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Victory was Michael's biggest mistake

I don’t believe that michael was going to tour for ‘thriller’, despite what John branca said. michael even said on those lost tapes, that he had no intention of touring as a solo artist. ‘triumph’ was supposed to be his last. he simply didn’t enjoy it. instead, he wanted to focus on (short) films. ‘thriller’ didn’t need a tour. it became the biggest selling album of all time without one, and before the ‘victory’ tour began. michael was able to reach people worldwide through his videos, music, and motown 25 performance.
 
83magic said:
I don’t believe that michael was going to tour for ‘thriller’, despite what John branca said. michael even said on those lost tapes, that he had no intention of touring as a solo artist. ‘triumph’ was supposed to be his last. he simply didn’t enjoy it. instead, he wanted to focus on (short) films. ‘thriller’ didn’t need a tour. it became the biggest selling album of all time without one, and before the ‘victory’ tour began. michael was able to reach people worldwide through his videos, music, and motown 25 performance.
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Michael was funny like that, he hated to tour yet LOVED being on stage he even said he could sleep on stage, and that he isn't as happy off stage as he is on stage.
 
flight85 said:
Michael was funny like that, he hated to tour yet LOVED being on stage he even said he could sleep on stage, and that he isn't as happy off stage as he is on stage.
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yes, it was strange because he didn’t like television either. this was mainly due to his experience on the jacksons variety show.

I think he might have enjoyed the performance aspect of touring and not the rest of it. the lack of sleep, different time zones, etc.

or he might have simply been ready to move on to the next phase of his career, after doing it so long up until that point?
 
Michael wanted to perform on his own terms, not in a stadium for money on a rigorous performer schedule. It's like he realized that it was going to kill him and did. He of all people would've known what a number that was doing to him.

Making music videos with exceptional quality, performing in films, and doing an occasional awards show is all far less taxing overall.
 
Well, I've never heard a singer/band who said they actually liked touring. But many did like being onstage performing. Except The Beatles, since they said nobody could hear anything (including the members themselves) because of the constant screaming and the amplifier technology of the time. There are some like Marvin Gaye & Barbra Streisand who didn't like being onstage because of severe stage fright. A lot of rock bands would trash hotel rooms because they got bored on tour or started doing drugs, getting drunk, or sleeping with groupies. During their heyday, Steely Dan said they preferred recording in the studio to doing concerts. Some really popular bands would do a 2 year tour and the singer's voice would be gone by the end.
 
Michael had to stand up to his dad about not wanting do this because we all know where the whole thing led too. So maybe we should not blame Mike so much on this...idk. this is just my thought
 
flight85 said:
Michael was funny like that, he hated to tour yet LOVED being on stage he even said he could sleep on stage, and that he isn't as happy off stage as he is on stage.
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I don't think anyone likes to tour. Especially the kind of concert he used to do, with a lot of dancing. Dancing for 1 or 2 hours everyday. Performing in the US one day, the next day a show in Japan. Everyday a new different country in Europe. Even on a private jet, that just sounds exhausting. There's jet lag and the plain fact that a plane trip is exhausting by itself.
 
apple🍎 said:
I don't think anyone likes to tour. Especially the kind of concert he used to do, with a lot of dancing. Dancing for 1 or 2 hours everyday. Performing in the US one day, the next day a show in Japan. Everyday a new different country in Europe. Even on a private jet, that just sounds exhausting. There's jet lag and the plain fact that a plane trip is exhausting by itself.
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True, I didn't think it through enough.
 
@mjfanatic777 said:
I get your point but what do you mean by “so called”? Were they not his family or something??
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I believe he is referring to the fact that Joe, being heavy handed as he was, was acting as a father, for he treated Michael as a child and guilted and chided Michael into agreement. FAMILY doesn't act that way, not a TRUE, WELL -INTENDED one anyway. That's why Michael & Janet were as close as they were; they respected & supported each other in their endeavors. It's sad really. 😔
 
Miche 86 said:
I believe he is referring to the fact that Joe, being heavy handed as he was, was acting as a father, for he treated Michael as a child and guilted and chided Michael into agreement. FAMILY doesn't act that way, not a TRUE, WELL -INTENDED one anyway. That's why Michael & Janet were as close as they were; they respected & supported each other in their endeavors. It's sad really. 😔
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... sorry I meant WASN'T acting as a father....
 
