HIStory
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Re: Debates with the public
If I am not mistaken you are referring to the fact that during the Jacksons days and OTW era there were more black people in his concert audience and then during Bad there were more white people. What I do not understand is why do you think that is because anyone was not allowed to do anything?
Who pulled them away and how?
As far as I see the change in the demographic make-up of his audience is due to the simple fact that he gained more mainstream popularity. And when that happened I don't think his black audience disappeared, it's just that white people joined as well and since there are demographically more white people in America than black, you will see more white faces in the audience when an artist is that mainstream.
I have never really seen references to the ethnicity of their audiences in any documentary or specials - whether black or white.
But you know, exactly in Michael's case you can observe that the other way around. Where his OTW and Thriller and maybe Bad era is acknowledged and constantly praised but they often "forget" about Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible. There is a documentary about him, The One, that was released in 2004 and they talk about J5-Bad in detail but when they get to Dangerous all they mention is Black or White and his later albums are not even mentioned at all. Especially in the US they just love to reduce him to those three Quincy Jones-produced albums.
This is where your whole argument is messy to me. How were these artists not allowed to function freely? How were they forced to do a certain kind of music? IMO Michael always did the kind of music he liked. Obviously, he was influenced by the musical trends of any given time, like most artists are. But he always stuck to the kind of music he liked. For example he never did EDM because he did not like it, no matter how trendy it was at certain times. When artists like Usher turned EDM because that was the trendy thing to do Michael still stuck to R&B on Invincible (with maybe the exception of Heartbreaker). I don't think he ever did music that he did not like or that he was "forced" to do rather than what he liked. (With the exception of allowing remixes of his music that he admittedly did not like himself, but that's different. Those are just remixes, not the original songs.)
And I don't get what any of this has to do with tabloids and MJ's life being cut short.
And I feel your argument is contradictory. At times you seem to consider Thriller his greatest album BECAUSE it sold the best. You always bring up sales figures as the measure for everything and how MJ lost a lot of his record buyers between Thriller and Bad.
Please realize that what you actually value with the praise of Thriller's sales is mainstream success, crossing over and the like! But then you talk about crossing over as if it is a bad thing. I don't get it. He did Beat It to cross over. Is that as much of a bad thing as you suggest crossing over is? I mean the result is a timeless classic, so what's the problem with that? And BTW it was Quincy who told him he should write a rock song. Please realize that without crossing over Thriller would not have been the success story it was and it would not have been the same album either. It probably would not have Beat It, The Girl Is Mine, maybe not even Human Nature. So is it a good thing then that he crossed over or not? It did not compromise his music, it added to his diversity instead. Songs like Beat It, Dirty Diana, Give In To Me showed he could rock like any rock star. I think it's a good thing, not a bad thing when an artist shows diversity and doesn't just stay in one genre all the time.
Michael was never a strictly R&B artist. Already Motown always seeked how to "cross over". In a way I get it that in an ideal world artists should not "cross over", but in this world black artists always had it more difficult to find mainstream success than white ones. That is simply because of demographical facts - ie. that there are more white people in Western record buying countries than black people. And white people also tend to be more wealthy - ie. their record buying potential is bigger. And they tend to have a different taste in music. Of course, you cannot generalize that to everyone. There are black rock fans and white R&B fans, but generally you can observe that certain genres are liked mainly by black people and certain genres are liked mainly by white people. That's just the way it is and that is why black dominated genres such as funk have always been in a disadvantage compared to, say, rock.
But like I said earlier, those 29 million people who bought Thriller weren't MJ's core, black R&B audience, but mainly bandwagon jumpers. His core, R&B audience in the US would have been around 8 million, if we go by OTW's sales. And he produced similar sales with Bad and Dangerous as well - only with the latter two albums he produced bigger sales overseas.
And I don't think he compromised himself on later albums and cut himself off from his R&B roots. Heck, I'd say Dangerous is a more black album (NJS, gospel, hip-hop, R&B) than Bad which is more pop.
compare who we see in the audience of both clips.....
balance was lost out......this dynamic occurred with Lionel, Whitney on a similar scale and Prince on a smaller scale when the late 80s arrived....
that's not by accident.....the root of the criticisms these artists faced are based on a system that pulls these artists away from their beginning support and dont' allow them to function properly where people can support them w/out the divisions that arise...
If I am not mistaken you are referring to the fact that during the Jacksons days and OTW era there were more black people in his concert audience and then during Bad there were more white people. What I do not understand is why do you think that is because anyone was not allowed to do anything?
it's "how" it happens that becomes the problem, because as soon as these artists reached their apex commercially, they were pulled away from their original audience to where balance is lost out on.....
Who pulled them away and how?
