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Would your opinion on Victory change if Michael was the lead singer?

DuranDuran said:
If a lot of people wanted to watch the Victory concerts, they'd watch it anyway no matter what the video quality. They don't. Very few Jacksons or J5 videos of any kind have a whole lot of views on Youtube. I Want You Back from the Indiana TV special has over a hundred million views and the video quality of that isn't HD.

As far as "most fans here" goes, that has nothing to do with the general public because most people do not post on fansites, A lot of the general public might post on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or Facebook. This site is not even as busy as it was years ago when more people posted here, and not just in the Mike only section.
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Sorry to the very late reply, but honestly that have nothing to do with general audience disdain for the Victory tour or The Jacksons, it's just the fact the tour is not in the official channel of Michael Jackson (and not in the Jacksons too) unlike the solo tours and the fact that the bad algorithm of the "Jacksons" name in comparaison to "Michael Jackson" caused by internet/Google/youtube or Spotify.

That true for Michael Jackson solo tour too, for example Bad tour made 33 millions view but far less views than Dangerous tour with 64 millions views in the official channel, there are no clear reasons for that (except better "key words" etc...), I doubt the general audience made a distinction between these two tours and Bad is more popular than Dangerous anyways, in comparaison there are not a strong difference between History tour in a non official account (6 millions views) in comparaison to Victory tour (4,5 millions), so that very close despite to be The Jacksons tour.

The Jacksons Blame of Boogie music video (96 millions views) have also more views that lot of Michael video like Liberian Girl, Another Part of Me etc... or Can you Feel it music video too weirdly, so that really a problem with the Jacksons, some of their songs like the Can you Feel it audio have also more view than lot of Michael song audio.

If the tour would have been called "Michael Jackson and the Jacksons victory" and not The Jacksons there would have been far more views, because peoples don't necessary knows or write the group names, for them to write "Michael Jackson" is enough to have all the results, Victory is just after Thriller, it was considered like his most successful tour during this times and probably also after (in proportion of the numbers of concerts) so it's not a problem that it was with The Jacksons or a RnB group...it's just the nature of research with internet and the lack of promo from the estates since decades for The Jacksons, it's the same problem with Lionel Richie and the Commodores for example.
 
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blair said:
it's the same problem with Lionel Richie and the Commodores for example.
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Lionel is not the only lead singer of Commodores. So calling it "Lionel Richie & The Commodores" makes no sense. On the earlier albums, Lionel was mostly the sax player. Also the Commodores were more popular (on mainstream Top 40) than The Jacksons on Epic. The thing is that Lionel today only performs the band's ballad hits and not the funk tracks like Fancy Dancer, X Rated Movie, & Too Hot Ta Trot. Oldies radio don't really play those songs much either, only Brick House. Lionel is not the lead on Brick House, drummer Walter Orange is.

A lot of people call both versions of the group "Jackson 5", especially later generations who weren't around then. "Jackson 5" is a more unique name than "The Jacksons", which is like "Prince". Type in the name "Prince" and you get all kinds of stuff not related to Prince Rogers Nelson.
 
My comparaison were more about the success of Lionel Richie in solo in comparaison to his group, I disagree he was clearly the main lead singer behind their biggest hits like "Lady" and three Time a Lady, he was the main attraction of the group.

For the comparaison of the sales, I'm not sure where you have seen that but The Jacksons in term of sales were way bigger, in general they were around 3/4 millions albums since Destiny, for what I have seen The Commodores biggest selling album is Natural High with a little more of 1 millions.

I don't see your point about their names and the comparaison with Prince, if you write Prince song or concert, you will find Prince the singer, if you write Michael Jackson, you will don't find directly The Jacksons.
 
blair said:
My comparaison were more about the success of Lionel Richie in solo in comparaison to his group, I disagree he was clearly the main lead singer behind their biggest hits like "Lady" and three Time a Lady, he was the main attraction of the group.

For the comparaison of the sales, I'm not sure where you have seen that but The Jacksons in term of sales were way bigger, in general they were around 3/4 millions albums since Destiny, for what I have seen The Commodores biggest selling album is Natural High with a little more of 1 millions.

I don't see your point about their names and the comparaison with Prince, if you write Prince song or concert, you will find Prince the singer, if you write Michael Jackson, you will don't find directly The Jacksons.
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I said nothing about the sales, but about Top 40 airplay. Before sometime in the 1980s, Motown rarely reported sales of any of their releases no matter who it was. When they started in the 1980s, it was only for some of the stuff Motown was releasing then, they still never put out the sales numbers for their older catalog. The Commodores got a lot of Top 40 pop airplay, primarily with their ballads. The Jacksons less so in the USA, they got more R&B radio airplay.

