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Is there such a thing as a bad MJ song, album or performance?

Oslo 1992 was pretty bad due to all the technical difficulties and mistakes that was happening throughout the show. And Thriller being performed in brought daylight just doesn't work. But it was cool to finally get a Dangerous Tour show that has Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel in the setlist. I hope one of the other show that has those 2 songs will get leaked someday with no/few mistakes.
 
mj_frenzy said:
There were subpar projects for his own standards, among others:

The 'Girlfriend' song (1979) which is a melodically weak and thus easily forgettable song.

The 'On The Line' song (1997) in which Michael Jackson with his mellifluous vocals and style tries unsuccessfully to sound like the American singer Babyface.

The 'Heaven Can Wait' song (2001) in which his voice cracks on certain parts.

The two MSG Anniversary Shows (2001), where Michael Jackson finds it hard not only to execute his dance routines but also to lip-sync properly.

The 'Dangerous' performance (2002) at the American Bandstand where towards the end he basically ruins his performance with his out of breath voice.
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On The Line is a great song, and FYI, of course he sounds like Babyface.....the song WAS written by Babyface.
 
Girlfriend- Just a bad song overall. Even Paul's version with Wings was bad.

If You Don't Love Me- one of his worst songs never to be released, and I'm glad. It sounds like a rejected boy band song. Very cringeworthy.
 
Rocketeer said:
Special shows like that are pretty cool to watch tho, we're lucky to be able to watch it. Jam and Human Nature in HIStory era. The adlibs at the end of Earth Song. Coolness galore. Just imagine if they would have proceeded with performing some songs from Bad, like Bad and Dirty Diana.
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I agree. Royal Brunei is a good show. Some say it sucks because of his vocals during Billie Jean or Beat It, but I personally like them. I'll take that over playback ANYTIME. Same goes with Scream during the other Brunei concert, I'll take that over any other History tour performance.
 
analogue said:
Oslo 1992 was pretty bad due to all the technical difficulties and mistakes that was happening throughout the show. And Thriller being performed in brought daylight just doesn't work. But it was cool to finally get a Dangerous Tour show that has Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel in the setlist. I hope one of the other show that has those 2 songs will get leaked someday with no/few mistakes.
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A lot of that was of no fault of MJ though. In fact, I think Oslo was one of the best concert videos we have of Michael. It's just that performing in the midnight sun means that a lot of stage effects just didnt work as effectively.

But holy shit, what I wouldn't give for Munich 1992 to finally get released....
 
analogue said:
Oslo 1992 was pretty bad due to all the technical difficulties and mistakes that was happening throughout the show. And Thriller being performed in brought daylight just doesn't work. But it was cool to finally get a Dangerous Tour show that has Bad and The Way You Make Me Feel in the setlist. I hope one of the other show that has those 2 songs will get leaked someday with no/few mistakes.
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Oslo is actually my favorite Dangerous Tour concert. I would watch it any day over Bucharest.
 
Nite Line said:
^ I love these one-off live vocals of songs that are normally lip-synced. You wonder if there are any more instances like this that we fans aren't aware of.
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As far as I know the ones I know of are
Munich 1992: Black or White First line sung live
Oslo 1992: Jam and The Way You Make Me Feel is sung live briefly at the first verse
Wembley 1992: Black or White Sung live over the top of playback
Buenos Aires 1993 (night 2): Black or White Fully live after the first verse has some playback mishaps
Brunei (Royal) 1996: Live "hoo" as Earth Song ends
Prague 1996: They Don't Care About Us live ad-libs right before moving to In The Closet, the playback on You Are Not Alone is turned off early and Dangerous also includes live vocals for the call-and-response section
Bucharest 1996: Beat It and HIStory is sung live very briefly over playback for the first verse
Moscow 1996: They Don't Care About Us is sung live over playback for the first verse and chorus and briefly in the first post-chorus. Dangerous call-and-response section is sung live (again)
Auckland 1996 (night 2): Thriller is sung live briefly at the beginning
Sydney 1996 (night 1): Beat It sung completely live after some playback mishaps
Brunei 1996: First verse of scream sung live as well as some nos before the moonwalk
Bremen 1997 (night 1): Blood on the Dancefloor is sung live to some capacity
Lyon 1997: They Don't Care About Us is sung live over playback
Ostend 1997: Spoken section of Dangerous sung completely live
Bahamas 1998: Heal The World is sung completely live
MSG 2001 (night 1): The first verse on The Way You Make Me Feel is sung alongside Britney Speares live
American Bandstand 2002: Brief live scatting before call-and-response section

Also the "hoo" before the moonwalk in Billie Jean are done live infrequently in 1996 concerts.
 