SmoothCriminal1995 said:
Mike's biggest mistake was having celebrities talking over Liberian Girl in the video.

As much as I grew up with the video and know it well, I wish Mike would have made a proper video for it
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What would the concept of the short film be if you had the chance?
 
I think touring is almost redundant now. Artists could easily perform a night only show at a preferred venue or a couple of nights at one location (like This Is It) have it filmed and streamed around the world. Also they could tweak everything so it sounds perfect then.

Touring helps a band for sure but it is not necessary. Elvis was famous all over the world without ever performing outside the US. His movies with his songs made sure everybody knew him as well as unique concepts then like the Aloha from Hawaii Concert.

Touring is just a pain in the ass, months away from home, from hotelroom to hotelroom, no or little room for other projects.
It is the same in football, nobody likes to travel around the continent week in week out to play football (apart from fans who just do it as an excuse to drink and behave like shit).
 
SmoothCriminal1995 said:
Mike's biggest mistake was having celebrities talking over Liberian Girl in the video.

As much as I grew up with the video and know it well, I wish Mike would have made a proper video for it
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It was an awful decision to ruin your work of art with random dialogue, it is almost as if he didn‘t respect his own creation.
The celebrity spotting and plot twist was fun though
 
filmandmusic said:
I think touring is almost redundant now.
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It's interesting. So many big tours are happening right now. Taylor's Eras tour is ongoing. Olivia Rodrigo is in the middle of a successful world tour - she just did four nights at MSG. Depeche Mode have a big tour on right now. There's something that keeps people going to these shows. The artists are obliged to do them and they make money but the audience does seem to want this.
 
filmandmusic said:
I think touring is almost redundant now. Artists could easily perform a night only show at a preferred venue or a couple of nights at one location (like This Is It) have it filmed and streamed around the world. Also they could tweak everything so it sounds perfect then.
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Seeing an artist perform on a screen will never compare to the atmosphere of a live concert. I’m sure many people will always prefer going to a concert of their favourite band, rather than watch them perform from home on their phone.
 
zinniabooklover said:
It's interesting. So many big tours are happening right now. Taylor's Eras tour is ongoing. Olivia Rodrigo is in the middle of a successful world tour - she just did four nights at MSG. Depeche Mode have a big tour on right now. There's something that keeps people going to these shows. The artists are obliged to do them and they make money but the audience does seem to want this.
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Yes and they will always keep existing because fans want to see their idols.
But cases can be made about them being absolutely necessary in terms of increased album sales or increased popularity.
someone who is not lazy like I am for example could look into the current 200 most popular artists worldwide and find out how many of them have experience doing a world tour.

I want to make the distinction that I think they are vital for young upcoming artists but less so for established artists.

I also want to point out that the Jackson 5 world tour of the mid 70 didn’t do anything for them, they remained massive in the UK/US only and on a smaller scale Australia. The small venues they played in in distant lands didn’t make any difference.
I wonder if it was successful on an economical basis…
 
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michael was a visual artist. the type of show he had wasn’t suitable for stadiums in my opinion. there was no way to enjoy them unless you were placed in the perfect position to see everything. the large amount of people packed in had to settle for watching the jumbo screens anyway.

I agree that it would be more efficient to film an individual show, and broadcast it worldwide. that way everyone gets to see it, and the artist doesn’t have to deal with the stress of touring. it also gives them more time and energy to devote to other projects. it also would help preserve the vocal chords.

to bring it back to ‘victory’, joe jackson originally wanted to make the show available for pay per view in america. I think that could have been a step in the right direction..
 