Lionel is not the main lead singer of the band, maybe he was on the singles, but on their albums there's multiple leads. Usually Walter & Lionel, but sometimes a couple of the others. The Commodores also have several instrumental songs. Their first big hit Machine Gun is instrumental. It's not like Diana Ross & The Supremes where all of the leads are by Diana. In some cases, the other Supremes are not on the songs at all, it's really The Andantes on backgrounds. Also, the Commodores continued to release records after Lionel left, just like many other groups. Such as Black Sabbath, Van Halen, Genesis, Journey (Steve Perry is not an original member although they had the most success with him), The Temptations, etc. Lionel's replacement J.D. Nicholas was in the band way longer than Lionel was a member.

If I type in "George Harrison" the main choices are not going to be The Beatles or Traveling Wilburys. If I type in "Peter Gabriel", it won't bring up Genesis. Peter had more success as a solo act than with Genesis. Genesis was more popular with Phl Collins as the singer. Michael Jackson is not supposed to bring up The Jacksons or Jackson 5, they are 2 different acts. If the name "Michael Jackson" is needed to get them attention, that pretty much proves that people in general are not that interested in them other than a few really popular songs. It's not hard to type in Jackson 5 or The Jacksons. Michael Jackson has more letters than both. The entire idea of this thread that Victory might get a different reception if Mike sang all of the leads, is more proof.
 
Okay thanks for the details about the charts etc...we can say both groups were close in popularity (you seemed to imply that the Commodores was far more popular and that the Jacksons are a niche group), but my main point is the problems how to find Lionel Richie songs with the Commodores if you didn't know who are the Commodores, that the same problems with Michael and The Jacksons, for exemple the general viewers wanted to find "the Thriller tour" they will never find the Victory tour, which is basically the Thriller tour, if they didn't know to write the good terms, because peoples are really lazy and we talk a groups with no promo since decades, not lot of peoples today know that adult Michael was part of a group

There are also others factors who play a role, see my example difference of views between Bad and dangerous tour, or the fact there no big difference between History tour and Victory tour in term of views, you can write yourself Michael Jackson and The Jacksons, the video of Motown 25 and the 2001 shows have more views that the ones with The Jacksons despite to have a longer titles.

For the Victory album I think it was their best chances to break their RnB image and enter to the general public, I mean it was their best selling with no physical promo from the brothers, without the help of both lead singer, Michael and Jermaine, I really like the album but it was very experimental in the context, and I don't see how a biggest part of Michael in the songs and be part of the music video wouldn't have boosted the sales, not in the level of Thriller, but I can easily see something close to Off the Wall or Bad.
 
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The idea that any record with Mike's name on it will have blockbuster sales didn't help the Farewell My Summer Love album in 1984. It had Mike's name on it, not The Jacksons, In the US, the title track had some radio airplay and reached the Top 20 of the Adult Contemporary chart. The album itself didn't do much business. None of Mike's 1970s solo albums on Motown get that much attention. They probably get less attention than some of the brothers albums. Some people don't know those 4 albums exist and think Off The Wall is his solo debut. Others consider them Jackson 5 albums since the other brothers can be heard on some of the songs. The groupThey don't know that Jackie had a solo album on Motown either. Get It by Stevie Wonder was released as a single in the US around 1988. It got to number 4 on the R&B chart, but only #80 on the Hot 100. Get It was a new song, not old unreleased stuff like Farewell My Summer Love. In the 1990s, Mike's solo single Jam was also a bigger R&B hit than a Top 40 hit.
 
Yes but in the same time he have clearly helped lot of songs to perform better during these time (Rockwell, Rebbie, Paul etc...), see his various duets, for "farewell the summer love" it was clearly a kid Michael and from old material, that nothing to do with his adult style of music, that also different situation that The Jacksons album with his full commitment for the songs, the promo, the music video etc...he could have helped with his own production, I see your point of view and that interesting but during Thriller he has clearly another level, see how peoples have gone nuts when they see them together in comparaison to others artists during Motown 25, I can argue that during Bad it was no more the case because of already too much scandal around his names.
 
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blair said:
Yes but in the same time he have clearly helped lot of songs to perform better during these time (Rockwell, Rebbie, Paul etc...), see his various duets, for "farewell the summer love" it was clearly a kid Michael and from old material, that nothing to do with his adult style of music, that also different situation that The Jacksons album with his full commitment for the songs, the promo, the music video etc...he could have helped with his own production, I see your point of view and that interesting but during Thriller he has clearly another level, see how peoples have gone nuts when they see them together in comparaison to others artists during Motown 25, I can argue that during Bad it was no more the case because of already too much scandal around his names.
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New Edition was popular at the time though. At first, some people thought Candy Girl was the Jackson 5.

Paul McCartney still got radio airplay in the early 1980s, he didn't help from Mike to have a hit. Paul's radio popularity started to fall off in the late 1980s, in the US at least. Paul was still popular as a touring act, but he didn't really have much Top 40 radio airplay until decades later with the song he did with Rihanna & Kanye West. Paul aged out of Top 40, pretty much like all mainstream popular singers & bands eventually do.
 
Of course that have helped Paul McCartney "Pipe of Laces", it was the first single and in the same Time his biggest hit, there are a big music video with Michael, that have boosted the sales of this album, I have never said Paul needed him each times to have success, but this time that have helped alot.
 
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