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Michael Jackson is #34 on Rolling Stone Magazine's 100 Greatest Songwriters........

Psychoniff said:
Calm the hell down dude! This isn't a competition between the two, they are BOTH important trailblazers!



It's not all about popularity! By that logic, Justin Bieber is more revolutionary that bluesman Robert Johnson.
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Justin Bieber and 1D are undoubtedly famous. But so were NSYNC, Backstreet Boys, and 5ive and many other boy bands. But how many of them would achieve the status of the Beatles? None. Because they won't be remembered for more than a few years. Backstreet Boys and NSYNC are already forgotten, and JB is in the process of being forgotten too! Almost no one except his fans - and they've lessened a lot too - knows about his albums after that horrendous My World 2.1 (is it that?) here. Why? Because nothing they ever did was historically important - except gaining billions of views and dislikes on YouTube which is indeed an achievement :p .

And Purple Rain sold as much as HIStory, but isn't globally that famous or impactful. Songs like Stranger In Moscow were hit singles outside the US.

But anyway, I kinda understand what DuranDuran's said and I probably should not complain about his position - I was kinda happy at first about it. But saying that he's below Prince in terms of songwriting shows an incredible bias. Michael might have promoted himself good, but that doesn't mean that his songs are mindless and generic and their lyrics have no meaning.

Anyway, I'm gonna stop ranting now xD :p .
 
MAQ said:
Backstreet Boys and NSYNC are already forgotten, and JB is in the process of being forgotten too! Almost no one except his fans - and they've lessened a lot too - knows about his albums after that horrendous My World 2.1 (is it that?) here. Why? Because nothing they ever did was historically important - except gaining billions of views and dislikes on YouTube which is indeed an achievement :p .
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Nope, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC are still pretty well known. Their music definitely won't last as well as The Beatles (who are still pretty popular today and famous as individual members, especially for a 50 year old band). We're at the point I feel where people aren't aware of their individual names (except Justin Timberlake for obvious reasons - I only learnt who Chris Kirkpatrick was last week and I only recognised his name before from an Eminem song) but their biggest hits are still well known and played and people are still aware of them as a group.

I don't know why people say Bieber is going to be 'forgotten' soon, like they've been saying that since 2010 and yet here he is, still releasing hits (I actually have to admit, not keen on most of his discography but the two songs he's done this year have been on-point). Bieber isn't as big as he was 5 years ago, but he is not going to be forgotten soon. Everyone young and old knows who he is.
 
Pretty pathetic. I don't think MJ ought to be number one necessarily, but certainly top 20.

Still I'm susprised a racist publication like Rolling Stone even had him in the top 50.

Sadly most of Michael Jackson's most profound and interesting work, his most intricate work, came during the period that Billboard (and I'm sure many others including RS) write off by saying "lyrically, he takes hyper-defensive stances against gossipy critics or those who would abuse the trust of elephants."

He might not have been filling dancefloors anymore with crowd pleasing genre-crossovers but it didn't matter. Michael's detractors didn't want to be challenged in any way, when they were they simply ignored it. And they're still doing it.

And suggesting Michael is a great songwriter because of those eco-anthems he returned to often is a tremendous dilution.
 
HIStoric said:
Nope, Backstreet Boys and NSYNC are still pretty well known. Their music definitely won't last as well as The Beatles (who are still pretty popular today and famous as individual members, especially for a 50 year old band). We're at the point I feel where people aren't aware of their individual names (except Justin Timberlake for obvious reasons - I only learnt who Chris Kirkpatrick was last week and I only recognised his name before from an Eminem song) but their biggest hits are still well known and played and people are still aware of them as a group.

I don't know why people say Bieber is going to be 'forgotten' soon, like they've been saying that since 2010 and yet here he is, still releasing hits (I actually have to admit, not keen on most of his discography but the two songs he's done this year have been on-point). Bieber isn't as big as he was 5 years ago, but he is not going to be forgotten soon. Everyone young and old knows who he is.
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This is mainly because of the availability of internet (the JB part) and the other boy bands you mentioned are pretty much done.
The times haven't really changed, they've just become more televised - Marilyn Manson. JB's hits are on par with the teenage idols of the 2000s and 90s. The only thing that has changed is the availability of internet. We can argue all day about this, but in my very honest opinion, Justin Bieber will be lost in the crowd of the forthcoming teen idols; they're all almost the same.
 