83magic said:
I agree that it would be more efficient to film an individual show, and broadcast it worldwide. that way everyone gets to see it, and the artist doesn’t have to deal with the stress of touring. it also gives them more time and energy to devote to other projects. it also would help preserve the vocal chords.
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Well the majority of artists make their money from concerts, not their records. Because they had rip off contracts. That has always been the case, even before the internet and people getting music for free. Even the few who became millionaires did not make as much from their record sales as the record label. It's even worse today with 360 deals where the label gets part of the touring & merchandising income. Many artists are in the hole to their label, because things like music videos are charged to the artist. That's what happened to TLC in the 1990s. They sold multi-platinum and the members didn't make much of anything and were bankrupt. Billy Joel's old manager stole a lot of money from him.

Also there's thousands of albums released every year and a very small percentage get any sort of radio airplay or popularity. Most genres are not played on commercial radio (gospel, folk, zydeco, blues, jazz, "world music", Hawaiian, comedy music, local bands, bossa nova, etc) and so their records don't get the blockbuster sales of whatever is mainstream popular. They have to constantly tour to make a living, same for many oldies acts. Since a lot of today's popular music is programming or is based on samples, there isn't as much demand for session musicians like decades ago. Some of the popular acts today make money from doing other things like acting or selling stuff like Rihanna's makeup line & Dr Dre's Beats headphones
 
DuranDuran said:
Well the majority of artists make their money from concerts, not their records. Because they had rip off contracts. That has always been the case, even before the internet and people getting music for free. Even the few who became millionaires did not make as much from their record sales as the record label. It's even worse today with 360 deals where the label gets part of the touring & merchandising income. Many artists are in the hole to their label, because things like music videos are charged to the artist. That's what happened to TLC in the 1990s. They sold multi-platinum and the members didn't make much of anything and were bankrupt. Billy Joel's old manager stole a lot of money from him.

Also there's thousands of albums released every year and a very small percentage get any sort of radio airplay or popularity. Most genres are not played on commercial radio (gospel, folk, zydeco, blues, jazz, "world music", Hawaiian, comedy music, local bands, bossa nova, etc) and so their records don't get the blockbuster sales of whatever is mainstream popular. They have to constantly tour to make a living, same for many oldies acts. Since a lot of today's popular music is programming or is based on samples, there isn't as much demand for session musicians like decades ago. Some of the popular acts today make money from doing other things like acting or selling stuff like Rihanna's makeup line & Dr Dre's Beats headphones
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Michael had enough material to sit on his ass the rest of his life &still make bank off footage & unreleased music alone
 
SmoothCriminal1995 said:
Mike's biggest mistake was having celebrities talking over Liberian Girl in the video.

As much as I grew up with the video and know it well, I wish Mike would have made a proper video for it
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I legitimately laughed out loud when I read this haha! I swear mate, to this day I don’t understand the rationale behind making that video in that way. I could get behind the cameos, no issues there, but the dialogues was just overkill.
 
Themidwestcowboy said:
I legitimately laughed out loud when I read this haha! I swear mate, to this day I don’t understand the rationale behind making that video in that way. I could get behind the cameos, no issues there, but the dialogues was just overkill.
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Imo.... they could've used jgf for that bs video. Liberian Girl was much more special to not get a proper video. The bs excuse as to "Michael didn't wanna do anymore videos"....... WHAT??? Something was definitely off about that. Got in the chair, no make up, said we had 5mins "🤭🤭 ok everybody that's a wrap" he got out the chair got in the car & went home. I need a true back story. I feel like he just said anything to us.
 
wonderouzmj said:
Michael had enough material to sit on his ass the rest of his life &still make bank off footage & unreleased music alone
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That has nothing to do with my comment or what I was replying to. Mike also made a small percentage compared to what CBS/Sony made off his records. Anyway, most people do not care about unreleased songs by anybody, only hardcore fans. There's a reason that Greatest Hits/Best Of albums & multi-artist compilations like That's What I Call Music are popular. The average person only cares about the songs they heard on the radio.

