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Thriller vs Invincible

which one u love more?

  • Thriller

    Votes: 161 69.4%

  • Invincible

    Votes: 71 30.6%
  • Total voters
    232
Thriller all day long. It would not have been the same if tracks like WBSS, Billie Jean and Human Nature did not exist! 3 of his best live tracks also. No Thriller short film? No Beat It? PYT and Baby be Mine are also pop music at its very best.

I can sort of imagine a world without Invincible, but a world without Thriller? No way.
 
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Yeah, I think we know that the poll would be tilted towards Thriller!!
 
It's a damn shame that Threatened was never a single. Michael said he wanted to do a short film for it, but that never happend. Probably because of all the drama with Sony at the time.
 
This isn't even a competition. It's Thriller all the way. That album is just complete and utter perfection, there's a reason why even people who don't care much for pop music often enjoy the album.

Like don't get me wrong, Invincible has some good tracks and all but Thriller's just... ...well it's Thriller!!! That should say something in itself! It's perfection and there's no other way to put it.

analogue said:
It's a damn shame that Threatened was never a single. Michael said he wanted to do a short film for it, but that never happend. Probably because of all the drama with Sony at the time.
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I agree. Threatened was one of the best songs Michael produced in the last 20 years of his life imho and there was a lot of potential for an incredible short film.
 
Love Invincible but had to go with Thriller on this one.
 
Of course, THRILLER. :) The whole album is in perfect sequence.

If I could I'd say "Inthrillible" because I love both THRILLER & INVINCIBLE. Lol!
 
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MattyJam said:
Invincible is underrated for sure. And I don't agree that it is MJs weakest solo album (that would be Bad imo, yes I said Bad!!).
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I agree that Invincible isn't MJ's weakest solo album but Bad is easily in the top 3 for his best albums for me. I say HIStory is Michael's weakest solo album.
 
Blue Criminal said:
I agree that Invincible isn't MJ's weakest solo album but Bad is easily in the top 3 for his best albums for me. I say HIStory is Michael's weakest solo album.
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*second heart attack*

You guys are killing me, you have literally picked my two favourite albums :D
 
MattyJam said:
Well, imo every solo album he made from OTW - Invincible is exceptional. So picking a "weakest" MJ album is like picking which of your children you love the least. You love em all to the ends of the earth, so it really isn't an insult. Bad is a fantastic album, but it's probably the one I listen to least. And I probably wouldn't bat an eyelid if I never heard songs like JGF, TWYMMF and Speed Demon ever again.

HIStory, Off The Wall and Dangerous are my top 3. Then I would choose Thriller, Invincible and Bad. In that order.
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I couldn't live without Speed demon, this is my jam in the car lol :D

I don't play the Thriller album all that much because i have heard the songs so many times, but i will always love it.

At first I didn't know what to think of Invincible but in the last months i have come to appreciate this album (and also MJ's earlier work with his brothers)
 
The only reason some fans that say they prefer Invincible over Thriller is so they come across as more loyal towards his least preferred album.

Musically there's no level than Invincible is better.

Same with Bad Matty! I also kinda think it's blasphemy towards Mike's songwriting to say that an album he contributed to the least is better than his album that was 90% just him. I honestly would not put any song on Invincible over any song from his other albums. Invincible has some good bad and a couple of very good songs. But nothing that rivals previous works.

Anyway gotta go, I think Groundhog Day is on!
 
DancingMjsdream said:
*second heart attack*

You guys are killing me, you have literally picked my two favourite albums :D
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Well HIStory does have some of MJ's best work with songs such as SIM, Earth Song, TDCAU. But it also does have some average songs such as Smile, This Time Around, Come Together. While Invincible doesn't quite hit the peak of HIStory, I feel that the worst songs on Invincible are better than the worst songs on HIStory. I'm also not a big fan of the whole theme of the HIStory album. I can understand after the 93 allegations, but I'm not a big fan of the dark theme. I hope I don't get crucified for this.
 
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MattyJam said:
I don't really see how it's insulting to MJ if fans genuinely prefer Invincible to Thriller, just because he didn't write as many songs by himself on Invincible. Going by that logic, you could say the same about people whose favourite MJ album is Off The Wall. How many songs on OTW are solely penned by MJ? I don't have the album in front of me, but isn't it just DSTYGE and WDAN? Which is the same amount of sole writing credits MJ has on Invincible.

