians I follow "loving" that post in the comments, so I can only say "have you all lost your fucking minds???"

For the first time, we aren’t looking at the “THE KING”—we’re looking at a human being.

fuck this is AI ish

also, shitty take

It's pro forma for even the slickest, shittiest Hollywood biopic to depict its subject as a vulnerable, down-to-earth "human being." What did he think was going to happen? Michael Jackson being born from the Virgin Mary and walking on water? Being rocketed to Earth in a spaceship by a race of super beings? Give me a fucking break.

i don't think he fell off after he stopped working with jones, he fell off after thriller. there's the occasional good single or weird industrial track from bad onwards but that's all, and while he remained an extremely talented singer & dancer whatever magic he was capable of as a performer is already gone

It's crazy how unaware most Gen Z-ers are to MJ's extracurriculars.

this is the interesting big change from my generation, i was an extremely aloof kid who paid very little attention to most pop culture when he died but i was still very much aware that mj was an extremely weird guy who'd been at least somewhat credibly accused of child abuse. it's not like it's even been totally out of the news lately with leaving neverland and various lawsuits, but i guess there can't be the same sort of tabloid stuff that there used to be now that he's dead so it probably just doesn't reach kids these days anywhere near as much

music critic, author, and film doc director Nelson George in his short Substack piece starts out "Michael Jackson has been part of my life since the Jackson Five’s propulsive string of Motown hits blasted out my family’s high fidelity stereo in 1969 and ‘70," and then tells some of Jackson's story and George's own role. He also focuses on the ongoing impact of Michael 's music via the albums, the Broadway show, this movie, and does regarding the film acknowledge in one sentence "there is the larger debate over how and why the sexual abuse claims should have been dealt with."

Sensitive singer who ran out of good material to sing very early in his career

this is pretty much my take on mj too. there was this pure authentic honey in his voice that wrapped up with thriller and all the more mannerist stuff afterwards i have no interest in.

i would concur that mj was considered a weirdo and joked about in my experience as a teenager in the 90s. my parents took us to disneyland every year during grade school and i remember Captain EO souring from this cool exciting thing to a weird joke over a 2-3 year span ca 1987-1990.

By Rebecca Rubin

There’s a new box office king.

“Michael,” a biopic from Lionsgate about the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, arrived in theaters as an instant sensation with $97 million domestically and $217 million globally in its first weekend of release. These ticket sales rank as the best start of all time for a biopic, smashing the record set by 2015’s “Straight Outta Compton” ($60 million). And they tower above 2018’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” which opened to $51 million before obliterating expectations with $910 million worldwide by the end of its run. “Michael” also notched the second-biggest debut of the year behind April’s sequel “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” ($131 million).

“Michael” landed on tracking a month ago with estimates of $50 million to $60 million, but expectations continued to rise and rise in the lead-up to its release. The movie is rocking the box office despite the mostly terrible reviews (only 38% of which were positive on Rotten Tomatoes). Audiences, however, strongly disagreed with the majority of critics and embraced “Michael” with an “A-” grade on CinemaScore exit polls. Ticket buyers were 61% female, while 66% were 25 years or older, according to PostTrak.

“You don’t deliver this number unless you’re seeing huge numbers across every conceivable demographic,” says Lionsgate’s motion picture chair Adam Fogelson. “They’re clearly having a blast, and that bodes well for a lovely multiple.”

Antoine Fuqua directed “Michael,” which charts the singer’s early days in the Jackson 5 to becoming one of the biggest entertainers on the planet. Jaafar Jackson, the singer’s real-life nephew, portrays Michael Jackson in his acting debut, with Colman Domingo and Nia Long as parents, Joe and Katherine. Film reviewers have complained that “Michael” takes a sanitized look at Jackson’s life because it doesn’t include the child sexual abuse allegations that were leveled against the singer later in his career.

That wasn’t always the plan for “Michael.” Initially, the screenplay had dramatized a 1993 child molestation lawsuit against Jackson. But those sequences had to be removed after producers discovered a clause in the settlement with the young accuser that barred the depiction or mention of him in film or television. After a major overhaul of the third act, the film ends during the Bad tour in 1988. Lionsgate is expected to greenlight (at least) one more film about Jackson’s life.

