Michael Jackson: HIStory - Past, Present And Future: Book 1 Poll

well it's scream isn't it?

ah ah aaaah aaahaaahaah aaaha aaaaaaaah
oo ooo ooooo ooohoohoohooh oooooooo

The singles from this are all very good. I voted for the anti-Semetic one mostly because it was on the radio when I drove into work today. I still can't believe it's a Michael Jackson song (for years I was making a tortured "he must be talking about namecalling there" argument because that level blatant, unmasked hate coming out of Michael's mouth is wholly at odds with the entire media image he put forward for the rest of his career).

Yes it's waaaay "Scream" if only for Janet poking fun at her evening news-surfing Rhythm Nation self. But there's a surprising lack of filler here. I'll take the vocal fox chase in the second verse of "This Time Around" over anything on Bad. In fact, same goes for the scabrous bitch slap "D.S.," the Bacharachy pastoral "Earth Song," and Michael pissed at the supermarket on "Tabloid Junkie." And the title track is prog at its bitterest.

uh yeah "Smooth Criminal" and "The Way You Make Me Feel" alone are better than everything on this, come on

I love They Don't Care About Us.

Yeah, it's easily the best MJ song of the 90s. Too bad about the choice of lyrics.

"Remember The Time" and "Who Is It?" were also MJ songs of the 90s, both of which are better than "They Don't Care About Us".

Actually, if you can track down the Michael Jackson/Global Communication mashup done by Matt Tuozzo back around 2000, you will gain a much stronger appreciation for "Remember The Time".

Great MJ songs from the nineties: "Jam," "Can't Get Away From Her," "Who Is It," "In The Closet," "Morphine," "Dangerous," "Scream," "Remember The Time," "Blood on the Dance Floor."

'remember the time' is one of my favourite ever MJ tracks. the video <3

i like 'Black Or White', maybe 'Give In To Me', also 'Why' ft. 3T

uh yeah "Smooth Criminal" and "The Way You Make Me Feel" alone are better than everything on this, come on

I'll take "Scream" and "This Time Around" over those any day. Also, "Smooth Criminal" has been usurped by one of my all-time favorite mashups, Bitter Sound Foundation: "Why Does Michael Hurt?"

Scream is deadly. Am I right in thinking that the video still holds the title for most expensive ever? Whatever, the money is all there on the screen. Ass-kicking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_expensive_music_videos

Yes, but not for lack of trying!

i was sure that 'come with me' with godzilla tie-in had overtaken it?

MC Hammer "Too Legit to Quit" MC Hammer (producer) November, 1991 $2.5 million +

I remember this as just concert/soundstage-type footage.

you obviously didn't see the 9 minute version with jim belushi and a fire throwing james brown

Voting "Money," at the very least so it doesn't get a goose egg.

voting Strangers in Moscow. always hated Scream. They Don't Care About Us is a great song, had never read about it's controversy.

TOM SNEDDON IS A COLD MAAAAAN

Surely Stranger in Moscow has to get some love?

I have such a huge soft spot for 'You are not Alone.' Not the video tho.

so I've started to listen to this over the last few days. far from being as horrible as I thought yet far from being great. I don't love anything here but some some nice things here and there.

"scream", "don't care" and "earth song" still don't work for me.
"childhood"'s lyrics are so openly autobiographical it's creepy.
"not alone" is an ok r-kelly ballad but much too long with the neverending key changes.
I really like the heavy beat in the intro of "history". the completely different sound/production between the verses and the chorus is... weird. can't say if I like that or not for now.
"come together" is horrible (but mostly because I hate the original).
"stranger in moscow" might be the best track but I have a soft spot for "smile" which is very sweet and has a sinatra/old school feeling plus a positive and joyful track is quite rare in MJ's output, especially after "thriller"...

overall, some weird/interesting production ideas, fast/hard tracks still don't do it for me (and they haven't since "bad", basically, mostly because I don't like the drum sounds and beats he uses) but mostly, a real lack of good/great songwriting.

