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Where Invincible went wrong

SmoothCriminal1995 said:
That's why I'm excited about John Cameron's next Musicology episode on the Bad album, it's my favourite album and era. The timeline of events and the detail of his documentaries are superb.
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Man ive been waiting on that for almost a year now. I love John & especially his Janet docs. Any release date?
 
Victorious said:
I disagree, Michael made a video (Rock My World) and although it was done very well it was unoriginal and he looked awful (imo), just can't see how another video would be any better in that regards. Also besides 'Rock My World' there isn't any hit material on Invincible; maybe 'Break Of Dawn' or 'Whatever Happens' would do okay-ish but there are nothing special too
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Butterflies could've had a beautiful visual with his hair like at the 2001 at nasdaq with some blue on & florescent butterflies & lighting with a video girl. I kind of imagine it could've been somewhat like the pepsi "dreams" commercial.
 
pinballmaster said:
I also think 2000 Watts is a dumb song.
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There's a lot of songs talking about a radio/stereo. Such as Boomin' System by LL Cool J.
Victorious said:
Also besides 'Rock My World' there isn't any hit material on Invincible
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What exactly is "hit material"? Around the time Invincible came out, ringtone songs were popular (in the USA), and for most of that decade. Some of the most popular radio acts of the 2000s are Lil' Wayne, Nelly, Eminem, Foo Fighters, Adele, Nicki Minaj, Maroon 5, OutKast, Destiny's Child/Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Drake, BTS, & a few "bro country" singers. The last decade, DJ Khalid & Justin Beiber songs were always on the radio too. "We da best music! Another one" 🤣 Are songs like Stanky Legg, My Baby Daddy, Gangnam Style, What Did The Fox Say?, White Tee, Pretty Boy Swag, The Whisper Song, WAP, Black Beatles, etc. "hit material"? Because they all were, lol. As of now, Old Town Road by Lil Nas X & Billy Ray Cyrus is the longest running #1 song on the Hot 100 in Billboard.
 
ChanceToDance said:
Seeing how he included Speechless and Threatened on the This Is It tracklist he must've held it in some high regard still,
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It's not necessarily MJ himself who insisted on Speechless or Threatened being featured (briefly) in the show, it might have been the musical director or whoever was in charge of coming up with a setlist; MJ merely approved.
 
Kanye East said:
Michael was a great songwriter, I'm not sure why he decided to rely so heavily on outside writers and then claim credit for their songs for Invincible.
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For the same reason it's always done in the music industry: you rely on outside writers when you don't have good material of your own, or when your material isn't commercial enough, and you add in fake credits to make money off publishing.
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
There was not enough catchy songs , simple as that. The chorus on a lot of the tracks were not snappy enough to get you hooked.

I've always found a large chunk of Invincible very average and not enough of the MJ spark.

Invincible, the lost children, 2000 watts, Cry, Privacy, Threatened and perhaps one of the ballads are just not good enough.

This was released in September 2001 and a lot of the tracks seemed quite dated. Other artists were releasing better pop music at the time.

I hate to mention MJ's nose but at that time in his life, it wasn't looking too great , extremely thin and I found some of his singing quite nasally on some tracks.

There are some gems though on the album for sure, mostly the r&b tracks.
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At the beginning of 2001 he probably had another facelift done, the result was bad, the nose was too pointed
 
The lack of videos is what makes people downplay Invincible more than anything. They are just not as popular. Anyway, I'm muting this thread now.
 
DuranDuran said:
There's a lot of songs talking about a radio/stereo. Such as Boomin' System by LL Cool J.