“Michael” carries a price tag near $200 million, making it one of the most expensive biopics of all time. Those costs were split by Lionsgate, Universal (which is distributing the film internationally) and the Michael Jackson estate. Despite the behind-the-scenes headaches, the movie is already proving to be worth the hefty price tag...

There’s been no shortage of music biopics, especially since the pandemic. Amy Winehouse (“Back to Black”), Bob Dylan (“A Complete Unknown”), Bob Marley (“One Love”), Bruce Springsteen (“Deliver Me From Nowhere”) and Elvis Presley (“Elvis”) are among the stars whose stories have been immortalized on screen to varying degrees of box office success. Like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “Elvis” before it, “Michael” scored with audiences by leaning heavily on recreating thrilling concert sequences. Those electrifying scenes — musical numbers in “Michael” include “Billie Jean,” “Thriller” and “Beat It” — made the film a draw in Imax and other premium large formats. Imax accounted for $13.8 million, or roughly 14% of North American ticket sales, and $24.5 million globally, ranking as the company’s biggest start for a musical biopic.

“The movie has audiences on their feet singing and dancing,” says David A. Gross, who publishes the box office newsletter FranchiseRe. He notes that critics feel the film “avoids the complicated parts of the performer’s life.” In terms of moviegoers, however, it’s “playing as a feel good, nostalgic appreciation.”

This might make me feel more out of touch with the society I live in than even Trump's reelection

Eh, I don't see it as any kind of indictment. Film is the most visceral medium. Bohemian Rhapsody, about a far less toxic musician, was a box office smash and Oscar juggernaut despite its untruths.

Eh, I don't see it as any kind of indictment. Film is the most visceral medium. Bohemian Rhapsody, about a far less toxic musician, was a box office smash and Oscar juggernaut despite its untruths.

Were those untruths about crimes against children, though?

I think we all expect a biopic to play fast and loose with the truth, that wasn't really my point, but neither was it my intention to bring an "indictment" against society

I can't tell if that's a rhetorical question xpost

Oh, I don't know, I think our society could use another indictment or two.

You're not wrong but I'm not going to sit here and say I'm better than anybody else because I don't want to watch a stupid MJ biopic

the musical biopic trend is sort of mystifying to me and i can't imagine having any interest in seeing one even about an act i really love but i'm very much not the target audience i guess

the reality of course is that an mj biopic was always going to be sanitised fluff - really it's crazy to me that they even considered having the abuse allegations be a central part of the narrative before they realised they legally weren't allowed to

like i feel like having a major message of the film being MICHAEL JACKSON INNOCENT!!! probably wouldn't have helped his reputation compared to focusing on how he was a really talented entertainer with a lot of hits

I can't tell if that's a rhetorical question xpost

I mean, I didn't see Bohemian Rhapsody and I don't know anything about Queen, so they could have said anything in it and I wouldn't have known whether it "really happened like that" or not. But no, what I'm saying is your comparison of the two movies seems glib - like, Movie A fudged what year a given song was recorded, while Movie B excised all discussion of its subject's horrific crimes, and those two things are not the same.

To me, the success of the Michael Jackson movie is further encouragement to keep doing what I'm doing - writing about obscure artists and albums, and running a tiny label putting out abrasive music for weirdos - because if that's what the mainstream public wants, they can fucking have it.

I mean, regardless of what truths this papers over, this movie looks like a real piece of shit

Looks like a piece of shit and according to a couple scenes floating around is written and acted for for no one humqn.

*AND is written

*AND is written and acted

“Hum queen”

I mean, I didn't see Bohemian Rhapsody and I don't know anything about Queen, so they could have said anything in it and I wouldn't have known whether it "really happened like that" or not. But no, what I'm saying is your comparison of the two movies seems glib - like, Movie A fudged what year a given song was recorded, while Movie B excised all discussion of its subject's horrific crimes, and those two things are not the same.

All I meant was, there's ample reason to be cynical about moviemaking before a turd like this become a gargantuan hit; I don't think the success of Michael is coarser than what we saw with the success of Green Book, one of the most offensive hits I've ever seen. If anything, both films prove that nothing changes.

