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Where Invincible went wrong

Agonum said:
That reminds me of Isaac Hayes. He put out two albums on May 23rd, 1995: Branded, and Raw & Defined. Both albums are really good, too!
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Quick question mate

Are you ready to stop being a douche to me so we can forget this 'feud' and respect each of ours opinions?
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Whose idea was it to go back to the drawing board in 2000? Didn't MJ turn in a fully realized album and then they said to him to start over?
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I think it was MJ not being satisfied with the album that lead to the 2 year delay, the accident at the MJ & Friends concert might've contributed to the first delay as well.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Whose idea was it to go back to the drawing board in 2000? Didn't MJ turn in a fully realized album and then they said to him to start over?
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Not sure what happened in 2000, but in 1999 MJ presented an early-version of the album to Sony executives, and they told him it wasn’t good enough for release.
 
BuffaloBill87 said:
In the UK , you rock my world charted at number 2 but failed to hit 1 due to kylie Minogue who's single had already been at number 1 for weeks already.

Cry made it to number 25.

That's the smash hit Invincible album for ya
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Cry should have never been a single, Imo. I can not believe Sony wanted to release it over What More Can I Give.
 
Hollywood_Tonight said:
Not sure what happened in 2000, but in 1999 MJ presented an early-version of the album to Sony executives, and they told him it wasn’t good enough for release.
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I couldn't remember the years but either way, that's what I was aiming to recall. Wasn't good enough for release, with songs like A Place With No Name and Blue Gangsta on board?
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
I couldn't remember the years but either way, that's what I was aiming to recall. Wasn't good enough for release, with songs like A Place With No Name and Blue Gangsta on board?
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Apparently so! I think A Place With No Name was never a serious contender for the album, but Xscape and We’ve Had Enough were, and those tracks were most likely presented at this meeting.
 
As far as I know it was MJ's decision to start again after Rodney came on board, not really sure where the whole Sony rejected it thing is coming from.
 
Yeah, Rodney said that MJ suggested starting from scratch. There were rumors that he turned in around six songs and Sony turned them down, but nobody has yet confirmed that.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Yeah, Rodney said that MJ suggested starting from scratch. There were rumors that he turned in around six songs and Sony turned them down, but nobody has yet confirmed that.
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SmoothGangsta said:
As far as I know it was MJ's decision to start again after Rodney came on board, not really sure where the whole Sony rejected it thing is coming from.
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It was discussed during the MJCast Invincible Roundtable episode. MJ submitted an early version of the album to Sony in 1999, after working with Rodney earlier that year. The executives told him “it wasn’t good enough” so he decided to drop most of what was recorded by then and start over.
 
Eh, I dunno about that, everything I've read has said that Sony was very happy with what he was doing, and that their only problem was that it was taking so long.
 
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I do wonder since when MJ had to present songs to Sony. Dangerous Days, with Men in Black and the like? So it tracks to me.

I might be one of the few who would never want the Invincible outtakes on Invincible. I don't think they'd fit. Invincible needed less, not different.

Imagine the timeline where HIStory is just a one disc album, or better still, two discs of entirely fresh music. Invincible is instead the long awaited Compilation, classic tracks from the prior century, with brand new tracks of the 21st century. Then a full fledged album in, 2003, 2004 maybe? Instead of a silly documentary like Living With Michael Jackson.
 
Invincible is a good album, but it has a lot of problems. Its not really a commercial album, its more of an album for the fans. If additional singles like Butterflies, or Break of Dawn and Threatened had a music video and more promotion, I think it would have helped sales, but not to the extent of previous album singles since they are not on the same quality level.

The first three songs are really substandard for MJ. In no way can Unbreakable, Heartbreaker, and Invincible compare to Scream, They don't care about us, and Stranger in Moscow. That is not to say they are bad. I like them, but the beats are just not good enough for MJ. The lyrics are too generic, by the numbers and don't (too me) have emotional appeal. Rodney Jerkins really failed MJ with these songs. Now, you can have repetitive lyrics. Repetitive lyrics work in the case of Shake your body down, or Superfly Sister, but they have funk beats. The Invincible beats are too mechanical, and the lyrics are too bland. The first three songs don't have any surprises to keep you entertained. A lot of first time listeners comment after they get to song three, they are already bored and worn out. MJ really need to ditch Rodney Jerkins writing team and just write himself. He can write a million times better than LaShawn Daniels could.

The album, compared to previous MJ records, doesn't really have "Epic songs." Earth song is an epic song too me, Who is it is epic, Smooth Criminal is epic. Where are the real masterpiece songs on the album? MJ really need to include songs like We've Had Enough on the album. Why create a masterpiece song like that, just to keep it in the vault? It needed more songs with fire to get the album going. Another Day is another song that has that fire. Why not include it?