What exactly is "hit material"? Around the time Invincible came out, ringtone songs were popular (in the USA), and for most of that decade. Some of the most popular radio acts of the 2000s are Lil' Wayne, Nelly, Eminem, Foo Fighters, Adele, Nicki Minaj, Maroon 5, OutKast, Destiny's Child/Beyoncé, Bruno Mars, Rihanna, Drake, BTS, & a few "bro country" singers. The last decade, DJ Khalid & Justin Beiber songs were always on the radio too. "We da best music! Another one" 🤣 Are songs like Stanky Legg, My Baby Daddy, Gangnam Style, What Did The Fox Say?, White Tee, Pretty Boy Swag, The Whisper Song, WAP, Black Beatles, etc. "hit material"? Because they all were, lol. As of now, Old Town Road by Lil Nas X & Billy Ray Cyrus is the longest running #1 song on the Hot 100 in Billboard.
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It's subjective and of course songs can surprisingly be a hit or become a hit because of a ringtone. But in my opinion nothing on Invincible is catchy enough or original enough to be considered hit material (so except 'Rock My World' and possibly 'Break of Dawn'), your examples might be different but they definitely are catchy songs
 
Victorious said:
It's subjective and of course songs can surprisingly be a hit or become a hit because of a ringtone. But in my opinion nothing on Invincible is catchy enough or original enough to be considered hit material (so except 'Rock My World' and possibly 'Break of Dawn'), your examples might be different but they definitely are catchy songs
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But Butterflies was the biggest hit from Invincible. I still hear Butterflies on the local R&B stations today. At the time that neo-soul sound was in with the R&B audience (Maxwell, Erykah Badu, D'Angelo, Jill Scott). Some of it also got pop airplay.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I'm just glad it's your opinion.
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It's not just their opinion though is it?

There's not many tracks on there that would be considered huge hits (if released as a single)

Cry was supposed to be the new man in the mirror - landed at 25 in the UK charts and quickly left again
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
It's not just their opinion though is it?

There's not many tracks on there that. would be considered huge hits (if released as a single)

Cry was supposed to be the new man in the mirror - landed at 25 in the UK charts and quickly left again
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The album is a hit with people born in the 21st century. Maybe for the 20th century audiences it's considered a failure. But still, there was quite a lot of clout for these songs. Butterflies was a hit, and Heaven Can Wait charted still. Whatever Happens has over 1 mil on YouTube. Cry wasn't even a US single so it never got a chance. And anyway, plenty of great songs got low charts - Who Is It, Stranger in Moscow, They Don't Care About Us. Even every song off thriller aside BJ and BI are lower than I say they'd deserve. So charts only say half the story really.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The album is a hit with people born in the 21st century. Maybe for the 20th century audiences it's considered a failure. But still, there was quite a lot of clout for these songs. Butterflies was a hit, and Heaven Can Wait charted still. Whatever Happens has over 1 mil on YouTube. Cry wasn't even a US single so it never got a chance. And anyway, plenty of great songs got low charts - Who Is It, Stranger in Moscow, They Don't Care About Us. Even every song off thriller aside BJ and BI are lower than I say they'd deserve. So charts only say half the story really.
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I probably consider Invincible a 'lost' album , despite it being his last ever full album - there's just not that many people who even know about it, it's that forgettable.

For me it was the first ever MJ album I bought so has special memories but the album itself lacks serious quality and hit songs.
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
I probably consider Invincible a 'lost' album , despite it being his last ever full album - there's just not that many people who even know about it, it's that forgettable.

For me it was the first ever MJ album I bought so has special memories but the album itself lacks serious quality and hit songs.
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Ok, but you're talking to someone who's never forgotten it. This album came in the era I was young and impressionable in and it made an impact before I even cared about music like that. Not like Off The Wall did, which I heard devotedly nearly every day, but enough for a hook like Unbreakable to still be in my brain. Rediscovering it years later, it wasn't "a steep drop off". I had a phone with 4 MJ ringtones: Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Rock with you, Billie Jean, and You Rock My World. And guess which one I played the most? YRMW easy.

And Which video I watched the most? That's a trick question, I watched them all. But You Rock My World got way more play than some of them. That's the way it was. It almost seemed tailor made for the children to discover music off of. Probably, since Prince and Paris were who he devoted most of the songs and the album to.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Ok, but you're talking to someone who's never forgotten it. This album came in the era I was young and impressionable in and it made an impact before I even cared about music like that. Not like Off The Wall did, which I heard devotedly nearly every day, but enough for a hook like Unbreakable to still be in my brain. Rediscovering it years later, it wasn't "a steep drop off". I had a phone with 4 MJ ringtones: Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Rock with you, Billie Jean, and You Rock My World. And guess which one I played the most? YRMW easy.