This is partly why I'm glad to live in NYC. I go to the movies all the time, but I can count on one hand how many times I've been to an AMC or Regal over the past ten years, and AMC was the ONLY option I had when I was living in the Midwest. There's no shortage of interesting and compelling films being made, but very little of it's being made or distributed by Hollywood studios.

Hey, we already have a thread for snobs like you!

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/films/2021/10/08/TELEMMGLPICT000124087174_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqT9QFHfgEo2x1tSWbBHFyRvAgFdkaVmDppmpLBQ4PVdc.jpeg?imwidth=1920

This might make me feel more out of touch with the society I live in than even Trump's reelection

Otoh a piece of shit movie full of empty adulations covering up horrible abuse being enthusiastically embraced is kinda perfect for the Trump era, I'm sure cultural historians will have a field day connecting the dots (as always, this is assuming we'll have historians in the future.)

I hear his songs played every now and then in pubs and all I can think is -- no matter how much I like the song -- how terrible it is that this is being played over a public speaker.

At least you actually need to seek out the film, but it's no surprise that this is even a hit.

The problem with Bohemian Rhapsody isn't that it gets some trivia slightly wrong, the problem is that Freddie being gay is treated as a tragic character flaw that nearly destroys the band, like that's the central premise of the film.

it was also primarily directed by bryan singer, who has been repeatedly accused of abusing children and was so difficult to work with that he was fired towards the end of production

Just finished playing to packed audiences in London's West End, winner of 10 Tony Awards etc.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MJ_the_Musical

This is partly why I'm glad to live in NYC. I go to the movies all the time, but I can count on one hand how many times I've been to an AMC or Regal over the past ten years, and AMC was the ONLY option I had when I was living in the Midwest. There's no shortage of interesting and compelling films being made, but very little of it's being made or distributed by Hollywood studios.

― birdistheword, Sunday, April 26, 2026

I don't think that's what we're talking about here, though.

xp it's really sickening.

Never convicted of anything, that's good enough for most people it seems.

"He was never convicted" seems to be from the same school of thought as "if they just followed the rules they wouldn't have any problems" - don't know if there is a word for this attitude but it's one of the worst things about living among English people.

it's a hellish thing about living among Americans too

Dud

Thinking about Questlove’s take and that from some other Black people involved in the music scene, I sense a desire at a time in which the Trump regime has waged a racist campaign against Black Americans- firing people under dei and other rules, Trump’s racist insults, etc., — to want to simply highlight the amazing skills and talent that Michael Jackson possessed and not to deal with the horrible aspects . Questlove in his own Sly Stone doc did address Sly warts and all, and he and probably many people seeing the Michael Jackson film know there’s more to Jackson, but they’re just accepting this as one take on part of Jackson’s life.

Tom Breihan's review: https://stereogum.com/2496783/i-didnt-hate-michael/reviews/movie-review

I feel like we've been doing this every 9 months for years, but there's always just a spate of articles and thinkpieces and message board posts like "Why do people still listen to R. Kelly?", "Why do people still listen to Morgan Wallen", "Why do people still listen to Morrissey?", "Why do people still listen to Ye?", "Why do people still listen to Michael Jackson?" "How do we separate the art from the artist?" and the answer is almost always that regular people are not on social media all day and just do not care.

Are you not a regular person?

I think this film would've been a huge hit in 2016 and most people would've at best compartmentalized Jackson's crimes and at worst not given a damn, which is why the comments about Michael as ideal Trump-era film don't make sense to me. Shit, I've explained why I detest Bohemian Rhapsody -- its editing, its acting, its homophobic framing -- and I get blank looks and "But the Live Aid sequence!"

Thinking about Questlove’s take and that from some other Black people involved in the music scene, I sense a desire at a time in which the Trump regime has waged a racist campaign against Black Americans- firing people under dei and other rules, Trump’s racist insults, etc., — to want to simply highlight the amazing skills and talent that Michael Jackson possessed and not to deal with the horrible aspects . Questlove in his own Sly Stone doc did address Sly warts and all, and he and probably many people seeing the Michael Jackson film know there’s more to Jackson, but they’re just accepting this as one take on part of Jackson’s life.

― curmudgeon, Monday, April 27, 2026 10:54 AM (thirty-five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I remember listening to an old Questlove podcast where he praised a Finding Neverland debunking video, so I think that's just where he feels the facts are.

