let's focus on our highest priority people, updating this thread: The Tragedie of Michael Jackson, King of Pop
― Οὖτις, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:42 (five years ago) link
can i just say that i hate qualitative denunciations of artists when coupled with allegations of sexual abuse especially of minors, i.e. "i knew this person was bad all along, also their music has been bad!!!!"
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:43 (five years ago) link
cosign
― pomenitul, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:43 (five years ago) link
i also hate child rape jokes though so this thread is not for me lol
I knew Carlo Gesualdo was an entitled murderous Venosan nobleman all along! His music suxxx!
― pomenitul, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:47 (five years ago) link
going to go out on a limb here and lay out my controversial opinion that MJ was a very talented musician and also a child abuser.
― mfktz (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:48 (five years ago) link
the common thread might be that reed is kind of an old-school misogynist, no? or at least sexist.
― gray say nah to me (wins), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:48 (five years ago) link
I checked out Quincy's production discography last night when he got brought up on this thread and was pretty baffled. Before that, the only things I associated him with were MJ, We Are the World, that last Miles Davis concert, and the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. I had just presumed that in between MJ records he was doing a bunch of other funk/soul/pop.
― peace, man, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:51 (five years ago) link
happy to separate the two if you like, both are true imo
― Οὖτις, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:53 (five years ago) link
you know it iirc
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:54 (five years ago) link
lol
― gray say nah to me (wins), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:54 (five years ago) link
you listen to father john misty xxp
― (ADVANCE) (320k vbr) (--V2) (aps) (diVX) (2CD) OST - SB (2019) (esby), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:54 (five years ago) link
father john misty sounds like a paedo name tbh
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:55 (five years ago) link
strange thread to click on rly tho
― david waster phallus (darraghmac), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:55 (five years ago) link
i was talking a bit about quality of work that on the Weinstein thread w/the Bryan "Mediocre" Singer conversation, mostly vis-à-vis his continued employment in Hollywood. it's odd and strange in the sense that he's protected by others for mysterious reasons, because what's the motive behind giving him more work? However if he was exceptionally skilled it wouldn't diminish his earlier films (though it might diminish the desire to watch them).
I can understand not wanting to listen to MJ after all this, of course. But prior dislike for his albums is not a signifier that you were right all along, as it were. His early high level creativity or lack thereof isn't really an issue now.
― omar little, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:57 (five years ago) link
So am I the only one who disliked his music while thinking that he was probably innocent up until recently?
― pomenitul, Monday, 28 January 2019 17:59 (five years ago) link
While it's true that MJ roughened up Q's ethos, it's wrong to say the early '80s were blah for Q. Have you heard The Dude? As good as sleek post-disco R&B gets.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 January 2019 17:59 (five years ago) link
But prior dislike for his albums is not a signifier that you were right all along, as it were.
idk if it's about being right, and more about not having to deal with cognitive dissonance, being upset about liking the music but loathing the person who made it
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:00 (five years ago) link
or ... maybe more accurate ... the dislike or apathy towards his music makes you "more objective" in terms of determining the truth about him as a person
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:02 (five years ago) link
Didn't work for me, because I didn't care enough to delve further into his persona. I mostly just mimicked whatever the people around me (most of whom were fans) said about him.
― pomenitul, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
alfred, I forgot to look into his own music. I was just looking at the production discography. I'll have to check out the Dude.
― peace, man, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
my mom listened to The Dude a lot when she was cleaning house when I was a kid -- i probably heard that record as much as I heard Michael Jackson songs
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:06 (five years ago) link
or ... maybe more accurate ... the dislike or apathy towards his music makes you "more objective" in terms of determining the truth about him as a person― sarahell, Monday, January 28, 2019 10:02 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― sarahell, Monday, January 28, 2019 10:02 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i get that yeah. i guess though despite the fact i really love OTW and Thriller, i don't think i ever really had a "scales fall from my eyes" moment. my view of him was just a slow descent over a couple decades til he died. i wouldn't say i was in denial about what he did, i leaned towards believing it at first. but in my passive awareness and lack of research kinda thought after the lack of prosecution and lack of something even as tangible as the R. Kelly stuff, it was just a misunderstanding of a tragically fucked up and twisted dude.
― omar little, Monday, 28 January 2019 18:10 (five years ago) link
The first time I heard about anything ewwww was from an LA-based gay writer whose friends were hired to do the floors at Neverland, who in the course of the job found a lot of NAMBLAish porn in a closet. 1992/93, maybe?
I was pretty much done with MJ around the point of Thriller going mega (through moving on/liking other artists) but I still love old Jackson 5.
― suzy, Monday, 28 January 2019 19:17 (five years ago) link
off the wall and thriller, my dude.
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Monday, January 28, 2019 12:30 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
...and Destiny and Triumph. Michael co-wrote, and sang lead on, the bulk of those, in addition to co-producing.
one thing that is interesting is how people reluctant to give Michael his due (often for very meritorious reasons) are quick to credit quincy jones w/ the sleek power of his best records.
I remember lot of the "oh, Quincy's the REAL genius behind those records!" stuff coming from insufferable jazz snobs (usually along the lines of, "See?! Jazz musicians can make hit records any time we want! We just don't want to because it's, like, squaresville, daddy-o!").
