Why was "Shout" replaced on Invincible?

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This was the interview that I was talking about in the OP. iirc, the "co-writer" who said all this is Clause Forbes.

I don't believe what he says because he sounds pretty arrogant ("Shout" was never gonna be a hit in any universe lol) and it seems like he just had a personal beef with Rodney Jerkins, who was the most prolific producer on Invincible. Even then, I don't see why Jerkins or any of other producers would have cared about "Shout' being on the album, nor do I see why Tommy Motorola would have had an issue with this song when he ultimately caved in on "The Lost Children". MJ probably replaced "Shout" himself simply because he preferred "You Are My Life"; no reason he couldn't have kept "Shout" on if he really wanted to.

In the 2001 audio chat shortly after Invincible came out, MJ named "You Are My Life" as a song he'd like to sing for the rest of his life, so he clearly liked that song a lot. Not hard to believe he'd drop "Shout" in favor of it.
 
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Evening listening to Shout now, it doesn't fit the vibe of Invincible.
I think it could fit with a tracklist, that has more uptempo tracks:

1. Unbreakable
2. Heartbreaker
3. Invincible
4. Break of Dawn
5. You Rock My World
6. Hollywood Tonight
7. Butterflies
8. Speechless
9. 2000 Watts
10. Shout
11. Get Your Weight Off Of Me
12. Whatever Happens
13. Blue Gangsta
14. Xscape
 
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I think it could fit with a tracklist, that has more uptempo tracks:

1. Unbreakable
2. Heartbreaker
3. Invincible
4. Break of Dawn
5. You Rock My World
6. Hollywood Tonight
7. Butterflies
8. Speechless
9. 2000 Watts
10. Shout
11. Get Your Weight Off Of Me
12. Whatever Happens
13. Blue Gangsta
14. Xscape
Yep! That's a solid lineup right there
 
Is the problem with Invincible that the uptempos are bad or that the downtempos are bad?
This goes off topic, but my view is: Nothing wrong with the songs. Among the reasons that they didn't connect with a sustained audience at the time was for the lack of an engaged promotional campaign *akin to a tour* to imbue the presentation with more of his soul.

The fact alone that a track like Shout was officially released at the time stands as a landmark in his musical career. It may however symbolize many things.

The problem of Invincible is it's his last studio album.
I think it was meant as the ending of a chapter of his life, not the end of his album career. I'm sure Michael saw it as another important progression, like when him and his brothers started writing their own music, when they left Motown, when he went solo etc... He was an artist notorious and celebrated for creative transformation, after all.

As pressures mounted, people tasked with communicating his musical vision were making too many compromises against the main visionary. From the few short films there isn't much sense to be made in terms of greater creative message. Basically his public role as visionary was being suppressed, with all the onus put solely on him, as the industry became increasingly profit-hungry, callous and uninspired, and artists viewed as expendable.

I mean, imagine in the meetings between him and execs, in the back of Michael's mind was "I'm about to leave you", while in the back of Mott0las mind was "We'll sTilL Own YOu". It's a miracle that the album did as well as it did under such tension.

Michael understod cohesiveness was part of why albums as a format do well in the short term. People engage with artistic concepts, e.g. opening the cover of Dangerous album is like daring to go into a dream portal, to explore the nature of the universal human subconscious.

As with past albums, the creative power being a balance between Michael and execs (and others with say) probably went a bit back and forth. But his vision being increasingly overruled (album cover changing from "Michael as golden boy" to "Michael going into the digital era" etc) I think symbolizes some loss of control over the cohesion (as well as major disagreements about the direction of MJ as a "product").

What he sorely needed at the Invincible time of his life was people seeing him as more human than myth, god or monster. While at the same time sharing creative abundance.

Every MJ album had songs being shortened to fit the format and cutting important songs in the process, making the albums suffer somewhat in the longer term, particularly as historical documents of his ever potent and experimental creativity.
As his expectedly last s0ny album, Michael having less and less patience with industry pressures, and needing less stress just as the industry met him with more of it, he mustered creative freedom and spontaneity to experiment with unexpected factors and release as much music as he was ready to. This openness provides Invincible with the defiant strength of its unruliness.