I think too much importance is placed on songwriting credits with MJ fans. Almost as if they're desperate to prove to everyone else what a great songwriter MJ was. I'm all for that, especially amongst non-MJ fans who may only think of him as a song and dance man. But amongst fellow fans, I don't really feel the need to judge MJ's albums by how many songs he wrote single-handedly. Are some of MJ's best songs written by MJ alone? Yes of course. But there are also many fantastic songs on his albums which he didn't write. Man In The Mirror, Butterflies, I Can't Help It, Human Nature, Keep The Faith etc.

It's ridiculous to suggest that every song on OTW-BOTD is superior to any song on Invincible. So Girlfriend is better than Speechless? Or This Time Around is better than Whatever Happens? Just Good Friends is better than Unbreakable? Can't Let Her Get Away pips Butterflies? C'mon Tony, now you're just winding me up.
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This X1000. It makes me so mad when so many MJ fans underrate the OTW album because MJ didn't write every single song on that album. OTW is a fantastic album that deserves all the praise it gets.
 
Blue Criminal said:
Well HIStory does have some of MJ's best work with songs such as SIM, Earth Song, TDCAU. But it also does have some average songs such as Smile, This Time Around, Come Together. While Invincible doesn't quite hit the peak of HIStory, I feel that the worst songs on Invincible are better than the worst songs on HIStory. I'm also not a big fan of the whole theme of the HIStory album. I can understand after the 93 allegations, but I'm not a big fan of the dark theme. I hope I don't get crucified for this.
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Although HIStory is my favourite along with Bad i have to be in a certain mood to listen to some songs of the album. History had some fillers but they weren't bad imo, i think Invincible and even Dangerous had worse (don't walk away, you are my life, can't let her get away). On the other hand i still enjoy songs like D.S,Money or This Time Around.
I like the theme of the album and the fact that it is a more personal album than let's say... thriller. But i understand that not every fan will like that theme

And btw Off the Wall is a fantastic album, and my two favourite songs from Off the Wall happen to be the ones MJ wrote :D
 
The track sequencing on Invincible is horrible and the mastering was rushed and just made the deadline (gawd knows how many deadlines were missed) and it's a weaker album for its faults. Just my opinion of course. Bad is everything Invincible tried to be; iconic, imperial, classic and sonically thrilling. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but tracks like Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, Leave Me Alone, MITM, TWYMMF, APOM, Liberian Girl, basically the entire album is pop perfection and glorious. Invincible has a few brilliant tracks but as a whole, as an entire piece it's flawed. I agree that just because MJ wrote more tracks doesn't necessarily make something a better piece of work but one thing I will say is that had a Quincy Jones been at the helm of Invincible it would have been a much better and more consistent piece of work. His weakest album by a country mile.
 
aazzaabb said:
The track sequencing on Invincible is horrible and the mastering was rushed and just made the deadline (gawd knows how many deadlines were missed) and it's a weaker album for its faults. Just my opinion of course. Bad is everything Invincible tried to be; iconic, imperial, classic and sonically thrilling. Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but tracks like Smooth Criminal, Dirty Diana, Leave Me Alone, MITM, TWYMMF, APOM, Liberian Girl, basically the entire album is pop perfection and glorious. Invincible has a few brilliant tracks but as a whole, as an entire piece it's flawed. I agree that just because MJ wrote more tracks doesn't necessarily make something a better piece of work but one thing I will say is that had a Quincy Jones been at the helm of Invincible it would have been a much better and more consistent piece of work. His weakest album by a country mile.
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I have to say I agree.

I could imagine a world without Invincible. Easily.

I could not for the life of me imagine a world where there was no Thriller.
 
innuendo141 said:
I have to say I agree.

I could imagine a world without Invincible. Easily.

I could not for the life of me imagine a world where there was no Thriller.
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For sure man. I feel I need to reiterate also that I'm an old school fan, just perfering a time when things seemed or looked efortless and MJ (and his incredible team circ OTW - BOTDF) made trends rather than fellow them. Thriller layed down the gauntlet, Bad did the same, everything just raised the bar to whole new heights and beyond, it was perfection and he set trends; sonically Bad even had an album of mixes for monster cable to demonstrate high quality sound.

Of course at the end of the day it's just about which album a person enjoys more, but OTW, Thriller and Bad are the stuff lifelong memories are made of and those albums are soooo much more.
 
I heard Invincible album for the first time from start to beginning today and it was amazing. I enjoyed every single song even the songs that I thought I hated such as Heaven Can Wait. Then I also listened to Thriller from start to beginning and I have to say even though Vince is amazing, Thriller easily sweeps the floor with Vince. Thriller is easily the most perfect album in history of music. Ever song is great.
 
