While Invincible has some songs that I like on it individually, I don't think it holds up well as an album. I don't mean this as any disrespect to Michael. I think his other albums were great. Just not Invincible. A couple reasons why
- It has too many producers - it didn't feel cohesive or like an album at all. It felt like just a collection of random tracks strung together in a haphazard way. The first half is too electric dance-track heavy and the second half is too ballad heavy. I know MJ got a lot of co-producer credits, but just like his co-writing credits, I am really skeptical that he had much to do with most of the production on the album. He seemed disengaged in general during this time, probably in part because of the medications he was being given by his crooked doctors.
- There's nothing that ties the album together. HIStory also had a lot of producers, but that album had a clear theme (the false allegations and his response to them) that Invincible lacked. Invincible has neither a cohesive theme nor even a cohesive sound. Not only do many of the instrumentals sound radically different from each other, but the way the vocals are mixed/processed is very inconsistent from song to song. I remain convinced that Teddy Riley did some weird digital processing to Michael's voice on Heaven Can Wait, 2000 Watts, and Whatever Happens, possibly he pitch-shifted it down a little bit or did some weird formant processing on it.
- The awful skit before You Rock My World - why? Just why?
- It seems Michael had very limited involvement with the songwriting. While he gets credits on nearly every song in the booklet, it seems he had nothing to do with the writing of most of them. Break of Dawn had to be included on Number Ones to appease Dr. Freeze after Michael got a writing credit for it on Invincible, and the demo of Whatever Happens that was presented to Michael's team is exactly the same song as the one on the album. Ditto for Heaven Can Wait.
- Michael also didn't use much of his vocal trademarks (hee hee, etc...) on Invincible, apparently because the label told him not to. This, combined with most of the songs being from outside sources means that a lot of Invincible doesn't really feel like Michael being Michael.
- The album is just too long - the ideal album length is 45-60 minutes. Less than that and it feels too abrupt, more than that and it drags on for too long. Invincible drags on too long. You could easily trim 5-10 minutes just by reducing the amount of looped electronic beats in the dance tracks (look at the radio edit of Unbreakable for a good example of how to do this), cutting the YRMW skit
- The tracks could have been arranged better. No need to lead the album with 3 very similar upbeat dance tracks that are all in minor keys with a rap break in the middle. Maybe this was done because Rodney Jerkins had a lot of clout at Sony at the time and wanted his tracks to come first?
So, essentially, the problem with Invincible is that it is too long, internally inconsistent, with a very haphazard-seeming sequencing of the tracks, and a lot of it doesn't seem to have much of Michael's unique artistry in it (i.e. it seems very generic).
And a lot of the best songs from those sessions were not used. Blue Gangsta and Escape are way better than most of the material on Invincible. A Place With No Name, the contemporized Xscape version, is terrific, but the original version is a little bit bland for my tastes.
Let's look at another album made by a big 80s star in his mid-40s that was a comeback of sorts after a few years away from the music industry -
For The Love Of Strange Medicine by Steve Perry (formerly of Journey). Like Invincible, FTLOSM was both a comeback and an end for Perry...he didn't make another solo album for 24 years (and for most of that time, it seemed as if FTLOSM would be the last album he ever made, just like Invincible wound up being for Michael).
- 9 of the 11 tracks were produced by Jimbo Barton (2 with Perry as a co-producer), the other 2 were co-produced by Perry and Tim Miner. This gives FTLOSM a consistency in terms of sound/arrangement/mixing that makes it hold together as a cohesive whole
- Perry genuinely cowrote all of the tracks, he didn't just buy demos from random people and slap his name on them. (BTW, does anyone know why Michael did this for Invincible? He had never done this before, all his previous albums, he only got a writing credit on a song he actually wrote, what changed for Invincible?)
- Most of the musicians are the same on all the tracks. Miner plays piano on both of his songs, and bass on one of them, and the rest of the songs are split between two different bassists, but other than that, it's the same guitarist, drummer, and keyboardist on all the tracks.
- The album has, while not exactly a theme, a sort of "mood" through the entire thing, reflective and tinged with sadness. Compare this to Invincible which jumps all over the place, from happy, to sad, to sexy, to angry, etc...
- FTLOSM doesn't have weird spoken skits, random sound effects opening songs, looped computer beats, etc...and it has 5 fewer songs, so it clocks in at 53, so it doesn't feel like it drags on and on the way Invincible does
- FTLOSM is sequenced much better. Both sides have a nice mix of uptempo tracks and ballads, and the songs flow together really nicely. Using "Anyway", a song dedicated to his ex-Journey bandmates as the closing track was a nice touch, especially when he reunited with Journey 2 years later to make his final album with them.
I know this is probably the first Steve Perry comparison on this forum, but I think it's an interesting and sensible one.
you are a right character ain't ya Agonum. Can I ask a personal question, are you bald with a beard and wear glasses?
Buffalo Bill shot a lot, but did he ever get killed?