And Which video I watched the most? That's a trick question, I watched them all. But You Rock My World got way more play than some of them. That's the way it was. It almost seemed tailor made for the children to discover music off of. Probably, since Prince and Paris were who he devoted most of the songs and the album to.
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I became a fan in the summer of 2001 and was young myself (13) so buying Invincible and hearing you rock my world as the first single was exciting for sure.

Growing up I found every song utterly amazing but as my tastes changed I realised that not every track he made was great, there was some average songs that I simply did not care for.

Looking back on the quality of MJ's album, for me Invincible is the worst by a mile( I exclude BOTDF)

I'm no longer an obsessed fan who absolutely worships everything he did. He had his flaws and certain things he did I do not agree with but that was MJ.

Sorry I'm going off topic now so will stop.

Any album with the lost children on it deserves to bomb 🤢 🤣
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
I'm no longer an obsessed fan who absolutely worships everything he did. He had his flaws and certain things he did I do not agree with but that was MJ.
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I don't worship any man. And you don't have to be obsessed to say Invincible is catchy musically. I don't find every song utterly amazing and never did, that's the difference between us maybe. I had my favorites and I always enjoyed some more than others. I just consider his lowers higher than most others still; he understood this generation of music better than Prince and Stevie have, imo. And those anthem songs are just that, anthems. Different ranking for those.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
It almost seemed tailor made for the children to discover music off of.
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You mean the young people of today? If so, then Invincible doesn't have enough autotune for the songs to be hits. 🤣

Anyway, for the most part, Top 40 is geared towards teens & young adults. Mike was over the age limit when Invincible came out. How many other artists that had a record that came out in the 1960s was still getting radio airplay for new songs? Not Paul McCartney, except for that song with Rihanna & Kanye West. Maybe The Isley Brothers, but that was partly because of the Mr. Biggs thing with R. Kelly. Carlos Santana had young hot singers for his Supernatural album which was a big hit and Clive Davis was behind that.

It is also lucky that Invincible came out before Napster & MP3s really hit and all album sales started to drop. Today a certain amount of streams is considered a sale of an album although nobody bough any physical product. They don't even have to listen to the entire album, just one song. Also somebody could click on a Youtube video and only watch 30 seconds of it. It's still counted as a view. Old songs by Fleetwood Mac & Kate Bush became top 10 hits in the USA because of Tik Tok videos or being featured on the popular TV show Stranger Things.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The Lost Children is not as nice as Someone in the Dark. If Someone in the Dark was on Thriller though...
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The Lost Children is awful!!! It's also slightly tainted due to the allegations.

Someone in the dark? I actually like that one (shock horror) but ET almost ruined it halfway through.
 
DuranDuran said:
You mean the young people of today? If so, then Invincible doesn't have enough autotune for the songs to be hits. 🤣

Anyway, for the most part, Top 40 is geared towards teens & young adults. Mike was over the age limit when Invincible came out. How many other artists that had a record that came out in the 1960s was still getting radio airplay for new songs? Not Paul McCartney, except for that song with Rihanna & Kanye West. Maybe The Isley Brothers, but that was partly because of the Mr. Biggs thing with R. Kelly. Carlos Santana had young hot singers for his Supernatural album which was a big hit and Clive Davis was behind that.