MAQ said:
But anyway, I kinda understand what DuranDuran's said and I probably should not complain about his position - I was kinda happy at first about it. But saying that he's below Prince in terms of songwriting shows an incredible bias. Michael might have promoted himself good, but that doesn't mean that his songs are mindless and generic and their lyrics have no meaning.
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I said nothing about anybody being better than anyone else, nor mentioned Prince's music. That was someone else. I only said that Mike & Prince did not make black music mainstream, which is the first time I posted in this thread. Many acts did it before them. Some people think that black music automatically means R&B or maybe hip hop, when that is not the case. Also, just because someone is internationally known does not necessarily mean their music is superior to music made by a local bar band, who might be only known to a few hundred people. If popularity equals better, then McDonald's makes the best food in the world and Coca-Cola tastes better than other drinks. :rofl:
 
RS

I don't think Rolling Stone is racist. They started out as a rock music magazine, by hippy era baby boomer Jann Wenner. Really their main focus was blues based rock, which the influence was black music. But rock is considered by many today in the US to be "white music" although it did not start out that way. Rolling Stone did not really praise prog rock, heavy metal, country rock, or punk rock (or pop music either) which there isn't much of in the Rock n Roll Hall Of Fame, started by Wenner and other RS founders. Progressive rock has more European influences like classical, and less blues influence. That's why metal fans complain that Madonna or Beastie Boys is in and Deep Purple and Iron Maiden aren't. As RS is a boomer generation rock mag, of course they're going to list Bob Dylan and Lennon/McCartney high. Really the black performers on the list are the ones who crossed over and known to the mainstream like Bob Marley and Stevie Wonder. In the US, "mainstream" really means a lot of white people knowing about something. A jazz magazine like Down Beat is not going to put The Beatles, Bob Dylan, or Michael Jackson on a list of best songwriters, nor would a country music based magazine. A rap magazine is not likely to have Bob Dylan on a list, but they might have Rakim or OutKast. You have to look at who the main readers of the magazine are.
 
How is not racist diminishing his success with OTW thinking is no merit of a front cover but then in 1984 were begging Michael for an interview?
 
Edit: Personally I think Michael deserved to be alot lower. He is a great song writer. Always writing about important things and other random things too. A good balance.

I'm not sure where he should be placed, I don't know enough about song writing.
 
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There were many artists who made black music mainstream before Michael, fair enough. But did they do it worldwide as Michael did? I don't think so. Probably Louis Armstrong, Chuck Berry and Little Richard were more known and popular in the Western part of the world but not in the rest of the continents.
 
Snow White luvs Peter Pan said:
How is not racist diminishing his success with OTW thinking is no merit of a front cover but then in 1984 were begging Michael for an interview?
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I think it had a lot to do with the fact that it was disco as well as race but because we're talking about the U.S. race is always a more complicated issue.
 
DuranDuran said:
I said nothing about anybody being better than anyone else, nor mentioned Prince's music. That was someone else. I only said that Mike & Prince did not make black music mainstream, which is the first time I posted in this thread. Many acts did it before them. Some people think that black music automatically means R&B or maybe hip hop, when that is not the case. Also, just because someone is internationally known does not necessarily mean their music is superior to music made by a local bar band, who might be only known to a few hundred people. If popularity equals better, then McDonald's makes the best food in the world and Coca-Cola tastes better than other drinks. :rofl:
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I was agreeing with your part about RS being a US magazine and not caring about how those songs were celebrated in other parts of the world. I disagree with the rest of your statements :D :p . I believe he brought R&B, and Hip Hop and Soul to such a level that many singers of different ethnicities began to adopt that style as well. Everything changed after Thriller. And that is I think what pisses off white, rock-favoring critics.
 
Snow White luvs Peter Pan said:
How is not racist diminishing his success with OTW thinking is no merit of a front cover but then in 1984 were begging Michael for an interview?
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Is Off The Wall rock music? It was considered disco and disco was considered bubblegum music by the rock press. Disco was not a focus of RS. One of the writers for RS at the time who did like disco even said that Jann Wenner did not want to feature disco, just like he didn't want to feature heavy metal or teen idol singers. Heavy metal is mostly white acts. Putting disco on the cover of a then rock magazine does not make much sense sales wise, since the main buyers were rock fans, just like other rock magazines like Creem and Circus. Country music acts like Kenny Rogers was big at the time and he didn't get a cover, as country is not the focus of RS. RS was not likely to put an act like Barry Manilow & The Carpenters on the cover either and they were popular. RS has had no problem with putting Jimi Hendrix on the cover as he made rock music. Marvin Gaye & Stevie Wonder has also been on the cover in the 1970s. Carlos Santana is Mexican and he was on the cover during that time as well, but he was considered rock music. They even put Mike on the cover during the J5 days. The Osmonds didn't get one and they were about as popular as the J5 in the US. The Osmonds had a cartoon and 2 different variety shows, one with the brothers and the other, Donny & Marie.
 
MAQ said:
I was agreeing with your part about RS being a US magazine and not caring about how those songs were celebrated in other parts of the world. I disagree with the rest of your statements :D :p . I believe he brought R&B, and Hip Hop and Soul to such a level that many singers of different ethnicities began to adopt that style as well. Everything changed after Thriller. And that is I think what pisses off white, rock-favoring critics.
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What does Mike have to do with making hip hop popular? He's a singer, not a MC. Run DMC was the first rap act who became extremely popular and that was years before Mike put Heavy D on a song, which Janet had done before on the Alright remix. Mike was even planning to do a song with Run DMC. Dangerous was New Jack Swing, not rap. Blondie & Herbie Hancock did stuff that was more hip hop influenced in the early 1980s with songs like Rapture and Rockit than what Mike was doing at the time on Thriller, Victory,& Bad.
 