That being said, all of the songs on the album are fine. Rock my world has stood the test of time, its a very repayable, addictive song, Butterflies is beautiful, Cry is too. A lot of the songs grow on you. Heaven can wait, I never really liked at first, but now I adore. Threatened, I think had the potential to be an epic song, but it would have been better I think with live instrumentation. Lyrically, I think MJ could have done much better just by doing it himself.
 
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BuffaloBill87 said:
Unbreakable
Heartbreaker
Break of Dawn
Heaven can wait
You rock my world
Butterflies
Speechless
Don't walk away
Whatever Happens
Threatened

How about that? Looks a stronger album already
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I think it would have focused the album more. I do think there were tracks left off the album that perhaps would made it better? Xscape, A Place With No Name, We've Heard Enough to Name a few.

It's a shame Mike didn't finish, Beautiful Girl and Hollywood Tonight and have kept People Of The World for himself, that melody is so pretty.
 
Hollywood_Tonight said:
Why does LaShawn’s demo of Threatened sound so much better and fresher than the finished track?
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This sounds so much more vibrant and street than the version on the album (as much as I like it) I think Michael wanted Threatened to be a scary Thriller style song

Apologies for the double post 🙌
 
SmoothCriminal1995 said:
It's been said a lot, but Invincible could have done with a smaller run time and a more streamlined focused tracklist.

There's some fantastic songs on there, but they're kind of watered down by a lot of songs covering similar themes. I think I can 10 track album would have worked much better
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I wish Michael would have realised that not every album needed to be 70 minutes long.

There's exceptions but for me the perfect amount of songs on an album is 10-12 tracks.
 
AlwaysThere said:
“You Rock My World” and “Butterflies” charted based on radio airplay; neither received physical releases in the US, and this was years before digital downloads were integrated into Billboard’s system.

Michael Jackson—a 43-year-old singer three decades into his career and reintroducing himself to a generation that mostly know him as an alleged pedophile and a Jay Leno punchline—releases two singles with little to no promo, and they both reach the Top 15 by virtue of how often people requested them on the radio? That’s fucking impressive.
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It's not impressive at all. It's Michael 'f*cking' Jackson, even if he went to jail he would still sell a lot of records with a legacy and record company like he had.

Most people only know 'Rock My World'; that was also the only song of the album that was true hit material. Period. You see, Michael Jackson was all about making hits, GLOBAL hits. Hits that EVERYONE knew and everyone could sing. People here can say what they want but no one really cared about MJ anymore, only some fans did. It maybe looks that way in hindsight, watching clips of 'Summer Jam' or whatever but he was not considered cool anymore at all. I know because I was there. That obviously doesn't mean people like Jay-Z or whoever didn't respect him or that no one was curious to hear what he did, he was still the most famous man on earth after all.

(BTW, this is not directed to you personally @AlwaysThere, it's also a general reply)

It's not hating, I'm not a hater, I am not a troll, I don't think I'm cynical. I am an MJ fan. I am fairly new on this forum so I am not sure if you were holding hands before, but having an own opinion and discussing MJ's work doesn't seem weird to me on an MJ forum. For me it sharpens my mind talking about his work with others. @Mister_Jay_Tee for example does make me think about stuff, even if I don't agree with everything. I went to all MJ's tours multiple times, I met him, I talked to him for half an hour, I even stood up for him on tv in '93 during the allegations. I felt hiss power during the 80's and 90's. I truly feel if you love MJ you can only feel sorry for what happened to him after that time and be honest that the real MJ was basically gone: his enthusiasm, his voice, his face, his health; his joy for life even. Also criticizing 'Invincible' and not enjoying it are also two things. For instance, I sometimes enjoy humming the melodies while not liking the songs themselves, I like certain production aspects etc.
 
kreen said:
What might be the most surprising aspect of the Invincible debacle is that usually, when you have a big star with commercial potential -- which MJ still was at that point, just not to the extent he once was -- you usually have a pro team of record executives/managers/A & R men who basically take over from the psychologically or artistically struggling artist and make sure the resulting product will be commercial and will sell, even though the artist himself might no longer be the catalyst.

But with MJ, you get the sense that he got superstar money to make the album, in terms of studio time and producers' fees, but there was nobody professional in charge of the project who could assemble quality material and make sure what came out was commercial and sellable.

There should have been a record executive who should have said what is obvious on first listen : "this is too ballad-heavy", or, "you can't start an album with 3 similar numbers", or "I hear the first single, but I don't hear the third one".

I mean, the Xscape album -- where MJ was no longer even around -- showed a firmer grasp of how you put out a competent package of music that has a chance on the charts.