Tons of regular people absolutely are on social media, that's not the issue. But I agree with the "just do not care" part. Tons of regular people don't care about all kinds of moral and ethical things they probably should, and tbf abusive celebrities are pretty far down that list.

I can only assume those people didn’t watch Leaving Neverland. I don’t think it’s possible to watch it and then say “I don’t care”. Sure most people haven’t bothered to see it, but if they did? Nfi how they could not care.

Lol, we are doing the "social media be making people more woke" now is it.

Tom Breihan's review: https://stereogum.com/2496783/i-didnt-hate-michael/reviews/movie-review

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 27, 2026 10:58 AM (thirty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I don't remember Breihan ever being this dumb or gross. He just can't help getting swept up in the magic of Michael's music, like a small child and not an adult capable of discernment and reason. I also thought it was lame how he used "See it with a Black audience" to hide behind his shitty take.

I think this film would've been a huge hit in 2016 and most people would've at best compartmentalized Jackson's crimes and at worst not given a damn, which is why the comments about Michael as ideal Trump-era film don't make sense to me. Shit, I've explained why I detest Bohemian Rhapsody -- its editing, its acting, its homophobic framing -- and I get blank looks and "But the Live Aid sequence!"

― boners for bombs (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, April 27, 2026 11:32 AM (twenty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

The Live Aid sequence pissed me off more than anything in the movie. Why am I sitting here watching a bunch of actors recreate something I can watch on my phone?

Breihan:

Michael almost certainly should not exist, in its current form or any other!

ok then.

I had enough nostalgia/goodwill/ignorance around the release of "Is This It" and went to see it. I didn't quite realize... https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/10-undeniable-facts-about-the-michael-jackson-sexual-abuse-allegations (article Alfred shared upthread maybe a good one to spread about now)

I feel like we've been doing this every 9 months for years, but there's always just a spate of articles and thinkpieces and message board posts like "Why do people still listen to R. Kelly?", "Why do people still listen to Morgan Wallen", "Why do people still listen to Morrissey?", "Why do people still listen to Ye?", "Why do people still listen to Michael Jackson?" "How do we separate the art from the artist?" and the answer is almost always that regular people are not on social media all day and just do not care.

This makes zero sense to me. R Kelly and Morrissey are artists who have taken major hits to their careers, Morgan Wallen makes no sense in their company as most listeners think his bad shit is Good, Actually.

Also surely regular people are more likely to be on social media than listening to Morrissey.

Questlove grew up idolizing the Jacksons and pored over every note of every record, has interviewed everyone who helped make the records and most of the family, and wants to maintain friendly and professional relationships with lots of people whose legacies are tied up with MJ. And I say this as a longtime fan of his, but he's never struck me as particularly emotionally intelligent, even in his current post-therapy mode. He's way more concerned with his own musical nostalgia and mythology, and music nerdery. All that to say I would find it extremely surprising if he actually took a strong anti-MJ stance.

xpost Morgan Wallen is selling out arenas all over the country and to assume everyone in there is a drooling racist hayseed instead of mostly people who just doesn't give a shit is exactly the type of internet-brain myopia I'm talking about

Anyone read Kelefa Sanneh's profile of Anthony Fuqua?

Fuqua hadn’t planned to downplay the controversy that engulfed Jackson in his final decades. Instead, he envisioned a film that might have read as a provocative defense of its subject. Describing the scene of the raid, he told me, “I shot him being stripped naked, treated like an animal, a monster.” Fuqua is not convinced that Jackson did what he is accused of doing, despite the number of accusers (five) and the fact that Jackson publicly talked about sharing his bed with boys. “When I hear things about us—Black people in particular, especially in a certain position—there’s always pause,” Fuqua told me. He mentioned the facts of Elvis Presley’s life, suggesting there was a double standard. (Presley met his future wife, Priscilla, when she was fourteen, and she moved to Memphis to be with him at seventeen.) He was skeptical of some of the accusers’ parents, particularly Chandler’s father, a dentist and sometime screenwriter named Evan Chandler, who was recorded threatening to insure that Jackson was “humiliated beyond belief.” (Evan Chandler died by suicide in 2009, a few months after Jackson’s death.) Fuqua stressed that he didn’t know the truth of the allegations against Jackson. But, he said, “sometimes people do some nasty things for some money.”