MattyJam said:
First half of Invincible is sheer R&B bliss. The run of tracks starting with Break of Dawn through to Speechless is perfection and one of the strongest continuous sequences on any MJ album period. You guys just don't appreciate good R&B. I hate you all.

94e6eee31e1392d9f6b5904e1310cd71.jpg
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I got Ivincible on MOV vinyl for Christmas and next week will finally have a chance to listen to it. I'm hoping the mix finally brings this album to some sort of level that resembles past MJ albums, of course it will never be truly anywhere near the perfection that all the other albums are but I'll give an honest feedback on it. Regarding good R&B I don't know, perhaps you have a point but I do love Break of Dawn through Speechless, You Rock My World is a personal favourite although I think the Chris Tucker intro has aged horribly. Listen, there's so much potential throughout that album but the last minute uncertainty of track selection further spoiled something that could have been a great album. The tracks left on the cutting room floor were much better than 60% of what was thrown on (again, the track sequence screams Absolutly No Order), the album sleeve is also forgetful although certainly not MJ's fault.
 
HIStoric said:
Do you mean the artwork? Because I'm pretty sure MJ had a huge say in his album's artworks.
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Didn't he want the artwork to be the original version of him covered in gold or am I confusing it? I find what they used to be fairly generic although I was only looking at it on the vinyl moments ago and it works quite well for that format, still though it's no OTW or Thriller or Bad or Dangerous. Not sure either MJ always had a huge say, he wanted a completely different image for Bad and he wanted to call the album Smooth Criminal.
 
Blue Criminal said:
I heard Invincible album for the first time from start to beginning today and it was amazing. I enjoyed every single song even the songs that I thought I hated such as Heaven Can Wait. Then I also listened to Thriller from start to beginning and I have to say even though Vince is amazing, Thriller easily sweeps the floor with Vince. Thriller is easily the most perfect album in history of music. Ever song is great.
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A fair assessment.
As amazing as Invincible is there hasn't been an album like Thriller since Thriller.
It took the world by storm and set the standard of what an album should be and also set the standard for the level of impact and popularity that an artist can achieve with an album.
No one has reached those standards.


Butterflies still gives me an eargasm though.:lol:
For that song alone I couldn't imagine Invincible not existing, and then you also have Threatened, Break Of Dawn, Etc.
I love both.
 
aazzaabb;4185171 said:
Didn't he want the artwork to be the original version of him covered in gold or am I confusing it? I find what they used to be fairly generic although I was only looking at it on the vinyl moments ago and it works quite well for that format, still though it's no OTW or Thriller or Bad or Dangerous. Not sure either MJ always had a huge say, he wanted a completely different image for Bad and he wanted to call the album Smooth Criminal.
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People were saying it was based off this image of a little boy, not hard to see the similarities. Crop it to his face, play with the colours and boom you have Invincible's cover.
AlbertWatsonInspiredInvincible_Small.jpg
AlbertWatsonInvincibleCoverBW.jpg


Record labels always give feedback and offer suggestions on artwork. I don't know what Michael's contract with Sony/Epic actually stated in regards to artwork, but it's typical thinking that artists as big as him have a significant impact on artwork choice, even if final say is with the label.

As for Bad, I remember hearing some talk about how he deliberately tried to push the more-feminine 'lace' artwork for Bad at first, so they'd be far more open to any other choices he later put forward, which ended up being the tough look image we got (AKA MJ utilised the door-in-the-face technique). Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
HIStoric;4185178 said:
People were saying it was based off this image of a little boy, not hard to see the similarities. Crop it to his face, play with the colours and boom you have Invincible's cover.
AlbertWatsonInspiredInvincible_Small.jpg
AlbertWatsonInvincibleCoverBW.jpg


Record labels always give feedback and offer suggestions on artwork. I don't know what Michael's contract with Sony/Epic actually stated in regards to artwork, but it's typical thinking that artists as big as him have a significant impact on artwork choice, even if final say is with the label.

As for Bad, I remember hearing some talk about how he deliberately tried to push the more-feminine 'lace' artwork for Bad at first, so they'd be far more open to any other choices he later put forward, which ended up being the tough look image we got (AKA MJ utilised the door-in-the-face technique). Who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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True, Walter Something (forget his name) said he vetoed it on the Bad25 doc. Whats more interesting is Michael would allow someone to tell him what he can and cant call his own album, ie. Smooth Criminal, as Quincy said he vetoed that

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk
 
MattyJam said:
I'm sure nobody really says they prefer Invincible for that reason. I know I certainly don't (well, the only album I prefer it to is Bad, but you know what I mean). And the implication is a little condescending, don't you think?