I voted "Stranger in Moscow." I do think "They Don't Care About Us" is a good song excepting the obvious, but I always liked the melody of "Moscow" (the "how does it feel, how does it feel?" in particular) a lot.

"remember the time" trumps everything listed here exponentially IMHO

listened to "blood on the dancefloor" yesterday and got totally distracted from what I was working on not to mention creeped out, especially by "morphine" when he chants about "demerol". sounds like a cry for help, in retrospect. have to say I don't think the songs/performances on BOTDF come close to the teddy riley tracks on dangerous. michael doesn't seem to have made his peace with pop's shift from melody to rhythm-over-all.

working up the nerve to play indestructible

"Stranger in Moscow" every time but nowadays I quite enjoy "Earth Song" too.

"stranger in moscow" has really nice melodies indeed, including the "how does it feel" part, and I really like the intro build up.
"earth song" is a bit boring and overlong, for me.
I'm not sure I'm ready to handle "blood on the dancefloor". It really seems awful to me (but that's what I was thinking about history, so...).

a lot of his 90s stuff is better than i thought it would be/remembered it being, but its still not amazing. a few gems here and there but a lot of that industrial kinda production doesnt do much for me, and its not dated very well. i know its tired to say 'what if he kept working with quincy jones' but i do still wonder. the stuff they did together had more clarity and even on bad, just seemed more refined (his later collaborators didnt seem to have as good an idea of how to mix R&B with pop as q). the songwritings still more than solid, he still had a good grasp of pop structure, it wasnt like prince where it became severely hit and miss, but the melodies werent as strong anymore. i think i like the ballads best from his latter period (apart from rock my world, i only ever listened to butterflies - maybe his last great song). a lot of the faster/harder stuff was just too jerky/overcooked/busy. live instrumentation dissapearing from mainstream black pop didnt do him many favours.

"I have such a huge soft spot for 'You are not Alone.' Not the video tho."

i feel the same way but for pretty much every video post-88.

michael doesn't seem to have made his peace with pop's shift from melody to rhythm-over-all.

Not even on, as you pointed out, "Morphine"?

thats wrong anyway - a lot of his singing became much more rhythmic than melodic if you listen to half of the late 90s/early 00s stuff.

I always liked They Don't Care About Us, it's like his version of Flowers of Romance, but how did they ever even let him get away with those lyrics? Didn't somebody at the studio say "that's not a good idea"...

xxpost

no i thought "morphine" and others featured more trad-sounding "jacksonian" melodic segments inserted into the mix w/o being fully integrated

Funny you would say that Jackson never made his peace over pop's shift from melody to rhythm since you could argue he populiarized it with "Don't Stop TIl You Get Enough."

I'm voting for "Stranger in Moscow" because it contains my favorite misheard lyric. For quite some time I thought Jackson was singing "stranger in my skull" instead of the "stranger in Moscow."

O_O

daaaaamn, that might even be creepier

"Stranger In Moscow" obv.

This album is not at all bad, but also obviously not up there with the glory of his first three Epic albums.

Btw. gotta love the production on "Tabloid Junkie".

eh, regarding misheard lyrics of his, for a looooong time, I thought he said "dance you into bed" instead of "dance you into day" in "rock with you". I must say I still prefer my version !

"Stranger in Moscow," his last really really good song.

the one with biggie

jk voted for stranger

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

this album really wheezes out kinda pathetically, doesn't it? Things are going very well through "Come Together", "You Are Not Alone" is perfectly decent (though the remix on Blood on the Dancefloor is better), then things get weird with "Tabloid Junkie" and fizzle completely at "History". I guess I'm he glad he mostly saved the syrupy ballads until the end---although they're unsettling ballads, not sweet-syrupy, more like the kind of syrup you get your foot stuck in in Candy Land.

