Michael Jackson is "evil"

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!!!!"

happy to separate the two if you like, both are true imo

you know it iirc

lol

you listen to father john misty xxp

father john misty sounds like a paedo name tbh

strange thread to click on rly tho

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.

So am I the only one who disliked his music while thinking that he was probably innocent up until recently?

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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!").

something like that don't stop til you get enough home recording demo kind of prove that it's not all about the production

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!").

Meanwhile when I listen to Jones' big band arrangements, they sound like too-slick finger-popping wallpaper music for coffee commercials.

I think his real gift was as an arranger, not as a producer.

i like coffee

Quincy Jones's real gift is living. See his Netflix doc.

Meanwhile when I listen to Jones' big band arrangements, they sound like too-slick finger-popping wallpaper music for coffee commercials.

― 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.

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.

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.

I still marvel at the fact that "The Girl is Mine" not only made Thriller but was the first single off it

thanks for stanning for Donna Summer and Brothers Johnson.

Jones' "Summer in the city" is amazing of course

thanks for stanning for /Donna Summer/ and Brothers Johnson.

:)

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.

xp Right on Time rules

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.

Except wasn't Michael the most popular, successful artist *before* he did all that?

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.

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.

https://spinditty.com/artists-bands/The-Changing-Face-of-Michael-Jackson

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.

nose job plus losing the afro was a pretty big shift

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

By 93 there is like no trace of him left. That’s when plastic surgery gets eerie

the point is that people were shocked at the time. the differences seem minimal in hindsight, obviously, jesus.

I remember seeing the Bad album cover and being like wuuuut is going on here

He tried to throw people off the scent by dressing in military couture, but for some reason that only attracted *more* attention.

the transformation work between his first solo record and his second

(Off The Wall was his fifth solo LP! though the previous two weren’t hits, he’d had a #1 single off the second, top tens off the first, and Motown cranked out a best-of just months after the second, padded with Jackson 5 material.)

Jermaine this morning on U.K. tv;

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/jermaine-jackson-leaving-neverland-michael-children-allegations-good-morning-britain-a8753851.html

xxp I remember a good thread somewhere about the Jacksons' use of fascist imagery, cannot find it anywhere though

treesh i lived through it! his look on thriller caused waves! it's true that at that point it wasn't seen as pathological

But he doesn't look that different on the Thriller jacket! His hair, yes, but that's about it!

*throws hands in air*

*segues into thriller dance*

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.

yea I remember hearing that he'd heard something about Rolling Stone not featuring a lot of black artists b/c they sold less magazines, and concluded he couldn't be the biggest in the world as a black man. makes a lot of sense, especially considering his "100 million" sales goal for Bad which is pretty lol in retrospect