Michael's music(pop) against rock music. and kids

Now as many of you may know I just started a thread on MJ lip syncing and I mentioned that to was bought up in an argument with some friends.

Now there was another thing that was bothering me that I wanted to get your opinions on.

They claimed that MJ was not as good as (they put it) "Rock Gods". When they mean rock gods, they mean people like the Beatles, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, etc. etc.

I obviously tore them aprt in terms of sales, achievements, and overall impact. They still argued their case.

But they were talking about how MJ was pop, and pop was fluff and for children.

I tried to counter that.

And this is not the first time I heard this, I have heard this from many people online.

They be-little MJ and his music becuase it is pop and not rock.

What do you think about that?

And There was this one person online who tried SO HARD, and I mean really hard to try and prove the point that MJ only appealed to kids.


That brings me back to the first part of the post about rock v.s. pop. I mean this person tried to make the point that pop is for kids and rock is mature and for adults.

And that MJ used stage props, lasers, smoke bombs, fireworks, etc etc. on his shows just for kids. I mean if you heard the amount of BS that this person said, it was appalling. And tried to say that the adults in the audience were the parents bringing their kids to the event.

What do you think about this whole thing? Rock v.s. pop and kid music v.s. adult music and where Mj fits in.

If that was the case why did the best rock guitarists all feel honored to work with him? Seems they would've run the other way when he asked.

this is a long worn argument. some people have never accepted pop. the truth is you have to have talent to really make such a huge impact in the world of pop music. and michael jackson was at the very top. his very best equals anything put out by any artist - period.

^^^^^^ So right

Anyone else have an opinion on this?

KB50MJ said:

Now as many of you may know I just started a thread on MJ lip syncing and I mentioned that to was bought up in an argument with some friends.

Now there was another thing that was bothering me that I wanted to get your opinions on.

They claimed that MJ was not as good as (they put it) "Rock Gods". When they mean rock gods, they mean people like the Beatles, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, etc. etc.

I obviously tore them aprt in terms of sales, achievements, and overall impact. They still argued their case.

But they were talking about how MJ was pop, and pop was fluff and for children.

I tried to counter that.

And this is not the first time I heard this, I have heard this from many people online.

They be-little MJ and his music becuase it is pop and not rock.

What do you think about that?

And There was this one person online who tried SO HARD, and I mean really hard to try and prove the point that MJ only appealed to kids.


That brings me back to the first part of the post about rock v.s. pop. I mean this person tried to make the point that pop is for kids and rock is mature and for adults.

And that MJ used stage props, lasers, smoke bombs, fireworks, etc etc. on his shows just for kids. I mean if you heard the amount of BS that this person said, it was appalling. And tried to say that the adults in the audience were the parents bringing their kids to the event.

What do you think about this whole thing? Rock v.s. pop and kid music v.s. adult music and where Mj fits in.

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:doh:

As far as the special effects go, how many rockers use pyrotechnics?

mnj1985 said:

:doh:

As far as the special effects go, how many rockers use pyrotechnics?

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None as fr as I know.

Why? Do you think that makes MJ less of a great artist or something?

bob dylan, led zeppelin or whatever are musicians, michael is also one of the best dancer of all time, people always forget this. when you talk about michael you have to focus on his art which is a mixture of music and dance and visionary...a comparison with other great musician is not needed, he is in a league of his own.

I think people say Rock is better because it was the first sort of Main stream Music along with R N B,Pop only came about in the 60s Rock Music has been going since the 40s and 50s, Rap/Hip-Hop e.t.c. are all late 70s/80s i would argue that Rock is far better than Pop any day of the week, i don't care about a particular artists achievements or record sales its all about the Music right?. I know Michael liked Rock Music aswell hes abit like myself when it comes to Music by having a Diverse taste and appreciate other genres (i don't appreciate rap or hip hop though ). i still think that Rock Music is far better than Pop its more natural sounding well the older stuff is not all this Slipknot and My Chemical Romance B.S. lol

I think this argument is stupid and pointless. It's obvious this person you were talking to doesn't like pop music at all; why try to compare MJ with a bunch of artists who are in a different music genre and category from him? They are/were rock, MJ was mainly pop, r'n'b and soul. Simple as that.

I wouldn't let myself get worked up over something as silly as this if I were you KB50MJ.

Yeah, MJ only appealed to kids. That's how he got the biggest selling album of all time. Oh no, wait a minute...

:smilerolleyes:

KB50MJ said:

Now as many of you may know I just started a thread on MJ lip syncing and I mentioned that to was bought up in an argument with some friends.