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Nite Line said:
^ I love these one-off live vocals of songs that are normally lip-synced. You wonder if there are any more instances like this that we fans aren't aware of.
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Love this one! Live vocals are better here.
 
Watching Brunei on YouTube now. Even dancing looks a little different, lot more smiling. Maybe he had special guests in the audience.
 
ArchieSmash said:
As far as I know the ones I know of are
Munich 1992: Black or White First line sung live
Oslo 1992: Jam and The Way You Make Me Feel is sung live briefly at the first verse
Wembley 1992: Black or White Sung live over the top of playback
Buenos Aires 1993: Black or White Fully live after the first verse has some playback mishaps
Prague 1996: They Don't Care About Us live ad-libs right before moving to In The Closet. Dangerous also includes live vocals for the call-and-response section
Bucharest: Beat It and HIStory is sung live very briefly over playback for the first verse
Moscow 1996: They Don't Care About Us is sung live over playback for the first verse and chorus and briefly in the first post-chorus. Dangerous call-and-response section is sung live (again)
Auckland 1996 (night 2): Thriller is sung live briefly at the beginning
Sydney 1996: Beat It sung completely live after some playback mishaps
Brunei (Royal) 1996: Live "hoo" as Earth Song ends
Brunei 1996: First verse of scream sung live as well as some nos before the moonwalk
Bremen 1997: Blood on the Dancefloor is sung live to some capacity
Ostend 1997: Spoken section of Dangerous sung completely live
Bahamas 1998: Heal The World is sung completely live
MSG 2001: The first verse on The Way You Make Me Feel is sung alongside Britney Speares live
American Bandstand 2002: Brief live scatting before call-and-response section

Also the "hoo" before the moonwalk in Billie Jean are done live infrequently in 1996 concerts.
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Wait was there a concert in Bahamas At 1998?
 
It’s all subjective at the end of the day, but every artist has “bad” songs, videos, performances, and ideas. Not everybody will agree on what they are, but we all have favorites and least favorites. Mine are:
  • The music video for “Man in the Mirror.” I understand the sentiment behind it, but it was a huge missed opportunity.
  • The HIStory Tour in its entirety is probably the worst project MJ ever took on. Mediocre/underwhelming set list, lip-synching all but 15 minutes of a 2-hour show, consistently horrible live vocals, and absolutely nothing new or original. It’s a complete and utter failure in my eyes.
  • The vocals on “Heaven Can Wait” are embarrassing. The song itself is whatever, but his performance is easily the worst in his discography.
  • Participating in the Bashir documentary. Self-explanatory.
MJ is my favorite artist of all time, and I enjoy 95% of his output. But that other 5% I can’t deny.
 
AlwaysThere said:
It’s all subjective at the end of the day, but every artist has “bad” songs, videos, performances, and ideas. Not everybody will agree on what they are, but we all have favorites and least favorites. Mine are:
  • The music video for “Man in the Mirror.” I understand the sentiment behind it, but it was a huge missed opportunity.
  • The HIStory Tour in its entirety is probably the worst project MJ ever took on. Mediocre/underwhelming set list, lip-synching all but 15 minutes of a 2-hour show, consistently horrible live vocals, and absolutely nothing new or original. It’s a complete and utter failure in my eyes.
  • The vocals on “Heaven Can Wait” are embarrassing. The song itself is whatever, but his performance is easily the worst in his discography.
  • Participating in the Bashir documentary. Self-explanatory.
MJ is my favorite artist of all time, and I enjoy 95% of his output. But that other 5% I can’t deny.
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I love his vocal performance on HCW. :D

But never mind that. I'm curious as to what you mean when you say the MITM video was a huge missed opportunity. As a protest statement it seems pretty strong to me so presumably it's not that. Do you mean that you think that Michael should have been in the video? I vaguely remember he got some flak in the media for that although I'm not sure what their problem was.
 
AlwaysThere said:
It’s all subjective at the end of the day, but every artist has “bad” songs, videos, performances, and ideas. Not everybody will agree on what they are, but we all have favorites and least favorites. Mine are:
  • The music video for “Man in the Mirror.” I understand the sentiment behind it, but it was a huge missed opportunity.
  • The HIStory Tour in its entirety is probably the worst project MJ ever took on. Mediocre/underwhelming set list, lip-synching all but 15 minutes of a 2-hour show, consistently horrible live vocals, and absolutely nothing new or original. It’s a complete and utter failure in my eyes.
  • The vocals on “Heaven Can Wait” are embarrassing. The song itself is whatever, but his performance is easily the worst in his discography.
  • Participating in the Bashir documentary. Self-explanatory.
MJ is my favorite artist of all time, and I enjoy 95% of his output. But that other 5% I can’t deny.
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Heaven Can Wait has one of my favourite Michael vocal performances ever.

