Critics suck really big time when it comes to Michael Jackson

HIStory

Proud Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
6
Points
0
Why does anybody read critics at all? Do people really need some snob to tell them what to like and what to not like? What's the point of critic reviews at all? Especially when their bias is too transparent.

I just checked out the Wikipedia page for the "Blood on The Dance Floor" album and I can't believe how stupid the criticism of it was:

"Predatory women, jealous underlings and the evil media continue to obsess him. He's once again playing victim—the world's most powerless billionaire, it seems—mewling about forces conspiring against his heavenly self". He said of the lead single, "[Jackson] coughs up a series of strangulated mutters and munchkin hiccups in lieu of a vocal, while its chilly, faux-industrial music proves as appealing as a migraine".

"Playing victim"? Really? He was just "playing victim"? Newspapers were paying people big bucks to tell the most outrageous lies about him and he was just "playing victim"? He doesn't have the right to respond to this ugly phenomenon in his songs? The criticism is similarly laughable about the music on the lead single. BOTDF is such an underrated song. Play that in any club and then tell them it's "as appealing as a migrane"...

I also found it funny that one critic called BOTDF a mixture (a "second-rate mixture", of course :smilerolleyes:) of "Beat it" and "Thriller", another a mixture of "Jam" and "Scream", yet another a mixture of "Smooth Criminal" and "Billie Jean". So which one is it? It just prooves they don't know what they are talking about.

And I don't think we are just biased for Michael. Let's take one of these critics for example:

Stephen Thomas Erlewine, also of Allmusic, had a negative reaction to the record. He said that all five new tracks were, "embarrassingly weak, sounding tired, predictable and, well, bloodless". He described "Blood on the Dance Floor" as a "bleak reworking of 'Jam' and 'Scream'".[SUP][32][/SUP]

Now, the same guy wrote this about Spice Girl's Spice album (which was released at about the same period):

Allmusic's reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine called the album "immaculately crafted pop" that is "infectious" and "irresistible", adding that "Spice doesn't need to be original to be entertaining" and that "none of the girls have great voices, but they do exude personality and charisma".[SUP][26][/SUP]

And he gave it 4.5 stars while he gave 2 to BOTDF!

I mean, really, Mr. Erlewine? You give this flash-in-the-pan bubblegum pop with 5 women who can't even sing 4.5 stars while you rate something that actually has something to say and has a unique sound 2? Wow! Just wow!

15 years on listen to the song BOTDF and Wannabe. Which one stood the test of time?

Now, don't tell me these guys actually know ANYTHING about music and/or are not ridiculously biased when it comes to Michael! So ridiculous.
 
Last edited:
This is disgusting to read. I hate these critics :puke::pth:
 
Notice they go into very little detail about the actual music, just use wildly general analysis, before returning to a destructive analysis of MJ's life, you arn't buying MJ's life, you're buying an album of music, so it's all totally irrelevant and full of cheap digs. A lot of critics are either failed musicians, or people that don't even know anything about music. Of course music is subjective, but most musicians i've met, if not all, all seem to agree that MJ's music is amazing, more so than just members of the general public i've met. Jam's distinctive feel it's it's huge thumping accents on beat one and it's trumpet motif. Blood on the dance floor couldn't be more differen't, differen't, it's based around a totally differen't chord progression, differen't drum beat, differen't synthesisor sounds, features a bassline which jam doesn't, and has a totally differen't vocal melody. Again scream has a differen't chord progression to either of them, it's distinctive features are it's broken glass snare, it's prechorus (which is again fantastic and has totally differen't chords to both of the other songs) it's cool little guitar solo/riff (present in neither jam or botdf) oh i could go on for hours, point is botdf is as much like jam as rock with you is, what he's on about i don't know, clearly he has a problem with industrial snares. Notice how it's always vague, always, thats because sheepish people like to accept vague terminology and the critics pray on this, most of them don't have a clue about music, i could write a better analysis myself of which people should buy or shouldn't buy these albums, but people won't want to read mine, as i won't just slag them off all the time with political spin if thats the kind of thing the leach public are wanting to read.
 
