Billboard Article: Michael Jackson's BAD: Collaborators tell the Story of the #1 singles

barbee0715

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THIS HAS GOT TO BE ONE OF THE BEST ARTICLES I'VE READ ABOUT BAD IN YEARS-Tons of stuff here that I didn't even know and I thought I knew everything about it.

I just loved it.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/c...quincy-jones-welsey-snipes?utm_source=twitter



(This must have been really recent-Wesley Snipes even talks about his "joking" about Prince auditioning against him for the part in BAD on Conan the other day and thinks it's funny they didn't realize he was joking).
 
Awesome article with the best thing being the link to the MITM performance. Holy you know what that is just so incredible. It never gets old.
 
It was interesting but it really grates on my nerves how they all make Michael sound like an employee on his own damn album. It was Michael who single-handedly wrote nearly all the songs on the album and he produced it together with Quincy. Why is everyone always trying to take credit for his hard work and creative ideas? Quincy is the worst at this. Michael should have been more aggressive in getting the respect he deserved in the projects they did together and making clear to everyone what his input was because Quincy walked away with the credit for a lot of things. I have no doubt this is one of the main reasons Michael wanted to do Dangerous on his own.

Jones: On the first record we did together, Off the Wall, [Michael] did two and a half songs. He did “Working Day and Night,” he did “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” and we asked him to finish up “Get on the Floor,” which the Brothers Johnson wrote. The second, Thriller, he did four songs -- “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’,” “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “The Girl Is Mine.” And then on the last one, Bad, I said, "It’s time to do all of the songs on the album. But you gotta be honest about everything." And he did, man.

But he couldn’t make the last two, so I had to go out and get the guys that did [“Just Good Friends”] for him and Stevie Wonder, and also “Man in the Mirror.” Siedah was one of my 13 writers, y’know, and I told ‘em, I wanted a national anthem that would affect the whole world. And she was a couple hours late, but she wrote it. With Glen Ballard. And that’s one of the biggest songs on the album.
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This man, I swear [/FONT]
​:shutup:
 
It was interesting but it really grates on my nerves how they all make Michael sound like an employee on his own damn album. It was Michael who single-handedly wrote nearly all the songs on the album and he produced it together with Quincy. Why is everyone always trying to take credit for his hard work and creative ideas? Quincy is the worst at this. Michael should have been more aggressive in getting the respect he deserved in the projects they did together and making clear to everyone what his input was because Quincy walked away with the credit for a lot of things. I have no doubt this is one of the main reasons Michael wanted to do Dangerous on his own.

[FONT=&]
This man, I swear [/FONT]
?:shutup:

I don't disagree with you although there is no denying that MITM is a moment of magic and MJ's career and that album wouldn't be the same without it. Not saying he wouldn't have been every bit the icon or anything or that MJ himself wasn't a tremendous songwriter but MITM is without doubt one the songs he is most associated with today and it is one of the greatest songs of all time.
 
MITM wasn't really associated with MJ until after his death. Certainly here in the UK.

Even now, I would say, 99% of people would not mention it first if asked to name an MJ song.

Even though MITM is a great song, it was made great by MJ's vocals and style. Imagine that song sang first by any other male artist. It probably wouldn't even register 30 years later.

I'm glad Michael nailed it with Dangerous. It showed he didn't need Quincy to provide us with a monumental album. That's what the critics really hate about it. LOL.
 
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This is great, I love the cards - "Only Number One singles"
 
Does anyone know about the scene in On the Waterfront that Pytka says Michael used in TWYMMF?
 
I don't disagree with you although there is no denying that MITM is a moment of magic and MJ's career and that album wouldn't be the same without it. Not saying he wouldn't have been every bit the icon or anything or that MJ himself wasn't a tremendous songwriter but MITM is without doubt one the songs he is most associated with today and it is one of the greatest songs of all time.

It's not about MITM for me, it's the way Quincy talks about it and the Bad album like he was in charge of everything and just told Michael what to do. As if Michael wouldn't have written those songs if Quincy hadn't ordered him to :rolleyes: Such nonsense. Michael was always writing songs and coming up with new ideas on his own. He mentioned Liberian Girl already in that unauthorised interview in 1983.
 
I also noticed that the only song Quincy expressly praised in this interview was MITM - a song that MJ didn't write. He showered all his praise on that one song when most of the album was written by MJ. And MITM was just one of the #1s on it. The other four was written by MJ. Just like Billie Jean, Beat It and DSTYGE. (So out of his four #1 hits on OTW and Thriller three were written by MJ.)

And if you want the song that is most associated with MJ and if you want to point to one song that elevated him to the stratosphere, it was Billie Jean, not MITM. Go to Spotify and you will see BJ and Beat It are still his most played songs. Also Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, TWYMMF are just as iconic MJ songs as MITM is. Quincy didn't really praise any of them. Nor did Quincy mention that he actually didn't want SC on the Bad album. One of MJ's most iconic songs. MJ had to put down his feet to get it on the album. (Just like he had to about the title of Billie Jean and its intro.) If they so wanted to talk about Q's role in song selection why not mention THAT?
Not saying it is the song that made him or that it is his most iconic song but even fact is he closed out his dangerous concert with it and it was phenomenal. In death it absolutely became a big deal. Point is though it helped to make the bad album as great as it was and I absolutely think it is one of the five best songs he ever recorded.
Quincy gets way to much credit though and takes to much credit.
 
Fabulous article.

Something about Quincy rubs me the wrong way here. He is (rightfully) accredited as one of the driving forces behind the album, and yet he comments like he's a fly on the wall. He showered Man in the Mirror with praise and gave miniature thumbs-ups to the other four tunes, all of which Michael wrote himself. It's just odd.
 
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