The world did not expect an MJ album with as many songs, let alone ballads, and he had little opportunity to make them come across. If he had made a one off, even lip sync performance, of YAML, or one or two more short films of his actual vision, people naturally would have connected with them a lot more. As the pr drew to a close in ?spring 2002? he moved on to other projects.

Yes I will continue to make arguments like these until this album and/or further visions are vindicated 😆
 
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Sort of off-topic but I never knew George Michael had (rumored) problems with Tommy Mottola too:

'Of course, (George) Michael’s sexuality, he would later deadpan, was the worst-kept secret in show business—it was rumored that Michael broke off his Sony contract after he heard Tommy Mottola mutter a gay slur under his breath when he thought the pop star was out of earshot'


Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/george-michael-older-super-deluxe/
BTW. George Michael's 'Older' is the type of album that would be much better for MJ instead of 'Invincble', imho
 
Not sure as to the reason it wasn't included but I can imagine sonically it was too similar to Privacy and to a degree the opening 3 tracks on the record.

I don't go back to it often but I do enjoy Shout.
 
Sort of off-topic but I never knew George Michael had (rumored) problems with Tommy Mottola too:

'Of course, (George) Michael’s sexuality, he would later deadpan, was the worst-kept secret in show business—it was rumored that Michael broke off his Sony contract after he heard Tommy Mottola mutter a gay slur under his breath when he thought the pop star was out of earshot'


Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/george-michael-older-super-deluxe/
BTW. George Michael's 'Older' is the type of album that would be much better for MJ instead of 'Invincble', imho
George Michael famously sued Sony in the early 90’s (when Tommy was boss) because of how they were controlling him to have this image of a very sexual heterossexual male to appease the girls, but he wanted to release other kinds of songs they were blocking through shady tactics. And he complained that no other artist supported him on this tirade.
 
1. Unbreakable
2. Escape
3. Break of Dawn
4. Heaven Can Wait
5. Blue Gangster
6. You Rock My World
7. Butterflies
8. Speechless
9. Threatened
10. Shout
11. Whatever Happens
12. We've Had Enough

Perfect tracklist fam
 
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What would have boosted sales of Invincible would have been to give each colored version a different bonus track. Shout to the red version, APWNN to the white one, Blue Gangsta to the blue one and so on.
 
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I like the upbeat feeling of the song, but I dislike that I can't understand the lyrics.
There are several cut tracks better than that one. We're lucky we got it as a B side. That said, I like it better than 3-4 songs on the album.
Often times an artist negotiates the final track list. Meaning they might have to give up tracks they really like for placements of others due to contract obligations.
 
What would have boosted sales of Invincible would have been to
That's an absolutely terrible idea.

The whole concept of bonus tracks is disgusting. I don't give a shit how many copies an album sells. It's released and it's either good or it isn't. I don't need the record company to be given any more anti-consumer ideas about ways to manipulate me into wasting more of my money buying the same thing twice.

Strewth.
 
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That's an absolutely terrible idea.

The whole concept of bonus tracks is disgusting. I don't give a shit how many copies an album sells. It's released and it's either good or it isn't. I don't need the record company to be given any more anti-consumer ideas about ways to manipulate me into wasting more of my money buying the same thing twice.

Strewth.
Bonus tracks would be better than just the colorful covers that fans bought anyway. That would have been a real service for fans.
 
Bonus tracks would be better than just the colorful covers that fans bought anyway.
It's not better because an orange cover can easily be ignored. New music is a bit harder to ignore.

Again - bonus tracks are disgusting. I think part of the reason CDs died is because of the Walmart edition, Target Edition, Tower edition, Virgin edition, Amazon edition etc.

It's absolute nonsense.

You know what every other artist did with their outtakes in 2001? They released them as the B-sides on singles. It's always better to spend 1.99 on a CD single with a couple of unreleased tracks, rather than spending 12.99 on a version of an album you've already got. Or 64.95 on five copies of an album you've already got. That's for chumps.