Now there was another thing that was bothering me that I wanted to get your opinions on.

They claimed that MJ was not as good as (they put it) "Rock Gods". When they mean rock gods, they mean people like the Beatles, Elvis, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, etc. etc.

I obviously tore them aprt in terms of sales, achievements, and overall impact. They still argued their case.

But they were talking about how MJ was pop, and pop was fluff and for children.

I tried to counter that.

And this is not the first time I heard this, I have heard this from many people online.

They be-little MJ and his music becuase it is pop and not rock.

What do you think about that?

And There was this one person online who tried SO HARD, and I mean really hard to try and prove the point that MJ only appealed to kids.


That brings me back to the first part of the post about rock v.s. pop. I mean this person tried to make the point that pop is for kids and rock is mature and for adults.

And that MJ used stage props, lasers, smoke bombs, fireworks, etc etc. on his shows just for kids. I mean if you heard the amount of BS that this person said, it was appalling. And tried to say that the adults in the audience were the parents bringing their kids to the event.

What do you think about this whole thing? Rock v.s. pop and kid music v.s. adult music and where Mj fits in.

Click to expand...

Tell your friends to go here:
http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=73813

and maybe they'll understand on their own.

The argument about MJ only appealing to kids is deeply flawed.

Thriller has sold a combined total of almost 5million albums in the last 2 years - a good achievement for a current album and amazing for a 25 year old album.

Do they think only kids were buying it?? That's ridiculous.
What about the other albums he has sold? (more than 12million in total this year ) Do they think only kids bought those too? Even more ridiculous.

Michael Jackson's fan base started building in the 60s and there are still many active fan members from that era. Michael Jackson isn't even considered by record stores or Sony as being a kids artist. His marketing hasn't even been targetted at kids since Dangerous.
HIStory, Blood, Invincibe, No.1, The Essential were all predominantly advertised in the UK during Coronation Street. Not the target audience for kids.

Michael Jackson represented more than just pop music. His music has included elements of rock, soul, rnb, disco, classical and hip hop. He has contributed with artists from all those genres. He started making cross-genre music in the early 80s, before many other black artists started it. Dirty Diana for example is really a rock song. For a black man to sing that song is amazing to me and I don't think I have EVER heard a black man sing a song like that before or since.

bobmoo79 said:

The argument about MJ only appealing to kids is deeply flawed.

Thriller has sold a combined total of almost 5million albums in the last 2 years - a good achievement for a current album and amazing for a 25 year old album.

Do they think only kids were buying it?? That's ridiculous.
What about the other albums he has sold? (more than 12million in total this year ) Do they think only kids bought those too? Even more ridiculous.

Michael Jackson's fan base started building in the 60s and there are still many active fan members from that era. Michael Jackson isn't even considered by record stores or Sony as being a kids artist. His marketing hasn't even been targetted at kids since Dangerous.
HIStory, Blood, Invincibe, No.1, The Essential were all predominantly advertised in the UK during Coronation Street. Not the target audience for kids.

Michael Jackson represented more than just pop music. His music has included elements of rock, soul, rnb, disco, classical and hip hop. He has contributed with artists from all those genres. He started making cross-genre music in the early 80s, before many other black artists started it. Dirty Diana for example is really a rock song. For a black man to sing that song is amazing to me and I don't think I have EVER heard a black man sing a song like that before or since.

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SO true. Thats what I was saying. But this person was hard headed. They made bias remarks like "Led Zeppelin, and other rock gods aren't upset at the fact that MJ sold a gazzilion thriller albums to kids".

I mean no matter how much I tried this person was so hard headed.

And do you knwo what they had the nerve to say? They said that any adult who bought it was buying it for their kids or nephews.

well how about this. Michael turned me into a heavy metal chic.
Michael had rad guitar riffs in his songs
Michael's music is broad.

Michael is universal.

Your friends know nothing about music... lol....

KB50MJ said:

None as fr as I know.

Why? Do you think that makes MJ less of a great artist or something?

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Not at all. My point is that Michael using special effects onstage doesn't lessen his credibility and make him only popular with kids. Many artists (esp. rock artists) use pyrotechnics and special effects in their shows, and plenty of adults are in the audience.

Speaking in general terms, pop is crap while there are many great rock bands.

However, MJ is one of the only few pop singers, that proved that pop can be good too. Yes, most pop artist are commercial crap for feeding horny 15 years old girls (Jonas Brothers, Blink 182, etc...), but MJ's music is deep.