I think ultimately it's the fault of whoever was MJ's manager at that point -- if somebody even was.
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THIS! I wonder if it's just bad luck having no one like that around or that they were afraid to tell MJ (their) truth, that MJ himself was really stubborn or that there was something different going on (Sony). I also wonder if there were people that could honestly talk realness with MJ, maybe FrankDiLeo?
 
Another thing that helped Michael with album sales was the amazing short films, and Invincible didn't have any of those. You Rock My World felt like a rip off of Smooth Criminal and The Way You Make Me Feel (even some dance moves were recycled from Smooth Criminal). And Cry was just crap.
 
mack77 said:
Its not really a commercial album, its more of an album for the fans.
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Uncommercial would be Albert Ayler, Diamanda Galás, or Sun Ra. If the slow songs on Invincible had been released by Adele, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, or Ed Sheeran, they likely would have been overplayed on the radio. Maybe not The Lost Children, though.

Michael Jackson was in his 40s, which was way over the average age for Top 40 airplay in the 2000s. Madonna, who is the exact same age as Mike (& Prince) eventually stopped getting a lot of Top 40 airplay too in the early 2000s. Madonna released an album as recently as 2019 (Madame X). None of the singles reached the Top 10 of the Hot 100, but they did on the dance music chart. The dance music chart tracks what songs are popular in clubs. When they were still releasing 12" remix singles, that was originally what the dance/club music chart was for. Back in the 1980s & 1990s, just about every Madonna single made the Top 10 on the Hot 100. She also released albums more often than Mike did during the same time period.

Paul McCartney was in The Beatles, which is the most popular band in recorded music history. They still sell today and haven't existed since 1970. Unless you count the 2 songs from the 1990s for Anthology. The Beatles compilation 1 is one of the biggest selling albums of the 2000s and it had no previously unreleased songs on it. It was songs already available elsewhere. Wings were fairly popular too. None of that helped Paul to get Top 40 radio airplay in the USA for his later records or the ones he released under the name "The Fireman". Same for The Rolling Stones. All artists will age out of Top 40. New Kids On The Block & Duran Duran still release albums, they aren't on the radio. None of those acts had the controversies that Mike had. Probably the Janet Jackson Superbowl did not help matters either, since it was another Jackson getting in trouble. Her radio play dropped after that. That Mike had 2 songs reach the Top 15 at his age and tabloid image is pretty good. There'a a radio format called Adult R&B which does play new songs by veteran artists. Charlie Wilson, the former lead singer of The Gap Band, has had a lot of success there. If Mike was still alive today and released an album now, that's most likely where he would get played. The only way he would get a pop hit is to do a song with some artist that is popular now like Lizzo, Cardi B, or Bruno Mars. That's what happened with the Drake song that he sampled Mike on. Same with the Justin Timberlake duet.
 
DuranDuran said:
That Mike had 2 songs reach the Top 15 at his age and tabloid image is pretty good.
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It's possible that MJ had reached the age where, no matter the quality of the music, he was too old-hat to get a hit on youth-oriented charts. But the fact that You Rock My World did make it to the Top 10 rather easily, and that the industry and Sony certainly did expect the album to be a major release, at a time where CDs still moved (that era was coming to a close but it wasn't yet over), means that we can certainly consider the album's ultimate lack of sales and hit singles as a consequence of its lack of quality.

Had the album been great and chock-full of hit material, and had it still stiffed like it did, then it would show MJ had indeed entered the "legacy artist" phase of his career, where one can still sell out tours but no longer chart on the Top 200.
 
kreen said:
lack of quality.
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Top 40 popularity never had much to do with quality. Vanilla Ice's debut album sold around 10 million copies in the USA. That's way more than any individual album by Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Miles Davis, Dolly Parton, Donny Hathaway, The Temptations, etc. Ice Ice Baby was a bigger hit than the song it sampled, same for MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This. Milli Vanilli's Girl You Know It's True outsold all Stevie Wonder albums except Songs In The Key Of Life. Rob & Fab didn't even sing anything on their record. They won a Grammy too. Beyoncé now has won more Grammys than any other artist in history with 32.

Also, why would Sony want to promote a singer who went around with a sign with "Tommy Mottola is the devil" on it not long after his album came out? It didn't work for George Michael to battle Sony for years before Invincible came out. It didn't work for Prince (with Warner Brothers) either when he changed his name to a symbol and wrote "slave" on his face or Tori Amos with Atlantic Records.
 
DuranDuran said:
Also, why would Sony want to promote a singer who went around with a sign with "Tommy Mottola is the devil" on it not long after his album came out? It didn't work for George Michael to battle Sony for years before Invincible came out. It didn't work for Prince (with Warner Brothers) either when he changed his name to a symbol and wrote "slave" on his face or Tori Amos with Atlantic Records.
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Exactly this. Both MJ and Mottola acted irresponsibly and ultimately contributed to the whole fiasco. It could’ve been easily worked out.