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 28 January 2019 19:18 (five years ago) link
something like that don't stop til you get enough home recording demo kind of prove that it's not all about the production
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Monday, 28 January 2019 19:19 (five years ago) link
Meanwhile when I listen to Jones' big band arrangements, they sound like too-slick finger-popping wallpaper music for coffee commercials.
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, 28 January 2019 19:26 (five years ago) link
I think his real gift was as an arranger, not as a producer.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 28 January 2019 19:27 (five years ago) link
i like coffee
― sarahell, Monday, 28 January 2019 19:28 (five years ago) link
Quincy Jones's real gift is living. See his Netflix doc.
― dinnerboat, Monday, 28 January 2019 19:37 (five years ago) link
― grawlix (unperson), Monday, January 28, 2019 2:26 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Some of his small-group arrangements are ok, but when an orchestra or big band gets involved, the results are usually unimaginative at best, and frequently dull. And some of his '50s arrangements -- particularly something like Art Farmer's Last Night When We Were Young -- are instantly-dated slushy harp-fests.
― Montgomery Burns' Jazz (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Monday, 28 January 2019 19:40 (five years ago) link
re MJ - without in any way wishing to condone or minimise the atrocity of his actions, it is so painfully clear that this is what must have happened to him as a boy.
― an incoherent crustacean (MatthewK), Monday, 28 January 2019 21:14 (five years ago) link
one thing that is interesting is how people reluctant to give Michael his due (often for very meritorious reasons) are quick to credit quincy jones w/ the sleek power of his best records. but for all QJ's talents, if you look at what he was working on in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, pretty much none of it is anywhere near as memorable as his work w/ MJ. a late period Lena Horne record? Patti Austin? some of the more mediocre Rufus and Donna Summer LPs? the only classic among QJ's productions of that era, other than MJ, is George Benson's "Give Me the Night" (single, not full LP). so whatever MJ brought to the table and/or brought out in QJ is immense. it doesn't hurt that they probably had songwriters lining up to place their best songs w/ MJ.
― breastcrawl, Monday, 28 January 2019 21:21 (five years ago) link
I still marvel at the fact that "The Girl is Mine" not only made Thriller but was the first single off it
― frogbs, Monday, 28 January 2019 21:22 (five years ago) link
thanks for stanning for Donna Summer and Brothers Johnson.
― Your sweetie-pie-coo-coo I love ya (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 28 January 2019 21:24 (five years ago) link
Jones' "Summer in the city" is amazing of course
― brimstead, Monday, 28 January 2019 21:24 (five years ago) link
thanks for stanning for /Donna Summer/ and Brothers Johnson.
― breastcrawl, Monday, 28 January 2019 22:07 (five years ago) link
:)
i was too hasty in my dismissal of some of those other albums. i still don't think they measure up to the MJ stuff, esp. in their songwriting.
btw i am trying to make some sort of pun inverting the whole shangri-las "he's good-bad, but he's not evil" to say something like "michael jackson's not bad, he's evil," with reference to his hit record bad (get it??) but i just can't seem to form it correctly. any assistance is much appreciated, thanks in advance.
― affects breves telnet (Gummy Gummy), Tuesday, 29 January 2019 03:15 (five years ago) link
xp Right on Time rules
― Nhex, Tuesday, 29 January 2019 05:30 (five years ago) link
I think this broader conversation to some extent exposes how much of the r Kelly convo was enabled by the fact that in some circles he was *never* taken seriously whereas mj was universally so, and we will see ppl flip. Ie Questlove is apparently an MJ truther?
I think a lot of the convos I’d hear about mj’s strange appearance were that he was like a more extreme version of a baseball player risking his health using steroids: the world’s most competitive, driven musician doing everything he could to become the most popular artist in the world—in a world that’s fundamentally anti black. He was driven to the point of self mutilation.
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 12:54 (five years ago) link
Except wasn't Michael the most popular, successful artist *before* he did all that?
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:11 (five years ago) link
Not really, the transformation work between his first solo record and his second pales compared to what subsequently happened but people were shocked at the time of the Mowtown 25 gig not just by Billie Jean and the moonwalk but by the radical transformation in MJs appearance.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:24 (five years ago) link
I dunno, I just did some googling and he generally looks the same to me up to 1983 or so. The big changes came after the Pepsi fire.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:28 (five years ago) link
https://spinditty.com/artists-bands/The-Changing-Face-of-Michael-Jackson
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:29 (five years ago) link
He had some work on his nose it seems before 85 but nothing that fundamentally changed his appearance. Around 87 he starts to look like a different person.
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:30 (five years ago) link
nose job plus losing the afro was a pretty big shift
― illegal economic migration (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:31 (five years ago) link
Losing the afro is a change of hairstyle. Everyone does that. If you look at his face he is obviously still the guy on the cover of off the wall. By the late 80s the whole gestalt is different
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:33 (five years ago) link
By 93 there is like no trace of him left. That’s when plastic surgery gets eerie
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:34 (five years ago) link
the point is that people were shocked at the time. the differences seem minimal in hindsight, obviously, jesus.
― Acting Crazy (Instrumental) (jed_), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:35 (five years ago) link
I remember seeing the Bad album cover and being like wuuuut is going on here
― Blues Guitar Solo Heatmap (Free Download) (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Wednesday, 30 January 2019 14:36 (five years ago) link