I mostly listen to metal/rock/classic, but MJ has a special place in my "repertoire".

Michael is not purely pop. he's a true cross-over artist.

but pop can indeed be sublime. I love Pet Shop Boys. they're pop gods to me. and I challenge any of these so-called rock gods to write better music than they have for the past 30 years.

to the OP: tell your hard-headed friend to stop comparing genres. it doesn't work. then tell them to go listen to Man in the Mirror or Dirty Diana or Give In To Me and find them lacking.

on the other hand, just let it be. try to not care. he/she's only one person.

Mike was truly a gift. If i were you i simply wouldnt care. I have people who came to me in the past and say man mike is so played out. I'm like what are you crazy. This man influences everything you listen to. I simply say that and walk away lmao. But just let it be. If they think he sucks then fuck it let him think that. But who's # 1 on everybody's list HMMMMM.

Michael Jackson would trow all those they adore with just a finger, anyone is meaningless MUSICALLY compared to Michael cause of this simple fact: Michael was a genius

Michael posessed the ABSOLUTE EAR, thats a quality none of those you named had, Michaels sounds is only for people with a refined ear, sadly you have to born with it and then develop that quality, they just cant understand songs from Michael which are really complex specially after the Dangerous era and the less commercial albums cause lets face it is easier to hear the sound of an electric guitar then songs like Superfly Sister, i guess they have only heard The Way You Make Me Feel and all the more commercial songs, the most wonderful songs from Michael were not released commercially cause people just could not caught all the masterpice together, again you know is a simple thing to hear an electric guitar all loud and an a singer just singing in the same high annoying level then to HEAR ALL THE SOUNDS MJ HAD IN HIS HEAD AND THEN PASSED INTO THE SONGS, your friends may not be able to hear all the sounds, they should clean their ears, but an absolute ear could be really dirty and still hear the most unhearible sounds like a feather falling on the floor, the absolute ear is limited and well yes, the ones lacking that quality would never understand anything Michael Jackson, as for the lyp sync, Michael was not a common singer as i said, Robert Plant way of singing is very easy to sing live, is not a controlled way of singing like Michael Jackson's, Michael sometimes was very tired and just didnt wanted to sing live cause he didnt need to proove anything, however your friends unless there is one little hidden talent there, will never admit Michael is better cause they really believe Led Zeppelin is better, they dont posess the absolute ear, they may be also limited singers and musicians, i dont know if this helped you, but, i think you dont know a lot about music if you didnt knew this by now, one question have you heard all MJ albums???

Many rock fans are snobs. I'm not saying this because I have a problem with rock. On the contrary, I LOVE rock, I'm just saying it like it is. In fact, most fans of any genre you care to mention tend to be prejudiced towards other genres.

I said:
"In fact, most fans of any genre you care to mention tend to be prejudiced towards other genres."

Draliongirl said:

...."again you know is a simple thing to hear an electric guitar all loud and an a singer just singing in the same high annoying level"......"Robert Plant way of singing is very easy to sing live, is not a controlled way of singing like Michael Jackson's"......." however your friends unless there is one little hidden talent there, will never admit Michael is better cause they really believe Led Zeppelin is better, they dont posess the absolute ear, they may be also limited singers and musicians".....

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The perfect illustration of my previous post.

abc123 said:

Many rock fans are snobs. I'm not saying this because I have a problem with rock. On the contrary, I LOVE rock, I'm just saying it like it is. In fact, most fans of any genre you care to mention tend to be prejudiced towards other genres.

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Ugh I agree. I don't have a problem with rock either, in fact I like it very much but rock fans in general seem to be major snobs and have this etlitist attitude. Who cares honestly though? Their opinion isn't of more value than anyone else. Just because they don't like MJ's music doesn't mean many other people don't or that he wasn't very talented. Michael was a true cross over artist as others have said.

Michael is one of the few artists that kids, parents and grandparents could all listen too. It's just silly to say most of his fanbase comprises of kids. Michael started off in the music business as a kid himself, so he has MANY fans who grew up with him that are his age and older. Michael has one of the most diverses fanbases i've ever seen period. People of all races, ages and backgrounds listen to his music. He's one of the few artist who has been able to achieve that and whose music connects with pretty much all generations.

Some rock fans who may not care for Mike or his music at all fail to realize that some of their favorite bands are fans of MJ because of that primal edge to his music and his performances. A lot of artists admire, and might even envy the rawness that the guy exuded on record and on stage. Artists from each and every sub-genre of rock could appreciate and relate to what Michael brought to the music & entertainment world because it was genuine and from the heart.