As far as I see the change in the demographic make-up of his audience is due to the simple fact that he gained more mainstream popularity. And when that happened I don't think his black audience disappeared, it's just that white people joined as well and since there are demographically more white people in America than black, you will see more white faces in the audience when an artist is that mainstream.
if we look at stories today about Michael or Whitney, specials about them, or anything in references to them, the original audience, the black audience rarely if ever gets acknowledged or mentioned
I have never really seen references to the ethnicity of their audiences in any documentary or specials - whether black or white.
Here's a perfect example, E hollywood did a special on Whitney Houston earlier this year and a participant on the special said that Whitney Houston's first major hit was "How Will I Know", which was a pop hit......but the truth was that Whitney had two major hits before in "You Give Good Love" and "Saving All My Love For You", which received initial support from R&B radio, and this is why the special never acknowledged it....it's small moments like that which leads to what happened to her 4 years later at the Soul Train Awards...there's always a cause that leads to these effects...
But you know, exactly in Michael's case you can observe that the other way around. Where his OTW and Thriller and maybe Bad era is acknowledged and constantly praised but they often "forget" about Dangerous, HIStory and Invincible. There is a documentary about him, The One, that was released in 2004 and they talk about J5-Bad in detail but when they get to Dangerous all they mention is Black or White and his later albums are not even mentioned at all. Especially in the US they just love to reduce him to those three Quincy Jones-produced albums.
if the industry would let these artists, all artists function properly without feeling the need to focus on one area of support, to where they can exist freely, 1.) we would get better music as we did years ago...2.) these artists careers wouldn't be cut short....3.) any criticisms that would exist would mainly be centered around what they are doing professionally rather than being the subject of criticism and tabloid fodder....
there is no way that Michael Jackson should have only existed for 50 years in this world
This is where your whole argument is messy to me. How were these artists not allowed to function freely? How were they forced to do a certain kind of music? IMO Michael always did the kind of music he liked. Obviously, he was influenced by the musical trends of any given time, like most artists are. But he always stuck to the kind of music he liked. For example he never did EDM because he did not like it, no matter how trendy it was at certain times. When artists like Usher turned EDM because that was the trendy thing to do Michael still stuck to R&B on Invincible (with maybe the exception of Heartbreaker). I don't think he ever did music that he did not like or that he was "forced" to do rather than what he liked. (With the exception of allowing remixes of his music that he admittedly did not like himself, but that's different. Those are just remixes, not the original songs.)
And I don't get what any of this has to do with tabloids and MJ's life being cut short.
And I feel your argument is contradictory. At times you seem to consider Thriller his greatest album BECAUSE it sold the best. You always bring up sales figures as the measure for everything and how MJ lost a lot of his record buyers between Thriller and Bad.
Please realize that what you actually value with the praise of Thriller's sales is mainstream success, crossing over and the like! But then you talk about crossing over as if it is a bad thing. I don't get it. He did Beat It to cross over. Is that as much of a bad thing as you suggest crossing over is? I mean the result is a timeless classic, so what's the problem with that? And BTW it was Quincy who told him he should write a rock song. Please realize that without crossing over Thriller would not have been the success story it was and it would not have been the same album either. It probably would not have Beat It, The Girl Is Mine, maybe not even Human Nature. So is it a good thing then that he crossed over or not? It did not compromise his music, it added to his diversity instead. Songs like Beat It, Dirty Diana, Give In To Me showed he could rock like any rock star. I think it's a good thing, not a bad thing when an artist shows diversity and doesn't just stay in one genre all the time.
Michael was never a strictly R&B artist. Already Motown always seeked how to "cross over". In a way I get it that in an ideal world artists should not "cross over", but in this world black artists always had it more difficult to find mainstream success than white ones. That is simply because of demographical facts - ie. that there are more white people in Western record buying countries than black people. And white people also tend to be more wealthy - ie. their record buying potential is bigger. And they tend to have a different taste in music. Of course, you cannot generalize that to everyone. There are black rock fans and white R&B fans, but generally you can observe that certain genres are liked mainly by black people and certain genres are liked mainly by white people. That's just the way it is and that is why black dominated genres such as funk have always been in a disadvantage compared to, say, rock.
But like I said earlier, those 29 million people who bought Thriller weren't MJ's core, black R&B audience, but mainly bandwagon jumpers. His core, R&B audience in the US would have been around 8 million, if we go by OTW's sales. And he produced similar sales with Bad and Dangerous as well - only with the latter two albums he produced bigger sales overseas.
And I don't think he compromised himself on later albums and cut himself off from his R&B roots. Heck, I'd say Dangerous is a more black album (NJS, gospel, hip-hop, R&B) than Bad which is more pop.
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