The problem is that music critics cannot separate music from the artist's personal life. And then, when they tend to not to like the person, the review tend to be crap.
 
The problem is that music critics cannot separate music from the artist's personal life. And then, when they tend to not to like the person, the review tend to be crap.

They can, they just chose not to, and it's partly this attitude which really isn't helping the music industry, prioritising the branding of an artist a million times over the actual creative output, it's a vulture culture which must stop!!!!!
 
OK, I'm sorry for the rant in the OP, but I was looking for some info on BOTDF and I bumped into these critics on Wikipedia and I got very upset. You know, you can criticize Michael Jackson, it's not the point, but be fair! Critics were so freakin' unfair to him and biased against him it's not even funny! I mean how can you take them and their alleged expertise seriously when they give something like "Spice" 4.5 stars and then turn around and trash BOTDF and give it 2 stars? Even if it's just "half an album" it's worth ten times as much as Spice!

These criticisms become even more laughable in the hindsight, 15 years on. BOTDF is still relevant artistically, you cannot say the same about Spice. One critic actually called that album "the Thriller of the 90s". How ridiculous and such an insult to Michael, Quincy and all the top musicians who have worked on that album! It's like I would call the New Kids on The Block "the Beatles of the 80s".

MJultimatemusiclegen, I totally agree! The sad thing about this criticisms is that they hardly have any relevant substance, they quickly turn on Michael as a person and they harp on their preconceptions about him, which about highlights their real motives. BOTDF a mixture of Jam and Scream? Are they totally deaf?

I also wonder if there had been anything Michael could have done to please the critics (not that he had to). Probably not, because frankly, their attitude to him wasn't about the music. But sometimes I feel they wanted him to forever sing harmless little disco tunes, such as "Rock with you", so that he knows his place. Because that's the place of a black artist, right? They either completely overlooked the depth and profoundness of his later songs and lyrics or they tried to discredit the message by mocking it. Like the guy in the first quote in the OP. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised though. All these guys are a part of the system MJ so harshly criticizes in his songs. Of course, they won't like it when a mirror is held up for them.

And you are right: we have so many fellow musicians admire Michael - even if they aren't in the same genre. From Sade to Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam a lot expressed admiration for him. How come they hear what we hear, understand what we understand, but the critics don't?
 
Last edited:
I don't usually read critics' reviews. I found many critics are pretentious and agenda driven.

These reviews did not hurt Michael anyway. Michael had a lot of pride in his creations. Michael knew in his heart that his music is timeless. On Invincible, he expressed that the album is ahead of its time. In 10 years, people will get it and enjoy the album.
 
Critics like to bash HIStory because it's such an angry album, but after all the crap that Michael went through in 93 what did they expect? For him to write songs like Don't Stop Til You Get Enough and Shake Your Body (Down To The Ground) again?
 
Music critics are just pointless entities................


Every individual on Earth has their own unique taste of Music..........Music itself is one of the oldest forms of entertainment and can be found in every culture..........whether existing or extinct...........


........how can a small group of people dictate what is and what isn't good music!!!!!


How can a album like HIStory get low reviews when millions around the World still continue to enjoy listening to it????
 
critics reviews are so pointless, they are for ignorant fools who believe everything they read. Don't think i have ever found a review that matches my opinion on a song or a movie.

Remember all media is owned by a few individuals, if they want bad publicity for anyone...they will do it with fake news and crap reviews. This is what happened with MJ ( the sun newspaper owner openly admitted he hated MJ) and the sun was the paper that always had a fake story or shit reviews for anything about him..
 