I’m convinced kreen hates MJ lmfao. Every conversation I recall them taking place in is so abhorrently negative.
 
AlwaysThere said:
Exactly this. Both MJ and Mottola acted irresponsibly and ultimately contributed to the whole fiasco. It could’ve been easily worked out.
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This is what Ricky Martin had to say about it at the time: "They’ve done an amazing, outstanding job for me all over the world. Tommy has always been my friend. He’s been there unconditionally for me, 24/7. Really I don’t think it has any foundation [Mike's statement that Mottola is racist]. I’ve met Michael a few times and I wish him the best. But I have no idea why he said that, though."
 
Victorious said:
It's not impressive at all. It's Michael 'f*cking' Jackson, even if he went to jail he would still sell a lot of records with a legacy and record company like he had.

Most people only know 'Rock My World'; that was also the only song of the album that was true hit material. Period. You see, Michael Jackson was all about making hits, GLOBAL hits. Hits that EVERYONE knew and everyone could sing. People here can say what they want but no one really cared about MJ anymore, only some fans did. It maybe looks that way in hindsight, watching clips of 'Summer Jam' or whatever but he was not considered cool anymore at all. I know because I was there. That obviously doesn't mean people like Jay-Z or whoever didn't respect him or that no one was curious to hear what he did, he was still the most famous man on earth after all.

(BTW, this is not directed to you personally @AlwaysThere, it's also a general reply)

It's not hating, I'm not a hater, I am not a troll, I don't think I'm cynical. I am an MJ fan. I am fairly new on this forum so I am not sure if you were holding hands before, but having an own opinion and discussing MJ's work doesn't seem weird to me on an MJ forum. For me it sharpens my mind talking about his work with others. @Mister_Jay_Tee for example does make me think about stuff, even if I don't agree with everything. I went to all MJ's tours multiple times, I met him, I talked to him for half an hour, I even stood up for him on tv in '93 during the allegations. I felt hiss power during the 80's and 90's. I truly feel if you love MJ you can only feel sorry for what happened to him after that time and be honest that the real MJ was basically gone: his enthusiasm, his voice, his face, his health; his joy for life even. Also criticizing 'Invincible' and not enjoying it are also two things. For instance, I sometimes enjoy humming the melodies while not liking the songs themselves, I like certain production aspects etc.
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Well, it can all be true. And all is true. MJ was 40 plus. He wasn't done being the King of Pop, but he was no longer moving like he was 24. He couldn't, he didn't need to. Is Invincible the best version of what a mature, older man, and father could be? Maybe not. But compared to what his peers continually tried post 80s (Stevie, Madonna, Prince off and on again), MJ still wore the suit better to me. To me he never really made a bad song. Except in 1987, he made an entire Bad album.

But anyway, I'm glad he didn't make a jazz album, even though I'd kinda like that, or transition over to re-singing his old songs. Maybe eventually it'd be time, but not yet. I enjoy when they still try to engage with their work. MJ made one more Number 1, his reign is basically undisputed. Thriller, Bad, Dangerous, HIStory, Invincible. All Number 1s. That's a huge reign still.

Conversely, Off The Wall didn't even make it to Number 1 on the charts which is insane to me. I'll take OTW over Invincible any day, but I'll also take it over pretty much every MJ record. Because that was just something else Michael did. MJ calculated every record after that, period, sometimes he simply succeeded more than not. Invincible at least was songs he enjoyed singing and thought were enjoyable and not made with the sole intent of "Topping" Thriller/Declaring himself The King of Pop. Just a different mood sometimes doesn't hurt.
 
As it is, time is being kinder to Invincible. MJ jumped the gun though; the way the 2000s shifted so quickly, Daft Punk, Kanye, so many immediate changes post 2002. Darkchild and Teddy Riley just weren't there for it.
 
DuranDuran said:
Top 40 popularity never had much to do with quality. Vanilla Ice's debut album sold around 10 million copies in the USA. That's way more than any individual album by Aretha Franklin, Smokey Robinson, Miles Davis, Dolly Parton, Donny Hathaway, The Temptations, etc. Ice Ice Baby was a bigger hit than the song it sampled, same for MC Hammer's U Can't Touch This. Milli Vanilli's Girl You Know It's True outsold all Stevie Wonder albums except Songs In The Key Of Life. Rob & Fab didn't even sing anything on their record. They won a Grammy too. Beyoncé now has won more Grammys than any other artist in history with 32.
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All of those songs you mention that were hits never got much respect, that’s true, but they had hooks the size of California — even though in some cases it was a sample. Invincible didn’t have much in the way of killer hooks.
 
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