*Antoine

“sometimes people do some nasty things for some money."

Lionsgate‘s Michael almost looked very different on screen — and its director, Antoine Fuqua, and producer, Graham King, received even larger paydays after the film underwent major reshoots.

As The Hollywood Reporter previously reported, the film’s third act was scrapped amid legal concerns tied to a prior settlement involving one of Jackson’s accusers. The Jackson estate paid for extensive reshoots to reshape the film.

According to a Bloomberg report published Friday, just as Michael danced its way into theaters, Fuqua and King were initially set to earn $10 million and $6 million, respectively, for directing and producing the biopic about the late Michael Jackson, starring his real-life nephew Jaafar Jackson as the King of Pop. King received an additional $10 million, while Fuqua secured an extra $15 million, to complete the reshoots.

Thinking about Questlove’s take and that from some other Black people involved in the music scene, I sense a desire at a time in which the Trump regime has waged a racist campaign against Black Americans- firing people under dei and other rules, Trump’s racist insults, etc., — to want to simply highlight the amazing skills and talent that Michael Jackson possessed and not to deal with the horrible aspects. Questlove in his own Sly Stone doc did address Sly warts and all, and he and probably many people seeing the Michael Jackson film know there’s more to Jackson, but they’re just accepting this as one take on part of Jackson’s life.

This is kinda what I've been thinking about, too. That lots of black people need Michael Jackson in a way that I just don't, and never will.

Morgan Wallen is selling out arenas all over the country and to assume everyone in there is a drooling racist hayseed instead of mostly people who just doesn't give a shit is exactly the type of internet-brain myopia I'm talking about

Sure but there was no ILX discussion about why do regular people listen to Morgan Waller, there was only one about why ILX rockcrits still listen to him and they are absolutely on social media.

a large part of the country audience are racist

xpost Well my original post was about how normal people don't actually act like rock critics and thinkpiece writers so we're in agreement

We should bring regular people to start posting about Morgan Wallen.

Well my original post was about how normal people don't actually act like rock critics and thinkpiece writers so we're in agreement

Yeah, I just think you chose widely disparate examples both in terms of how acceptable the bad behaviours were (Waller's stuff absolutely is not unacceptable to a sizeable section of the US, whether that makes them "drooling racist hayseeds" is a separate discussion) and actual impact on the artist's careers.

I mean, R. Kelly and Bill Cosby and Diddy are all in jail and Michael Jackson is dead, so their careers are kind of being impacted by forces larger than "Why are people still streaming 'Ignition (Remix)'"

Cosby's been out since 2021

michael not even the best pop musician in his own family

#Justice4Tito

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8SdzwoIcwo

Pretty sure I've had at least one awkward moment where I thought someone was talking about this Joe Jackson then the other Joe Jackson:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDG6MQkzh1o

*than

I feel like we've been doing this every 9 months for years, but there's always just a spate of articles and thinkpieces and message board posts like "Why do people still listen to R. Kelly?", "Why do people still listen to Morgan Wallen", "Why do people still listen to Morrissey?", "Why do people still listen to Ye?", "Why do people still listen to Michael Jackson?" "How do we separate the art from the artist?" and the answer is almost always that regular people are not on social media all day and just do not care.

Maybe reading is not for you.

I liked Israel Daramola at Defector on this.

That's excellent.

yeah that was a satisfying read. it's sort of an object lesson in how families cover up abuse tbh.

Daramola's easily one of my favorite music writers of this decade, and stuff like this shows how much further/deep he can go. Well worth looking into his Defector reads for sure (but you will need to subscribe).

I’ve been thinking processing the past week and I’m def in a “jail for all the Jackson’s (incl Janet, sorry)” and “guillotine for all the lawyers” stance these days

When I arrived for my shift at the food pantry today, David - about my age, Black, knows I am into music - immediately asked me if I saw the "Michael" movie. I told him, man, I dunno, and he asked why. I told him I was reluctant to dip into that story, because of the allegations, and he shook his head and said he didn't believe the claims. I told him, diplomatically, that at the very least there are some serious questions, but he wasn't buying it. He said he had no problem losing (his words) "another one of ours," and cited R. Kelly and Bill Cosby, but he said when it came to Michael, he just thought it was a frame job/conspiracy theory, something involving Tommy Mottolla and recanted testimony. I told him there were still accusers and their accounts out there, but he wouldn't have it, then threw in that since MJ was dead, anyway, it's not like he's benefitting from the movie, so there's no reason not to see it.

