mj_frenzy;4235426 said:
I am not looking for any way to diminish MJ.
What I am saying is that if Frank Dileo had never proposed that video & had never pressed MJ for shooting it, the ‘Thriller’ video would have never existed.
Who fronted how much money (for that video) was a rather secondary matter which would have been resolved in one way or another.
That not true, at least according Bruce Swieden and Quincy Jones, we have just one source for this claim, Dileo himself, so imo not really credible, specially because he have said that after the Jackson death, for Bruce and Quincy quotes, see that here:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowb...ler-video-changed-face-music-nearly-made.html
"Bruce continued: 'Michael always wanted to make movies really as well as record records. Michael wanted to make a video that was a complete story, like a mini-movie… and that is what he did. Thriller was the perfect vehicle for that.'"
Quincy Jones:
https://www.nme.com/news/music/michael-jackson-25-1217514
"recalled the making of the video.
“Michael had no idea what we were doing there, man, with ‘Thriller’,” he said, reports The Hollywood Reporter. “You know, with Vincent Price there and Edgar Allan Poe narration, and stuff like that. There’s crazy stuff on there. And people didn’t get it until, I’d say, eight months later.” "
So these two quotes seem to prove that a music video for Thriller, at least potentially, was already in place during the recording scession of the song, there are also the fact that Michael have already done a very short movie with the song "Can you feel it", so it was not something new for him, it was also his decision to hire Landis because he loved the Werewolf in London movie, he co-wrote the story etc..., so for me these elements speak for themselves.
mj_frenzy;4235650 said:
Co-credits that people deserved to have on MJ’s certain songs, they eventually did not get them.
Check out musicians from whom MJ took certain elements without their permission, or he did not credit them rightfully on certain songs.
One example is, of course, the Cameroonian musician Manu Dibango, whose "mama-say mama-sa mama-coo-sa" hook (from his 1972 'Soul Makossa' song) was used without his permission in ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin’.
MJ himself admitted that he borrowed the hook with that line. MJ eventually settled out of court.
Well I know very well this case, first no, Dibango in his song don't say "mama-say mama-sa mama-coo-sa", it was Michael, Dibango say: "Mamako-mamasa-mako-makossa", there are Mamasa, and maybe two "Mama" who comeback in the two version, the problem makossa is the name of a musical style, the traduction is "I dance", so that real words not created by Dibango (used multiples time before him, in songs too), also Jackson say "Macoosa", not "makossa", the sound is different; a strong inspiration, yes, but he didn't take it directly; and he could have changed very easily with other african sound words.
For the Rythm, the chorus etc... of the two songs, they are completly different; see yourself the part of Dibango song (in the intro of Makossa):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWK_Josc0Og
Jackson (around 4min40):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KWf_-ofYgI&index=39&list=LLlqELlQYeoNb9gBi_rnA5Gg&t=0s
If it's an a copy, so we can say the same thing for Heartbreak Hotel because that have the same title that the Elvis song, also to settle in court mean nothing, just they have found a compromise; I would like to put a quote about this subject:
https://www.loudersound.com/features/prog-god-2016-jon-anderson-in-his-own-words
"There’s my classic story of how we inspired Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Quincy [Jones] told me that he and Michael had been listening to our [Jon & Vangelis’] album The Friends Of Mr. Cairo. They took the riff and made it funky for Billie Jean. Quincy said he’d been recording our song State Of Independence with Donna Summer, and I said he had an incredible guy singing backing vocals. He said, ‘That guy was Michael – we were both digging your album!’ So that’s kinda cool, that cross-pollination in music. Yes were always doing things like that: jazz fusion, classical fusion. "
Imo that the difference between take inspiration and to copy, imo for the "Mama-say", it was an inspiration, not a direct copy.
For the album Thriller, well Temperton himself say Jackson was the force behind the project, yes he was not alone, but it was clearly the main force, for example it was more or less his decision, with the inspiration of "this place hotel", to turn starlight into an horror song.
http://im4mj.blogspot.com/2013/09/quincy-jones-bruce-swedien-rod.html
“He always sat on top of the beat and really pushed it along and gave it a lot of melody,” described the British songwriter Rod Temperton, responsible for penning classic tunes including Rock with You, Off the Wall and Thriller.
“Writing for him, I knew he loved songs with a strong melody with a lot of short notes in it. The other thing I noticed about Michael is that he loved a lot of vocal harmonies on the song, so that was something I included. I always tried to make the words melt into the melody.”
“There was no one like him,” Jones said. “He focused on everything he did and he would never give up. I have never seen anyone like him.” Temperton believes Jackson’s personality was largely responsible for the magic on the albums.
“All the inspiration was driven by Michael,” said Temperton. “He was a very quiet man off the stage but once that tape rolls, you realise no one has that electric energy that he had.”