MJJKingforever said:

Speaking in general terms, pop is crap while there are many great rock bands.

However, MJ is one of the only few pop singers, that proved that pop can be good too. Yes, most pop artist are commercial crap for feeding horny 15 years old girls (Jonas Brothers, Blink 182, etc...), but MJ's music is deep.

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While it is true that there's a lot of crap around when it comes to pop, over the years there's been a lot of quality pop also - the Phil Spector girlgroups (Crystals, Ronettes), the Shangri-Las, the Beach Boys, Abba (much better from a musical perspective than they are given credit for) and so on. As does Indranee I don't really consider MJ a 'pure' pop artist but a crossover artist who does a variety and a mix of styles of which pop is just one ingredient.

The main difference is that generally speaking pop is tune based while rock is guitar riff based. I don't really see why as a genre pop should in principle be inferior to rock (although I agree that there are more great rock acts than pop acts). I'm not convinced that rock is necessarily less commercial than pop. It's just that the promotion for a rock band is different than for a pop act because they appeal to a different demographic. And since so many people love to listen to pop I'm sure that some of those who create it not only do so for the money, but also because they themselves like pop - just like rock artists love what they are doing.

i think some people are biased to the genres they like

Michael Jackson wasn't purely Pop, Michael Jackson was his own genre and his sound dominated popular music.

Pop can mean anything from a genric term for all types of music from Rock, Soul/R&B, Hip Hop, Dance Music etc that means the origins of the music are from youth culture. Pop can mean music that is in the mainstream charts, so that makes the ultimate rock band The Beatles a Pop band because they are the most successful band of all time, and like Michael they started off as teen idols.

Over the last 10yrs the term Pop has been wrongly turned in to a trashy genre, with the likes of Britney Spears, boybands and X Factor/ American Idol type of acts. Where the performers are contrived, lack natural talent and didn't come up through music by playing in clubs etc before they beccame famous. This type of sound is a predictable, safe and manufactered sound of music that already exists.

My view is many kids who feel Rock music the best and most credible music, and consider Michael Jackson pop who just made music for kids don't know f*ck all about music, and my experience with kids who just like Rock or Indie music have a very limited taste and knowledge of music and are completely ignorant about other forms of music that don't appeal to them.

Fact, Michael Jackson has nothing in common with many acts like Britney Spears who is the type of artist people who know little about Michael would align him to, because she dances and lip-syncs. Fact, Michael sang and danced 100% live on every tour priory the the Dangerous and HIStory Tours. Fact, many of Michael's dance moves are improvised and not 100% choreographed unlike many of todays so called Pop acts. Fact, Michael Jackson started his career just like many of these so called more credible rock acts like by playing live in clubs before he became famous.

If Michael was just a pop act, Eddie Van Helen, Steve Stevens and Slash would never have played on Michael albums, and Slash certainly would have performed live with Michael on various concerts and performances. I got in to many artists like The Beatles, Rolling Stones and Sly & The Family Stone from listening to Michael. He was an unlimted artist who could fuse, Rock, Soul, Funk, Disco and Jazz and other music genres to create and new style of music, that changed the face of mainstream music.
My view is all big name music acts from Pink Floyd (who's album Dark Side of The Moon is one of the biggest selling albums of all time) to Led Zeppelin to Radiohead are Pop because everyone knows who they are as that's what popular music is.

benscarr said:

My view is all big name music acts from Pink Floyd (who's album Dark Side of The Moon is one of the biggest selling albums of all time) to Led Zeppelin to Radiohead are Pop because everyone knows who they are as that's what popular music is.

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That's true. Pop music can either mean (pop)ular music or the genre within popular music that is usually referred to as pop. Kinda like the name classical music refers to all art music from the 12th century up till now, but also more specifically refers to the type of art music that was made between 1750 and 1820.

abc123 said:

That's true. Pop music can either mean (pop)ular music or the genre within popular music that is usually referred to as pop. Kinda like the name classical music refers to all art music from the 12th century up till now, but also more specifically refers to the type of art music that was made between 1750 and 1820.

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That's right !

In Michael Jackson's case, I would also say that his image is very important in the way he was perceived, unfortunately overshadowing the music for some people.

It is difficult to explain why, certain things come to my mind, like the way he dressed sometimes, the hair and make up sometimes, the fact that he didn't talk to the media...

I don't know, it's hard to explain, his image certainly is a part of the explanation.