This is one of those albums where the gulf between the awesome and not-awesome is like an abyss.

At the bottom of the abyss are Marlon Brando and Chuckles, mouths open.

the five top-placing songs on this poll are all v. good though

really could just take the top 3 and run

the five top-placing songs on this poll are all v. good though

Not "They Don't Care About Us", no. Not too keen on "Scream" ether, even though the production on it is cool.

Oh my god Geir you are so wrong. 'They Don't Care About Us' is an insanely good song in every single respect.

Love the results of this poll. '2 Bad' is brilliant but was probably the second or third choice of a load of people.

God, this is such an angry and, in places, depressing record.

Couldn't help but notice that 'In The Closet' didn't make it onto the HIStory greatest hits...

Y'know, for a song that has always made very little impression on me beyond "oh, Jackson is singing about the '93 allegations", I haven't been able to get the chorus to 'Money' out of my head for the last couple of hours.

I got a weekend's work through my local Job Centre, selling merch at the Wembley History tour dates. Amazing show. We spent the concert walking through the crowds, selling outrageously overpriced chintz. The top seller was a Michael Jackson glove-on-a-stick, doing a peace sign. If you turned it on, there was a strobe light effect in the fingers, so you could wave it in the air during Earth Song. I sold one to Jo Whiley!

D'ya remember how much "live" singing went on at those shows? I heard that MJ had a tendency to mime for a portion of his shows.

im sure he did for some, but not all of it. watch the "This Is It" documentary on his final tour for solid evidence he wasn't just a drugged up robot puppet they pushed out on stage. there is an amazing improv version of "Beat It" that is just him singing w a drummer and bass player.

I can't remember him mimimg but the show was super-production-intensive and choreographed - I think he flew around in a jetpack at some point??

yes the end of the Bucharest concert for the Dangerous tour. nobody can really top that for spectacle.

Yeah, Michael Jackson was pretty much the definition of "superproductionintensive" - the guy liked to throw the chequebook at pretty much everything he did: his music, his videos, his stage productions. Madonna and Prince did production intensive and chereographed shows too, but neither of them did "big budget" like Michael Jackson, who seemed to want to take everything to the most ludicrous extreme possible.

"who is it" is his best '90s song and his best song

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson),

yep

It doesn't seem to matter and it doesn't seem right.

well, actually, wait – NOT his best song, although when it's on it feels like it.

I AM THE DAMNED
I AM THE DEAD
I AM THE AGONY INSIDE A DYING HEAD

hyperbole on my part but it is my favorite

No idea, tho, why "In the Closet," "Will You Be There" and "Jam" weren't on the first disc.

None of his 90s songs are as good as "Butterfly" in the 00s.

I can't remember him mimimg but the show was super-production-intensive and choreographed - I think he flew around in a jetpack at some point??

― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, June 21, 2017 7:30 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes the end of the Bucharest concert for the Dangerous tour. nobody can really top that for spectacle.

The extremely interesting backstory of that jet pack: http://thedollop.libsyn.com/237-jet-pack-madness

None of his 90s songs are as good as "Butterfly" in the 00s.

waht

"Invicible" has a couple of good songs ("Rock my world" particularly) but the "hard" stuff is weak with no groove at all and the ballads are mostly ott corny (and everything is too long).
it's a shame since there were so many possibilities to make a great album considering the many talents in rnb at that specific time... especially since it turned out to be his final record.

amazing just how forgotten/under-heard Invincible is/was. i mean you never hear anything from it ever.

I AM THE DAMNED
I AM THE DEAD
I AM THE AGONY INSIDE A DYING HEAD

― mark s, Wednesday, June 21, 2017

sung to the tune of Annie Lennox's "Why"

I AM THE DAMNED
I AM THE DEAD
I AM THE AGONY INSIDE A DYING HEAD

― mark s, Wednesday, June 21, 2017

sung as the verse of "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt

amazing just how forgotten/under-heard Invincible is/was. i mean you never hear anything from it ever.