I don't really see how it's insulting to MJ if fans genuinely prefer Invincible to Thriller, just because he didn't write as many songs by himself on Invincible. Going by that logic, you could say the same about people whose favourite MJ album is Off The Wall. How many songs on OTW are solely penned by MJ? I don't have the album in front of me, but isn't it just DSTYGE and WDAN? Which is the same amount of sole writing credits MJ has on Invincible.

I think too much importance is placed on songwriting credits with MJ fans. Almost as if they're desperate to prove to everyone else what a great songwriter MJ was. I'm all for that, especially amongst non-MJ fans who may only think of him as a song and dance man. But amongst fellow fans, I don't really feel the need to judge MJ's albums by how many songs he wrote single-handedly. Are some of MJ's best songs written by MJ alone? Yes of course. But there are also many fantastic songs on his albums which he didn't write. Man In The Mirror, Butterflies, I Can't Help It, Human Nature, Keep The Faith etc.

It's ridiculous to suggest that every song on OTW-BOTD is superior to any song on Invincible. So Girlfriend is better than Speechless? Or This Time Around is better than Whatever Happens? Just Good Friends is better than Unbreakable? Can't Let Her Get Away pips Butterflies? C'mon Tony, now you're just winding me up.

Alas, Groundhog Day. But you provoked me so I bit.
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You know me Matt. I like to exaggerate to make the point :)

But I do believe this is the reason SOME people say Invincible is his best album. Same with those who say stuff like 'In The Back' or 'Got The Hots' are his best songs. It's so they can come across as uber-fans, I'm sure. In no musical universe are any of MJ's unreleased works better than his best songs.

There are a few good songs on Invincible like those you mention (Speechless, Threatened & Whatever Happens), and you're right they are probably better than each album's weakest tracks.
 
Tony R said:
You know me Matt. I like to exaggerate to make the point :)

But I do believe this is the reason SOME people say Invincible is his best album. Same with those who say stuff like 'In The Back' or 'Got The Hots' are his best songs. It's so they can come across as uber-fans, I'm sure. In no musical universe are any of MJ's unreleased works better than his best songs.

There are a few good songs on Invincible like those you mention (Speechless, Threatened & Whatever Happens), and you're right they are probably better than each album's weakest tracks.
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I think you're right about unreleased tracks not being better than what appeared on albums from OTW to HIStory with the possible expection of maybe 2 or 3 tracks around the Bad and Dangerous albums being really great. I think Cheater and Someone Put Your Hand Out were somewhat worthy, but even then they saw the light of day anyway eventually. Invincible had a lot of material that would have been better on more than half the album. And I do agree about the uber-fan thing also, its something you get with every artist to be honest, a lot of the Prince fans are also major for that misguided loyalty thing or just liking everything the same with little to no opinion which is bizzar, I mean you can't really love everything on the same level. Music critics do the same only they do the opposite thing, they praise the OTW's and Thriller's to high heaven because really they have no opinion one way or the other. I totally feel you on what you're saying.

I was at a wedding yesterday (yes on a Monday) and the DJ played Billie Jean and TWYMMF, nothing from Invincible was played.

I have no favourite MJ album per say, I probably love OTW to HIStory/BOTDF the same, the ones that come with magical nostalgia and memories, the ones that got me through the hard times were OTW to HIStory.
 
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aazzaabb said:
I was at a wedding yesterday (yes on a Monday) and the DJ played Billie Jean and TWYMMF, nothing from Invincible was played.
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I actually heard 'You Are My Life' as someone's wedding song once:)
 
Tony R said:
I actually heard 'You Are My Life' as someone's wedding song once:)
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Yeah, but then Matty divorced you!

Seriously though, I would imagine YRMW would go down pretty ok? Not sure, but when something from Thriller or Bad comes on people storm the dance floor.

You Are My Life is a pretty nice wedding song though. Nice.
 
aazzaabb said:
Yeah, but then Matty divorced you!

Seriously though, I would imagine YRMW would go down pretty ok? Not sure, but when something from Thriller or Bad comes on people storm the dance floor.

You Are My Life is a pretty nice wedding song though. Nice.
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It's always BJ, TWYMMF or DSTYGE at weddings.

I guess it's always gonna be the big hits. Although YRMW would be great, I guess only half if lucky would know it.
 
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