Re: The story behind the greatest hits album that never happened
I was living in England at the time HIStory came out and the statue going down the Thames rubbed the Brits the wrong way since they are mostly very understated and hate obvious pretention. Jarvis Cocker even interrupted his performance and objected to his humanitarian pretentions.
If you were not a die hard fan at the time you were not following all the news about the charges in America and so the album came off as megalomania.
BOTDF barely registered. It would have been better IMO if those new songs had been put together with the new songs on HIStory. And BOTDF been purely about dance remixes.
Well, of course, an 8 year old living in England at the time is going to have a very different perspective than a 35 year old American. A child is going to pick up on what's around them and they are going to be influenced by the adults in their world.
Me, on the other hand, had a different view of the statue and promotion. I didn't see it as megalomania, but superb promotion. We didn't have the statue here, but I saw the news reports-and laughed. And I also saw the HIStory teaser (and I don't care what Michael says-it is a version of Triumph of the Wills, intentionally) and thought he was both smart and brave. Again, something that enraged people over here.
The one thing that Michael did well-was promote-and even if it rubbed people totally the wrong way, it got you talking. They "fell into his trap" as he put it.
When I watched the premiere of Black or White with my nephews-4 and 5 at the time-they only thing they got out of it was a happy song and then crotch grabbing, while I sat in horrified silence.
Again, when I thought about it long and hard later, a calculated move with the masturbation part of the Panther dance, much as Nijinsky did with the ballet to Prelude to an Afternoon to a Faun. Scandalizing and shocking, yet artistic and interpretive of the animal, and everybody was talking about Nijinsky and Michael in the same way. And if you didn't hear about it, he repeated and played up all the world coverage in his "Dangerous Diaries" video later.
Although, obviously these promotions, as well as the old ones of the hyperbaric chamber and Elephant Man Bones backfire with many, many people.
If you look at the cover of HIStory that is already where the conceptual confusion starts.
HIStory
Past Present and Future
Book I
So you expect there to be 3 discs (or one disc that mixes up the 3 together?)
Disc 1 History Begins
Disc 2 History Continues
no Disc 3 so why not leave the word Future off the cover?
Also, So here is Book I.
Where is Book II? etc.
There is no Boo II, but we jump to HIStory on Film Volume II
Then BOTDF is History in the Mix. except it is also new stuff.
There is no Book II or III. There is no Volume I of Film. Just use the same terms and make them consistent, it's all I ask.
At least once that is clear the double meaning of HIStory can be plainer.
It's a mess. I don't care if you disagree with me, it's ok. We can agree to disagree. I am not the only one to have made this complaint so I am sure it has affected perception for other people as well.
Although I like the title, I will totally agree with you that the Book I, Book II, film Volume II, etc. is kind of a mess. Not sure what they were going for there. I finally decided to break down and buy HIStory after Michael's death and got totally confused-so I had to print out the track listings of each thing for sale on Amazon, and decided to buy the HIStory on film-that way I got the songs and the videos.
(speaking of Jarvis Cocker, that's another story I've heard about for years-and I realized I had never seen it-so I pulled it up on You Tube. I was a little shocked to see him-for some reason, I had always picture JOE Cocker, who sang "You are so Beautiful"-not some young hipster type-so now I kinda understand that he jumped on the stage in a way to protest the establishment/wealthy pop star-teaching us a lesson about social issues. That's kind of weird to me in a way, since I grew up with Michael and think of him as more of the rebel type-but that's what the vid of the Brits Awards look like).