It is also lucky that Invincible came out before Napster & MP3s really hit and all album sales started to drop. Today a certain amount of streams is considered a sale of an album although nobody bough any physical product. They don't even have to listen to the entire album, just one song. Also somebody could click on a Youtube video and only watch 30 seconds of it. It's still counted as a view. Old songs by Fleetwood Mac & Kate Bush became top 10 hits in the USA because of Tik Tok videos or being featured on the popular TV show Stranger Things.
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Duran... I know all this. The MJ songs are getting popular because of TikTok, but there are plenty that aren't. It just depends on who you're asking..
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Duran... I know all this. The MJ songs are getting popular because of TikTok, but there are plenty that aren't. It just depends on who you're asking..
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If you watch song reaction videos on Youtube, many of the people are reacting to the same songs & the same artists. Since the reactors tend to pick songs from requests and/or people paying them, that says to me that probably the same age groups (boomers & Gen X) are the main audience requesting and watching the reactions. A few reactors will do videos on lesser known songs/artists or even new songs, but the majority are big mainstream hits from the 1960s to maybe the early 1990s or artists like Journey, Beatles, CCR, Phil Collins, & Led Zeppelin.
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
The Lost Children is awful!!! It's also slightly tainted due to the allegations.

Someone in the dark? I actually like that one (shock horror) but ET almost ruined it halfway through.
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I agree with Brad Buxer. The song is horrible, the title itself doesn’t make sense and the song doesn’t explain what lost children even means or what it’s referring to.
 
'Butterflies' might be a hit now due to a TikTok dance or something, at the time no one played it. I am in my forties so a hit would mean it was being played on the radio or MTV. and everyone knew it and could sing it. A catchy MJ hit song would be a 'Remember The Time' or even 'Earth Song'. So yes imo 'Rock My World' was the only hit material on 'Invincible' and maybe, maybe 'Break of Dawn'; but even that one was too weak.'Cry' could be hit material too but was too similar to 'Earth Song', 'Heal The World', 'Man In The Mirror' etc. to make any impact. Michael's vocals wer nothing like his earlier work in terms of quality, stamina or even effort, the production was lame at the time; the first three songs sounded like what Timbaland did better five years earlier and Rodney Jerkins made so much better songs too.

Are there cool tracks, melodies and beats on Invincible? Yes, but in general it's very weak for a MJ album imo
In my opinion yes (but since pretty much every critic agrees it's kinda fact too, lol)
 
Victorious said:
'Butterflies' might be a hit now due to a TikTok dance or something, at the time no one played it. I am in my forties so a hit would mean it was being played on the radio or MTV. and everyone knew it and could sing it. A catchy MJ hit song would be a 'Remember The Time' or even 'Earth Song'. So yes imo 'Rock My World' was the only hit material on 'Invincible' and maybe, maybe 'Break of Dawn'; but even that one was too weak.'Cry' could be hit material too but was too similar to 'Earth Song', 'Heal The World', 'Man In The Mirror' etc. to make any impact. Michael's vocals wer nothing like his earlier work in terms of quality, stamina or even effort, the production was lame at the time; the first three songs sounded like what Timbaland did better five years earlier and Rodney Jerkins made so much better songs too.

Are there cool tracks, melodies and beats on Invincible? Yes, but in general it's very weak for a MJ album imo
In my opinion yes (but since pretty much every critic agrees it's kinda fact too, lol)
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Thank you!!

I do wonder if these fans actually lived through this period and were aware of just how little impact Invincible made.

It was considered a huge flop (for MJ) You rock my world was the only hit, all this talk about butterflies being a hit is incorrect, maybe was popular on urban radio stations but that was it - it was never played on the mainstream radio stations.

You get the die hards who will religiously defend the album but the general feeling was that it was a very disappointing release.

If you were to ask a random person what they thought about Michael Jackson's Invincible, they would look at you as though you had two heads., Huh?
 
I enjoy not reading these comments while blasting the Invincible album.
It's a great album with such a unique modern yet timeless sound and masterful and dense lyrics.
His vocal delivery is also at its peak.
The songs don't have straight on the nose hooks but are way more subtle and complex.
It's an album that surely grows on you if only you give it a chance. Try listening to it in the car or at home with headphones.

I'm not saying you're not an MJ fan if you don't like Invincible, that would be stupid. But if you don't like Invincible maybe you are just too old or a type of person that wants to hear Thriller for the rest of their lives.
I'm so happy Michael was beyond that and kept evolving and embracing modern technology.
What I would give to hear his next album...
 
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