)On the other hand, I found it strange that he wanted to relaunch in London of all places, when the English tabloid press started all the junk about him in 85/86 in the first place and kept on right up to the end.Yeah that's what I mean, they started to snub him in the mid '80s, although I don't know why, he was loved everywhere else in the world, always found americans to be strange people personally (ducks for cover from all the angry americans about to hurl abuse at me
In general, people in the USA never cared about Michael or any other particular entertainer. Since 1980 there's been over 200 million people in the states and even more today. The biggest selling albums here are either Thriller or The Eagles Greatest Hits 1 and they're currently around 29 million. Those albums probably don't have that much overlap in people owning both. There's too many different kinds of people for there to be a collective taste for the majority of them. Even if you determine what's popular by the mainstream, that really means what is popular with white people. With movies, very few with a cast that is primarily non-white become blockbusters. They're labeled "black movies" or "Chinese movies". Most people don't pay attention to whatever is popular on the radio or the Billboard charts. Garth Brooks was also a big seller here and he probably isn't selling to a lot of same people who bought Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd or To The Extreme by Vanilla Ice or Metallica albums. Progressive rock, goth music, & heavy metal sell mainly to certain audiences. There's acts who are really popular with certain ethnicities like Selena, Vicente Fernandez, or Juan Luis Guerra. There's a whole separate Latin Grammy show. There's genres more popular in certain areas of the US like zydeco, heartland rock, and Miami Bass. There's been popular acts who had little media and radio attention like the Grateful Dead. They were more popular with concerts than records. Grateful Dead only had 1 Top 40 radio hit and it came in the mid 1980s, when the group originated in the 1960s. BB King became a millionaire performing blues and known in many countries. Blues has never had much Top 40 airplay. Blues influenced acts like Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton got the big sales and airplay.
You just answered your own question. :rofl: I mentioned that most NJS acts did not crossover and the album of the year is pretty much safe popular mainstream music like Wilson Phillips, Paul Simon, & Mariah Carey. NJS is too "urban" for that. Even Milli Vanilli, regardless of who's singing, was just dance pop with a little rap in it. They won a Grammy. Acts who are mostly known to the R&B audience is not going to be nominated for album of the year. There's an R&B category. Why do you think that back then R&B acts had to crossover to the pop chart? A lot of them had to become a big hit on the R&B chart before they got Top 40 airplay and then they couldn't be too R&B or funky. The first rap Grammy was given to DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, who sold a lot and their image had enough general appeal that they got a TV show on a major network. NBC wouldn't have offered a show to the Beastie Boys or Public Enemy. Kid & Play also had a safe image and they got a movie House Party, which became a hit. House Party was originally offered to Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince. Nobody ever said the Grammys picked hip or experimental music. It's a popularity contest and always was. Paul Simon thanked Stevie Wonder for not releasing an album one year he won, lol. The awards and performances that are broadcast are the popular mainstream acts. The other awards are given before the TV broadcast and maybe the winners are listed at the bottom of the screen on TV.
It does not matter what you or I think. The Grammy voters are generally older people who are less likely to be into NJS or grunge or even listened to it. They've heard of Quincy Jones though. Most of the singles released in the US were the New Jack songs and most the other non-NJS songs either were not singles or they didn't get much airplay. What is popular in Europe does not matter as the Grammys is for music in the US.
What's your point? Vanilla Ice's To The Extreme sold over 10 million in the US and it was not nominated for album of the year. Quincy is more likely to be listened to by the older voters than Vanilla Ice. They're more likely to listen to Steely Dan (who won) than Eminem. Do you really think the voters, no matter how old they are, actually listen to everything that is nominated in all categories? Jimmy Sturr used to win the polka award every year, lol. Also did Dangerous sell in Europe because it was NJS or because it was a Michael Jackson album and would sell anyway
Garth Brooks was different than the usual country act in that he styled his concerts from rock concerts. He said KISS was an influence. I think that helped him get an audience that usually didn't buy country music. Same for Shania Twain, and her music was more pop than traditional country. Not many other country singers wore cornrows, lol. Most country acts before Garth just stood there and sang or played.
I said that NJS was not mainstream enough for album of the year. Mainstream does not necessarily mean the biggest seller, but the type of music known in general by the voters. Metallica sold a lot of albums, but Bon Jovi is more likely to be known by the voters and general public. Metallica primarily sells to a niche audience, even if that audience is millions. Thrash metal in general is not mainstream. The type of music that Wilson Phillips makes is more likely to be nominated for album of the year than Bobby Brown's. Bobby is more likely to be nominated in the R&B category, even though his album crossed over. Hence his album is not mainstream by Grammy criteria, it's R&B. R&B as a genre is not mainstream, even though there are R&B acts who are mainstream and sold a lot, same with country. That's why there's a separate chart for it with many popular acts on R&B radio who didn't get any (or little) Top 40 airplay. So NJS is not mainstream in the same way, even though there's NJS songs that became pop hits. Wilson Phillips are automatically mainstream even if they flopped. They're a pop girl group that can appeal to the adult contemporary audience as well. "Mainstream" does not need to "crossover".
It's possible that the English are so used to it that they know better. I remember learning about the British tabloid press in High school in the 70's. The problem in America is that the mainstream news realized there was an appetite for salacious news with the new 24 hour news channels and they went where the money was. We hadn't become accustomed to a difference.