DuranDuran said:
Is Off The Wall rock music? It was considered disco and disco was considered bubblegum music by the rock press. Disco was not a focus of RS. One of the writers for RS at the time who did like disco even said that Jann Wenner did not want to feature disco, just like he didn't want to feature heavy metal or teen idol singers. Heavy metal is mostly white acts. Putting disco on the cover of a then rock magazine does not make much sense sales wise, since the main buyers were rock fans, just like other rock magazines like Creem and Circus. Country music acts like Kenny Rogers was big at the time and he didn't get a cover, as country is not the focus of RS. RS was not likely to put an act like Barry Manilow & The Carpenters on the cover either and they were popular. RS has had no problem with putting Jimi Hendrix on the cover as he made rock music. Marvin Gaye & Stevie Wonder has also been on the cover in the 1970s. Carlos Santana is Mexican and he was on the cover during that time as well, but he was considered rock music. They even put Mike on the cover during the J5 days. The Osmonds didn't get one and they were about as popular as the J5 in the US. The Osmonds had a cartoon and 2 different variety shows, one with the brothers and the other, Donny & Marie.
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But Madonna and Britney Spears have been on it more than MJ but they weren't considered 'rock'.
 
Psychoniff said:
But Madonna and Britney Spears have been on it more than MJ but they weren't considered 'rock'.
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That was the later years when the format changed. Rock music kind of fell out of favor mainstream wise and sales of RS dropped. I'm pretty sure Britney wouldn't have gotten on the cover in the 1960s or 1970s, nor would Justin Timberlake. She would have just been on the cover of Tiger Beat. I did say "then rock magazine". Today, rock acts in general don't have the same popularity as during the 1960s-1990s.
 
must have been a typo.. they meant #1
 
DuranDuran said:
What does Mike have to do with making hip hop popular? He's a singer, not a MC. Run DMC was the first rap act who became extremely popular and that was years before Mike put Heavy D on a song, which Janet had done before on the Alright remix. Mike was even planning to do a song with Run DMC. Dangerous was New Jack Swing, not rap. Blondie & Herbie Hancock did stuff that was more hip hop influenced in the early 1980s with songs like Rapture and Rockit than what Mike was doing at the time on Thriller, Victory,& Bad.
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NJS is essentially Hip Hop (fused with R&B/Pop vocals). Songs like Jam and In the Closet and Dangerous actually set trends in many "unknown" countries of the world. But let's put a stop to this.. Because your idea of "mainstream" is very different from mine.
 
In my opinion MJ's 90's work was as good as anything I have ever heard from anyone.
 
It's actually really stupid to rank songwriters, because everyone has their own idea about who the greatest songwriter is
 
Dylan has all his eggs in one basket I'm afraid. If you were to compare the two as songwriters, MJ would at least have some songs that could match of the quality Dylan's lesser songs like "Be Not Always", "Little Susie", "Money", "Shout", "Stranger In Moscow", "That's What You Get (For Being Polite)" and "We've Had A Enough" as well as others.Mike re-wrote what it meant to be a 'total artist', and 'genre non-specific' musician. He was a jack of all trades master of all. But, there is nothing Dylan has on Mike as singer, dancer or live performer, NOTHING!
 
Psychoniff said:
But, there is nothing Dylan has on Mike as singer, dancer or live performer, NOTHING!
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Is performing music really about dancing though? There's way more singers/bands since recorded music began in the late 1800s that don't dance than those who do.
 
Performing is about making the audience FEEL the song.. Bringing the song to life in a way that audience can connect with it on another level.. That could be through vocal styling, body gestures/movement, dance... With those a level of authenticity on 'selling' those key points is what makes a performance good/bad...

The fact that Michael was able to make a performance great with any of the parts that make up a performance AND put them all together is what made him the best.. Even though not all elements are needed for a great performance.
 
While I think Michael was a good lyricist. I do feel he isn't the greatest writer in the world. Though I cannot deny he wrote some really good songs.
 
Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson at 100, Taylor Swift at 97... :blink: The Bee Gees in at 95 when Barry Gibb is the second most successful songwriter ever after Paul McCartney. :bugeyed
 
Smoore said:
While I think Michael was a good lyricist. I do feel he isn't the greatest writer in the world. Though I cannot deny he wrote some really good songs.
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A song is not just about the lyrics.
 
Bad7; said:
The Bee Gees in at 95 when Barry Gibb is the second most successful songwriter ever after Paul McCartney. :bugeyed
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I know. This whole list is crazy if you ask me. You have the BeeGees and the Beach Boys ranked so low and James Brown that high? It has to be a very subjective list.
 
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