quite a year for MJ, he's just been appointed as interim manager at Burnley

xp I did a cursory search on social media and you can see a lot of posts urging people to go see the film while dismissing the allegations. I don't want to repeat some of the reasons why that haven't been covered here but it's just presumptive nonsense that doesn't help anyone. It's not just regular fans but a lot of important figures in music history. I posted not too long ago (before the film's marketing really took off) that I hadn't seen much pushback against the allegations, and someone responded that they just overheard two people claiming he was framed - apparently that seems to be the general consensus and I just wasn't hearing it before.

Last night, they played 'Michael Jackson' the movie in heaven where MJ, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Walker and several others watched. pic.twitter.com/aPqgl53xWa

— Oluwatimileyin✨🦋 (@Timmysofine) April 29, 2026

oh no

oh yes

Disappointed it didn’t have Kurt Cobain sharing popcorn with Jimi Hendrix.

Jimmy Savile with Rolf Harris would be more apt surely?

Huh. Gary Glitter is still alive, 81 years old.

Barely alive if reports are to be believed.

Uplifting biopic on hold for now

no Ian Watkins no credibility

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lViUWJPBaxo

the noise around mj feels very surreal in the way the noise did around amber heard

South Park got it right years ago:

"Sure, he may have touched some children now and then, but the man is a great singer and has entertained us for so many years"

I defended MJ for years due to the cognitive dissonance but eventually there's only so much you can deflect.

There are people who haven't seen Leaving Neverland that got swept up in the "the dad made it up to extort money" narrative. Many that did watch it did it just so they could try to poke holes in it.

A more understandable bit of defensiveness might also come from the fact that White America has always teeing off on Black celebrities in a disparate manner to white celebrities. They were on MJ's ass long before the allegations, making Whitney/Bobby jokes, Ike/Tina, and it was always punching down.

The MJ jokes after the allegations were always in poor taste, so I wouldn't doubt some might have understandably asked "is there more to this, or is White America trying to tear down another talented Black individual for being different or struggling with personal issues".

That plus if you first heard about it in the 90s, you just got snippets of what he was accused of along with tabloid-level reporting unless you deliberately followed the case.

I remember the first time I argued with someone about it in the early 2000s I had a ton of details about the original case wrong because I only knew the broad strokes and my inherent pro-MJ bias filled in false memories (I thought the case was dismissed rather than settled, for one)

(Purpose of South Park quote was to illustrate why many continue to think he's innocent or ignore what he did, not my thoughts)

It's just such a mess at this point. Some people settled, some didn't. Some accusers changed their stories, some didn't. Some newer accusers may be out for money, some aren't. Some people involved are alive, some (not just Michael) aren't. But I reminded myself of some facts this morning, which are more than enough to leave a bad taste in your mouth, details that would be shameful to defend or excuse:

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/10-undeniable-facts-about-the-michael-jackson-sexual-abuse-allegations

occam's razor is really the most compelling argument here

Yea it's really hard to look at the facts head-on and draw any conclusion but the obvious.

As much as Jackson, his lawyers, and estate screamed that this was all subterfuge by grifting parents wanting money, then why are you paying lavish sums to every person who accuses you?

"I didn't want this drawn out/sensitive things being shown in court" might have worked on people after the initial accusation, but "fuck these grifting assholes who try and tell lies so I'll pay them" tends to lose a bit of credibility when you do, in fact, pay them every time instead of actually fighting to dismiss the charges in court.

It's the type of thing that, with perhaps anybody but the biggest pop star in America, would have been accepted, but his music meant too much to too many people who couldn't cope

"I didn't want this drawn out/sensitive things being shown in court" might have worked on people after the initial accusation, but "fuck these grifting assholes who try and tell lies so I'll pay them" tends to lose a bit of credibility when you do, in fact, pay them every time instead of actually fighting to dismiss the charges in court.