Besides all of the personal bias issues, MJ's music is more dense than most, and a lot of the critics aren't able (or willing) to pick apart all the sounds in each track. Most of them probably don't know what to do with it since it doesn't really fit in with a standard guitar/drum combo approach to music. The other thing is that it's easier to just listen to lyrics instead of the rest of the music and you have to admit some of Mike's later lyrics are a little weak or too easily syrupy.
 
The other thing is that it's easier to just listen to lyrics instead of the rest of the music and you have to admit some of Mike's later lyrics are a little weak or too easily syrupy.

I don't "have to admit" that because I don't agree with that statement at all. I actually think especially Michael's later lyrics are full of very deep cultural and social messages. I think that's precisely what some of these critics couldn't stomach. As far as they are concerned MJ, a black man, forever should have sung harmless nice disco and R&B songs like "Rock with you".

For an in-depth review and analysis of MJ's lyrics I recommend this blog to you: http://dancingwiththeelephant.wordpress.com/
 
Besides all of the personal bias issues, MJ's music is more dense than most, and a lot of the critics aren't able (or willing) to pick apart all the sounds in each track. Most of them probably don't know what to do with it since it doesn't really fit in with a standard guitar/drum combo approach to music. The other thing is that it's easier to just listen to lyrics instead of the rest of the music and you have to admit some of Mike's later lyrics are a little weak or too easily syrupy.



By later lyrics you mean the songs on the albums like Dangerous, History and BOTDF?
 
I don't take any notice of critics, I prefer to make my own mind up.
 
I don't "have to admit" that because I don't agree with that statement at all. I actually think especially Michael's later lyrics are full of very deep cultural and social messages. I think that's precisely what some of these critics couldn't stomach. As far as they are concerned MJ, a black man, forever should have sung harmless nice disco and R&B songs like "Rock with you".

For an in-depth review and analysis of MJ's lyrics I recommend this blog to you: http://dancingwiththeelephant.wordpress.com/

Have you ever noticed that the one song that critcs praise the most or bash the least on HIStory is You Are Not Alone? Probably because it was the harmless love song of the album
 
^^ Yeah. And wasn't You are not alone the only song on History that reached number one in the US while all the other songs where pretty much ignored? That must mean something.
 
Have you ever noticed that the one song that critcs praise the most or bash the least on HIStory is You Are Not Alone? Probably because it was the harmless love song of the album

Yes, I agree. Fact is the more meaningful and profound MJ's lyrics got, the harsher and louder the criticism became. The critics weren't criticizing the nice, harmless, "syrupy" songs like YANA (which wasn't even written by MJ, by the way), but they criticized those songs which had something to say!

To me it looks like they actually wanted MJ to be "syrupy" and harmless, and their problem was that he was not.
 
^^ Yeah. And wasn't You are not alone the only song on History that reached number one in the US while all the other songs where pretty much ignored? That must mean something.

Yes, YANA was the only Billboard Nr 1 from HIStory. "Earth Song" wasn't even released in the States, though it was Nr 1 in a lot of other countries, including the UK where it was Michael's most successful single since Billie Jean. And TDCAU was dragged into an artificial controversy to discredit it with claims of anti-semitism, which is ridiculous if you listen to those words in context. Stranger in Moscow too was mainly ignored.

So no, it's not true "weak" and "syrupy" lyrics were the critics' problems. When they praise YANA and ignore great songs like Earth Song, SIM ("Armageddon of the brain" - how "weak" is that?) or TDCAU you know that's not the case at all. On the contrary!
 
This is why I don't trust critics. Never listen to any of them. I can't believe that owner of The Sun admitted he hates Michael, well since he admitted it, I now hate him for it.
 
