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What Are You Listening To?

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filmandmusic said:
He got some cheers out of this german crowd who had at that time probably never heard of Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson live vocals 🔥
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Wait, what? J5 were not big in Germany? The Jacksons were not well known in Germany? Why would the crowd not know who Michael was. I know he wasn't 'Michael Jackson' yet but they would know who he was. Wouldn't they?

I'm confused.

@bluemoon7 - can you shed some light on this? It's not even 10am and I'm already having a gonzo day but f&m has really confused me. Were J5 only big in the UK and not in mainland Europe?

I'm missing something! 🤔
 
As far as I am aware they never scored a hit in germany as the Jackson 5. Their exposure seemed limited to Australia, New Zeeland, UK, Holland and Belgium. I don’t even think Motown tried to get them on the charts in non English speaking countries.
 
zinniabooklover said:
Wait, what? J5 were not big in Germany? The Jacksons were not well known in Germany? Why would the crowd not know who Michael was. I know he wasn't 'Michael Jackson' yet but they would know who he was. Wouldn't they?

I'm confused.

@bluemoon7 - can you shed some light on this? It's not even 10am and I'm already having a gonzo day but f&m has really confused me. Were J5 only big in the UK and not in mainland Europe?

I'm missing something! 🤔
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filmandmusic said:
As far as I am aware they never scored a hit in germany as the Jackson 5. Their exposure seemed limited to Australia, New Zeeland, UK, Holland and Belgium. I don’t even think Motown tried to get them on the charts in non English speaking countries.
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I am not sure, actually. But the fact that I only learned about J5 and The Jacksons in the 80s - AFTER I discovered Michael, speaks for the fact that they weren´t known in Germany very well. I remember that, besides Michael, Jermaine and Pia Zadora had a huge hit in the eighties over here in Germany.

When the BAD album hit, I was 13 / 14 years old, and instantly became a Michael Jackson fan. I knew about Billie Jean and Beat It, but only discovered OFF THE WALL and Michaels whole backstory when I actively looked at Michael´s earlier career.

I have always wondered, but I think BAD was much bigger in Germany than THRILLER at the time. Michael definitely exploded with BAD over here. It was massive!
 
filmandmusic said:
As far as I am aware they never scored a hit in germany as the Jackson 5. Their exposure seemed limited to Australia, New Zeeland, UK, Holland and Belgium. I don’t even think Motown tried to get them on the charts in non English speaking countries.
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bluemoon7 said:
I am not sure, actually. But the fact that I only learned about J5 and The Jacksons in the 80s - AFTER I discovered Michael, speaks for the fact that they weren´t known in Germany very well. I remember that, besides Michael, Jermaine and Pia Zadora had a huge hit in the eighties over here in Germany.

When the BAD album hit, I was 13 / 14 years old, and instantly became a Michael Jackson fan. I knew about Billie Jean and Beat It, but only discovered OFF THE WALL and Michaels whole backstory when I actively looked at Michael´s earlier career. [...]
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This all makes sense. Apologies! Maybe I was being too UK-centric, lol. :D
 
bluemoon7 said:
[...] I have always wondered, but I think BAD was much bigger in Germany than THRILLER at the time. Michael definitely exploded with BAD over here. It was massive!
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This is kinda cool. :)

bluemoon7 said:
They had to suffer German clapping 😭 :ROFLMAO: ( German song clapping rule: every beat in a bar gets a clap, no matter how fast or slow the song, no matter if song has on beat or off beat pattern 🫠)
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Yeah, it was a bit ... I'm not sure what to say! :D

Let's just say it was 'interesting'. :ROFLMAO: 🥰
 
I think only Michael’s mic is on. Jackie only when he gets to sing a line but the overall chorus and background vocals seem to come from the record.
 
filmandmusic said:
I think only Michael’s mic is on. Jackie only when he gets to sing a line but the overall chorus and background vocals seem to come from the record.
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That's how it sounds to me.

I'm still intrigued by all of this. Just found this little piece:

soulmusicsongs.com

German Motown

Nowadays, it’s taken for granted that American music will be produced in English and worldwide marketed in the same language. However, that wasn’t always the case. In the mid-1960s, Berry Gordy - the...
soulmusicsongs.com soulmusicsongs.com

@bluemoon7 - FYI
 
zinniabooklover said:
That's how it sounds to me.

I'm still intrigued by all of this. Just found this little piece:

soulmusicsongs.com

German Motown

Nowadays, it’s taken for granted that American music will be produced in English and worldwide marketed in the same language. However, that wasn’t always the case. In the mid-1960s, Berry Gordy - the...
soulmusicsongs.com soulmusicsongs.com

@bluemoon7 - FYI
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I am fairly certain Motown did not see any value in trying to break the German, French, Spanish and Italian markets so the Jackson 5 had no exposure there. It costs a lot of money to break a foreign market especially back in the “old world”. Eastern Europe with the Iron Curtain and all was almost impossible to break for other reasons.
They could have had limited success like young Michael scored a massive hit with Ben in Belgium and Holland (these countries were under huge influence from America after the war) but he was very much a one hit wonder in some European regions until Thriller came along.

Even the likes of Elvis didn’t score truckloads of nr 1 hits in Italy or Germany. Different eras really, the world was a lot bigger figuratively.
 
filmandmusic said:
I am fairly certain Motown did not see any value in trying to break the German, French, Spanish and Italian markets so the Jackson 5 had no exposure there. It costs a lot of money to break a foreign market especially back in the “old world”. Eastern Europe with the Iron Curtain and all was almost impossible to break for other reasons.
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They did try in the mid-sixties, it seems. I found a little bit about them releasing stuff in Italy, Germany and France in the mid-sixties. They were going to try Spain, too, apparently but I couldn't find anything solid about that.

filmandmusic said:
They could have had limited success like young Michael scored a massive hit with Ben in Belgium and Holland (these countries were under huge influence from America after the war) but he was very much a one hit wonder in some European regions until Thriller came along.
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Very true. Big chunks of Europe were much more resistant to 'cultural imperialism' from America than the UK was. We just caved in. :ROFLMAO:

filmandmusic said:
Even the likes of Elvis didn’t score truckloads of nr 1 hits in Italy or Germany. Different eras really, the world was a lot bigger figuratively.
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(y)
 
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