― piscesx, Thursday, June 22, 2017 1:09 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I remember when it was released, the general attitude towards the record was almost like "Michael Jackson's got an album out, I see... *shrug*" which felt a bit bizarre considering how successful HIStory was and the 'Blood on the Dancefloor' single.

i did see someone absolutely kill "butterflies" at karaoke recently

I love Marsha Ambrosius' own version.

In fact, thinking about it, Invincible felt quite a great deal more "low key" than previous MJ records, even if the album apparently had millions thrown at it during production. There seemed to be very little promotion, or any huge budget videos, or any tour or anything. It seemed to flop the moment it was released, which was odd for a Michael Jackson record - especially since HIStory had shown that he still had a huge fanbase.

There was, I think, a pretty splashy premiere for the "You Rock My World" video but I vaguely remember it coming out maybe right after 9/11?

It was promoted extremely heavily iirc

I remember that it was released in a range of covers, but uh...

were there even other singles beside "you rock my world" ?

'Cry' and 'Butterflies' were both apparently singles - I can't remember either of 'em.

Here's Butterflies, which I love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmRMT4CesgA

Invincible had a cheap, crappy unmemorable cover - like, every MJ cover (even History!) is kind of iconic or at least memorably weird, whereas Invincible is the herald of 00s and 10s "oh who gives a shit about the cover" product.

plus didn't he get into a very public feud with his label/promoter? Wikipedia calls it "the most expensive album ever made" so yeah it's kinda lol that it's basically unknown.

Ah yeah, I remember now...

http://www.mtv.com/news/1455976/michael-jackson-shocks-al-sharpton-by-calling-tommy-mottola-a-racist/

I have absolutely no recollection of "cry" and "butterflies" as singles !
but if they were singles, how come there were no videos ?

Ah, no wonder I have no recollection of 'Butterflies', it was only a single in the US. 'Cry' was released in the UK, but was a flop - only making it to #25. Frogbs is correct, I'd forgotten about this but Jackson was feuding with Sony at the time, hence the album sinking like a stone. It was a huge difference to Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and even HIStory where virtually every track seemed like it was going to be a single - those records were really promoted into the ground.

No. of singles per LP:

Off The Wall: 5
Thriller: 7
Bad: 9
Dangerous: 9
HIStory: 8 - 9 if you count the remix of 'HIStory'
Invincible: 3

I mean the other thing is, Invincible is just kind of a sucky album, not in a "disappointing but somewhat redeemable" way like History, it just...sucks. Amazing that someone with so much talent and cash and access to any producer on the planet could put out something so dull and unmemorable. Though I do still dig "You Rock My World", maybe due to it being one of the few MJ singles that wasn't pounded into the ground

It's not any less dull than Bad.

Empirically untrue.

I don't really like Bad but that's a bit excessive !
I'm not even sure I managed to listen to Invicible all the way through once...

'Unbreakable' is a good groove but also kinda weird in that it's so clearly inspired by 'Unbelievable', he must have really been into that one.

aaaah will I REALLY have to listen to Invicible because of this thread...?

Bad is about as dull as an F-color diamond

Listening to Bad right now and it rules.

invincible is his worst album but it's still good, jeez

I just realized that I don't think I've ever heard HIStory in full. I remember biking to the mall the day it came out, being stunned by the price (cause it was packaged with the best of), buying Natalie Merchant's solo debut (out the same day?) instead, and never bothered thinking about it again after that.

i remember one summer MTV hyping this up w a fascistic video of a giant Michael statue floating down a river

There's still one of those MJ statues stood outside a McDonald's in The Netherlands, apparently.

It got temporarily taken down in 2012 (warning: disturbing video), but only for restoration.

A company from Eindhoven has taken great care of Jackson and polished it.

Dom Sheldon is a cold man