Not to mention that we're still talking about it in 2026, even long after his death. Clearly the weight of accusations/evidence was such that trying to pay it away just didn't work. And the Jackson estate is *still* finding ways to suppress information, like getting the "Neverland" doc removed from HBO, or throwing money at the movie to add reputation-favorable reshoots.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/03/10-undeniable-facts-about-the-michael-jackson-sexual-abuse-allegations

― Josh in Chicago,

I posted it here earlier this week. Useful.

I thought Jaime Brooks' essay on R. Kelly was good, and yeah, MJ for the most part doesn't get the same treatment for all the factors that have been discussed here.

https://jaimebrooks.substack.com/p/the-greatest-living-american-songwriter

the noise around mj feels very surreal in the way the noise did around amber heard

― ok (D-40)

good comparison, it feels similarly, parasocially insane

Apropos of nothing, the 'They Don't Care About Us' video is going around Twitter and I remember being like 16 when that came out and not even understanding how someone could take "jew me" as anything but a standard MJ statement against oppression of all forms, but now that I'm 46 years old and have been exposed to so many forms of online racism, I can def see how that might have been misinterpreted.

Also the consensus seems to be that that song and video sucks but they both actually rule? Spike Lee, Slash and Olodum, come on!

Which version, the prison video or the Brazil one?

(I prefer the Brazilian version of the song/video but tbh I'm pretty into them both)

One of my students a couple of years ago wrote a whole essay about that video, the Brazil one.

they dont really care abt us is fired idc

*fire

'jew me' is a phrase that stopped being socially acceptable probably in the 80's, certainly well before that song came out. It's just weird that he thought that would be alright.

It's just weird that he thought that would be alright.

Michael Jackson's entire goddamn life summed up in ten words.

Any putative muddiness around testimonies &c is just completely irrelevant when even the official alibi is the most fucked thing you ever heard

“It’s just the everyday scenario of a rich guy procuring boys to sleep with, in a normal way. Educate yourselves” honestly if anyone comes out with this shit — well they’re obv deluded but also be really careful around them tbh

Well, he didn't have a childhood, don't you see?

i still haven't gotten over the propofol and the doctor who agreed to administer it to him. imagine going under general anaesthesia *every night*
it is beyond the beyond

my head starts spinning when I try to understand the lisa marie presley relationship also. like how much of that was showbiz cover up. 'oh btw he was a virgin'

LL otm. I can't believe the doctor went along with it. just give the guy a nasal CPAP and a saline IV and pretend you're administering propofol, same $$ with much less obvious risk of homicide

The thing that they don’t tell you about Leaving Neverland is how Safechuck (in particular) seems to describe the abuse with the same inflections an descriptions as an adult might recollect their first sexually charged romance (as a teen/young adult, with another teen/young adult). This admission of abuse coupled with a sense of strange wistfulness, the frank retelling of what was going on with no scare quotes or gotchas— just a description of a highly secret and sexual relationship; CSA masked as a romance. Jackson’s personality and agency seemed blinding, and the abuse was so “romantic relationship coded” with so many “we’re just kids” elements of play that it immediately makes the changing testimony of his victims become so much more parseable and Jackson’s guilt so undeniable

that's otm

Absolutely otm.

Seeing the confusion and shame in his face broke my heart.

and not even understanding how someone could take "jew me" as anything but a standard MJ statement against oppression of all forms,

in the next line he says "kike me"

On the ABC News program Prime Time Live, Jackson said: "It's not antisemitic because I'm not a racist person ... I could never be a racist. I love all races."[40] He said some of his closest employees and friends were Jewish.

Well that's settled then

https://i.ibb.co/5xRjg8qj/its-black-its-white-michael-jackson-video.gif

^^^ one of the queerest moments in video of the '90s

This is the greatest video I’ve ever seen. No notes. The lifeless clanker carcass just laying there. No crowd reaction, anything. Just Billie Jean. Until its lifeless shell is shamefully dragged off. Purely amazing. pic.twitter.com/4WSUwZr7nO

— Tatum Turn Up (@tatumturnup) May 20, 2026

wonderful

kind of amazing it stayed up after that first stumble on the stairs tbh. some "detroit become human" pathos going on there

that’s chappie

"I sing the Body Electric!" [Falls over, dies.]

how did nobody in the crowd react to that? what is happening to the human race??

Creepy that the thing is child-sized