Physical records/tapes/CDs do not sell that much today including new releases by current artists. The average album today is lucky to go gold. The most recent Adele album did not sell near as much as she did in the past. That's probably why they now count a certain amount of streams as a "sale" of an album. When nothing was bought. Artists make little money from streaming. The streaming service & the record labels make the money. That's one of the reasons that when Prince was alive he always took his music down from places like Youtube, Spotify, Apple, & Facebook. He did later make a deal with Jay-Z's Tidal. But as soon as Prince passed Warner Brothers started uploading his music videos on Youtube.
Themidwestcowboy said:
I legitimately laughed out loud when I read this haha! I swear mate, to this day I don’t understand the rationale behind making that video in that way. I could get behind the cameos, no issues there, but the dialogues was just overkill.
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Not the first music video to have talking over it. Like Phil Collins' Don't Lose My Number in 1985. The same year there's also a Jeff Beck video called Ambitious that has celebrities singing over the track, but are not on the actual song
 
I do think MJ would prefer the conditions of the way performing goes now to how it was back then. Far more able to encompass his vision as well.

Concert going is by no means dead, merely transitioning. Recording shows and then providing a home media release is the ideal path though.
 
BlackAnon said:
What would the concept of the short film be if you had the chance?
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Sorry my friend I've just seen this.

I had an idea years ago, were Mike would be walking around an empty house having flashbacks reminiscing about a relationship he had with a beautiful African woman, as the song plays, then he leaves the empty house and he goes to perform the rest of the song in front of an audience. The song ends, he goes back to his dressing room and the girl is in there waiting for him they kiss and embrace

It'd be similar to the flashbacks in Earth Song and weirdly it'd have a dream like quality to it like the Apollonia sequence in The Godfather. It'd give Mike a chance to act a bit and it would show a different side to him as an artist.

Although it'd probably be too similar to TWYMMF, Who Is It and Dirty Diana. I do wish the video was better though, as much as I enjoy it. Maybe the song would have recognition it deserved. Or even if it'd been first single from the album
 
SmoothCriminal1995 said:
Sorry my friend I've just seen this.

I had an idea years ago, were Mike would be walking around an empty house having flashbacks reminiscing about a relationship he had with a beautiful African woman, as the song plays, then he leaves the empty house and he goes to perform the rest of the song in front of an audience. The song ends, he goes back to his dressing room and the girl is in there waiting for him they kiss and embrace

It'd be similar to the flashbacks in Earth Song and weirdly it'd have a dream like quality to it like the Apollonia sequence in The Godfather. It'd give Mike a chance to act a bit and it would show a different side to him as an artist.

Although it'd probably be too similar to TWYMMF, Who Is It and Dirty Diana. I do wish the video was better though, as much as I enjoy it. Maybe the song would have recognition it deserved. Or even if it'd been first single from the album
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I actually prefer the video we got. Maybe it's lost it's luster some but it's actually an incredible time capsule moment. Most of those stars are gone from this world now anyway... It's a memento to remember them.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I actually prefer the video we got. Maybe it's lost it's luster some but it's actually an incredible time capsule moment. Most of those stars are gone from this world now anyway... It's a memento to remember them.
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It's kinda errie when u think of it like that
 
wonderouzmj said:
It's kinda errie when u think of it like that
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No, it's really not. You scared of dead people on camera? There's movies you shouldn't watch then.

It's sad. But really it's just, iconic. MJ was this iconic and Hollywood was this special. Just like We Are The World, but in miniature.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I do think MJ would prefer the conditions of the way performing goes now to how it was back then. Far more able to encompass his vision as well.
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I think this every time I see footage of someone's arena or stadium show. They are so much better designed these days. People have learnt a lot. The jumbotrons are so much better, bigger and placed so max numbers of people can see them properly. The stage nowadays, often with a walkway, works much better for showcasing the artist. It also means the show looks better on screen. It's just visually more interesting.

I don't know if Michael could have used the walkway idea bc his fans might have stormed the stage to get closer to him. Crowd control for the bouncers would be more challenging, that's for sure. But from an artistic point of view it would have been great for him to have more freedom in how the show was designed. Not slagging off his shows. I'm just saying, things have progressed in recent years and it's a shame bc some of the developments would have suited Michael very well, I think.

Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Concert going is by no means dead, merely transitioning. Recording shows and then providing a home media release is the ideal path though.
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(y)
 
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