The inability to accept death is so powerfully evoked. Yet it somehow naturally progresses to this heartbreaking tragedy from a romantic R&B ballad. I cannot understand how there is somehow two people in this thread who have stated this. It's an incredible song.
 
AlwaysThere said:
It’s all subjective at the end of the day, but every artist has “bad” songs, videos, performances, and ideas. Not everybody will agree on what they are, but we all have favorites and least favorites. Mine are:
  • The music video for “Man in the Mirror.” I understand the sentiment behind it, but it was a huge missed opportunity.
  • The HIStory Tour in its entirety is probably the worst project MJ ever took on. Mediocre/underwhelming set list, lip-synching all but 15 minutes of a 2-hour show, consistently horrible live vocals, and absolutely nothing new or original. It’s a complete and utter failure in my eyes.
  • The vocals on “Heaven Can Wait” are embarrassing. The song itself is whatever, but his performance is easily the worst in his discography.
  • Participating in the Bashir documentary. Self-explanatory.
MJ is my favorite artist of all time, and I enjoy 95% of his output. But that other 5% I can’t deny.
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I personally love the HIStory Tour, I cannot disagree more with your sentiments.

It has the best setlist. Only one skippable performance, that being Black or White (which have never been very interesting to me).
15 minutes of live vocals is just a lie, it's more than double that amount.
The live vocals are easily my favourite alongside the Victory Tour, so creative and varied across the concerts. All the other ones are too similar between concerts.
It's also the most original of the Tours, it has the most added performances of any solo tour with 8. The performances of the HIStory Medley, Stranger in Moscow, Off The Wall Medley and Blood on the Dancefloor trump any performances introduced in the Dangerous Tour in my eyes (Jam is close but it loses a lot of steam near the end).

I'm sorry if this feels like an attack since you were asked for criticisms but these just seem so antithetical to me.
 
ArchieSmash said:
Heaven Can Wait has one of my favourite Michael vocal performances ever.
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I don't care so much for Heaven can wait. The lyrics are good, but maybe if it was sung as a solo. I think there is too much going on in the released version.

ArchieSmash said:
I personally love the HIStory Tour, I cannot disagree more with your sentiments.
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Love HIStory tour. Set list is great, and great dancing. I love the live version of blood on the dance floor. I don't get people who complain about less live singing. What do they expect! He is not a superhuman who can dance like crazy and sing flawlessly without sounding out of breath.
 
Hiker said:
I don't care so much for Heaven can wait. The lyrics are good, but maybe if it was sung as a solo. I think there is too much going on in the released version.
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I can definitely understand this complaint. It doesn't bother me overly but the production definitely feels a little unfinished for MJ standards. The vocals and chorus are just really compelling. I'd certainly like the multitracks to leak so we can tweak it.
 
ABC is just a worse version of The Love You Save and the Jackson 5 catalogue is very bland with a small few bangers here and there. The Jacksons are good though.

The Billie Jean performance on Motown 25 was good for the time but is trumped by every performance since. It didn't have any live instruments and it sucks because the band there was great.

I hate how Beat It sounds in the second leg of the Bad Tour, the key is lowered to a ridiculous extent and it sounds terrible to me. Billie Jean has a similar issue but it's not quite as bad.

Black or White is such a mid song, it feels like a demo, there aren't enough instruments or interesting melodies for me to enjoy it. The performances on tour consistently suck too and I've never seen a good one (link it if you have one you really like, I want to change my mind). The one on the MTV Awards in 1991 was fantastic and so were the 1992 rehearsals but afterwards the dancing got really bland.

The Superbowl performance in 1993 felt like a worse version of the performances he does on tour. It feels really unprofessional by comparison and Michael's dancing is very unvaried.
 
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Hiker said:
I don't get people who complain about less live singing. What do they expect! He is not a superhuman who can dance like crazy and sing flawlessly without sounding out of breath.
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Because people don't go to a live concert to listen to the studio version of the songs. They want to listen to live vocals. MJ took the absolute piss with his excessive lip-syncing. If MJ had done the History Tour in the era of social media, he would get tore apart by everyone.
 
Nite Line said:
Because people don't go to a live concert to listen to the studio version of the songs. They want to listen to live vocals. MJ took the absolute piss with his excessive lip-syncing. If MJ had done the History Tour in the era of social media, he would get tore apart by everyone.
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It's still not the record, the instrumentation is still live as it has always been.
 
Nite Line said:
Yes, but the main ingredient of the song is vocals. A slight modification to instrumentation doesn't make up for lip-syncing the vocals, in my opinion.
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A slight modification? They don't just change the pitch, it's a completely different recording. There's so much more to a live show than just singing. Your assessment that Michael would be ripped to shreds by social media is clearly wrong because someone like Britney Speares have already done it and remain respected.
 
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