Did YANA get that much praise? I thought it was seen as an ordinary R&B/pop song that was sung really well. (It went to #1, but look at the kinds of songs that top the billboard charts.) I think there were good reviews of SIM from at least a couple of critics back when History was released. In my post, I meant songs like heal the world, childhood, and almost every ballad on invincible. So much of it is treacly and built on cliches - love this, magic that, things are bad and should be good . . . it's a lot of stating simple ideas and emotions instead of taking you there with a story or with imagery or something less obvious that makes you feel what what's being said rather than being told. It's not just the syrupy stuff. Look at things like saying Sneddon was with the KKK. I can see how he was angry, but referencing the KKK is not some careful insight into racial motives. It's kind of a blunt tool and a cliched reference. I was thinking maybe it's a way to link literal lynchings by the KKK to the metaphorical lynching of Michael Jackson. Even then though, the reference seems too easy or simplistic. Maybe the obviousness and bluntness of the lyrics was intentional and the importance of simplified emotions was something he wanted to push, but I think it's pretty easy to see how a non-fan (critics) would find a lot of that to be less than compelling. I think SIM was one of the few great later songs in terms of lyrics (even though critics won't give him enough credit for songs like that). The music was always innovative, but the lyrics got to be increasingly simplistic . . . I guess I should say that's just imho and not something you "have to admit".
 
hrp102;3560782 said:
Did YANA get that much praise? I thought it was seen as an ordinary R&B/pop song that was sung really well. (It went to #1, but look at the kinds of songs that top the billboard charts.) I think there were good reviews of SIM from at least a couple of critics back when History was released. In my post, I meant songs like heal the world, childhood, and almost every ballad on invincible. So much of it is treacly and built on cliches - love this, magic that, things are bad and should be good . . . it's a lot of stating simple ideas and emotions instead of taking you there with a story or with imagery or something less obvious that makes you feel what what's being said rather than being told. It's not just the syrupy stuff. Look at things like saying Sneddon was with the KKK. I can see how he was angry, but referencing the KKK is not some careful insight into racial motives. It's kind of a blunt tool and a cliched reference. I was thinking maybe it's a way to link literal lynchings by the KKK to the metaphorical lynching of Michael Jackson. Even then though, the reference seems too easy or simplistic. Maybe the obviousness and bluntness of the lyrics was intentional and the importance of simplified emotions was something he wanted to push, but I think it's pretty easy to see how a non-fan (critics) would find a lot of that to be less than compelling. I think SIM was one of the few great later songs in terms of lyrics (even though critics won't give him enough credit for songs like that). The music was always innovative, but the lyrics got to be increasingly simplistic . . . I guess I should say that's just imho and not something you "have to admit".

Indeed it's just your opinion. You can always pick simplicistic lyrics like Heal the World, but those were probably inteded as simplicistic too, since Michael wanted to keep those awerness songs simple (he said this about "We are the world" so I guess it was true to all others). DS was an angry, instinctive song, again hardly representative of everything MJ did. But for every "Heal the World" there is a "Who is it". For every "Break of dawn" or "Cry" (not even written by Michael) there is a "Threatened" or an "Is it scary".

There are so many lyrics of Michael those are not simplicistic at all, those have metaphores and allegories. Heck, even ones those first sound straightforward, when you learn about the cultural references in them, they become a lot more interesting.

As I see it, critics exactly wanted Michael to keep it simple. They did not want him to be profound. They praised songs those were simplicistic, they had nostalgia for when Michael just sang songs like "Rock with you" and they always trashed anything that had a more profound message. Pretending not even to understand that message. For example, when Earth Song came out I remember a British critic on TV making fun of "what about the elephants/have we lost their trust", asking "how can you lose the trust of elephants?" and played dumb as if he didn't understand (or if he really didn't then he was truly dumb). So on contrary what you imply, to me seems it was exactly the opposite. It's reinforced by facts like what I cited in the opening post of this thread, that the same critic who trashed the BOTDF album was full of praise of Spice Girls's "Spice". Is that a sign for you that critics trashed Michael because they found his lyrics too weak? As opposed to what and who? To Spice Girls? To all the acts those they praise nowadays and those are ruling the charts? And whose songs are all about superficial sex and clichéd love?
 
Last edited:
Back
Top