That's actually the reason lots of fans used to buy singles - not for the title track, but for the B-sides. I think the reason MJ didn't have a lot of UK number ones is because his singles were quite poor value (ie hardly any unreleased tracks).

That would have been a real service for fans.
I'm glad you don't work at a record company.

Stop thinking like a profit-hungry executive and start thinking like a value-conscious fan.
 
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It's not better because an orange cover can easily be ignored. New music is a bit harder to ignore.

Again - bonus tracks are disgusting. I think part of the reason CDs died is because of the Walmart edition, Target Edition, Tower edition, Virgin edition, Amazon edition etc.

It's absolute nonsense.

You know what every other artist did with their outtakes in 2001? They released them as the B-sides on singles. It's always better to spend 1.99 on a CD single with a couple of unreleased tracks, rather than spending 12.99 on a version of an album you've already got. Or 64.95 on five copies of an album you've already got. That's for chumps.

That's actually the reason lots of fans used to buy singles - not for the title track, but for the B-sides. I think the reason MJ didn't have a lot of UK number ones is because his singles were quite poor value (ie hardly any unreleased tracks).


I'm glad you don't work at a record company.

Stop thinking like a profit-hungry executive and start thinking like a value-conscious fan.
I agree!
 
That's actually the reason lots of fans used to buy singles - not for the title track, but for the B-sides.
The vast majority of 45s just had a song from the same album as the A-side, & in some cases an instrumental version of the A-side or even a mono mix. Very few had exclusive B-sides like Prince or The Beatles. People bought 45s because they were cheap and they only wanted the songs they heard on the radio. That's also why Greatest Hits, K-Tel, & That's What I Call Music albums are popular sellers. For some artists, their Greatest Hits/Best Of sold way more than any of their original albums (ig. Eagles, The Carpenters, ABBA, Queen, Johnny Mathis, etc.). Pre-1970s, it was also more common for acts to have singles only contracts. Especially with independent labels. Some of these labels didn't release many albums or none at all. When cassette & CD singles first came out in the late 1980s, there was often a rap free version of a track for people who didn't like it, because that is when rap collabos with singers/bands started to become popular. It was also for radio stations that were still reluctant to play hip hop.
 
People bought 45s because they were cheap and (...)
Also, 45 RPM should provide a better sound definition than 33 RPM.
(Assuming same manufacturing quality.)
(And what? Let me dream that the whole world turned audiophile for a minute...)
 
Also, 45 RPM should provide a better sound definition than 33 RPM.
(Assuming same manufacturing quality.)
(And what? Let me dream that the whole world turned audiophile for a minute...)
Since most people had a cheap component stereo from Sears, Radio Shack, or K-Mart, the quality of the record didn't matter that much. :p At one time, 8-track tapes were popular and they never really had great sound quality. On pre-recorded 8-tracks it was also common for songs to fade out in the middle of a song and then fade back in after it went to the next program (1,2,3,4).

45rpm has better sound quality on a 12" maxi single, than on a 7" single. A 7" could only hold around 4 to 5 minutes on each side. More time than that, the sound quality would decrease. A 7" single was called a 45, although sometimes a 7" would actually be 33rpm. Usually the 33rpm 7" would be children's storybook records.
 
Sometimes as you grow older, you've gotta make some tough decisions. Did I want to replace that song? No. I had to do it for the fan base.

PS: How could have they thrown my brother Conrad straight into prison? It was very unnecessary. Also, before I go, watch out for 2029. Something big is coming along with Mars.
 
Sometimes as you grow older, you've gotta make some tough decisions. Did I want to replace that song? No. I had to do it for the fan base.

PS: How could have they thrown my brother Conrad straight into prison? It was very unnecessary. Also, before I go, watch out for 2029. Something big is coming along with Mars.
dude pretending he's MJ?? :ROFLMAO: now I've seen it all with this place
 
It's not better because an orange cover can easily be ignored. New music is a bit harder to ignore.

Again - bonus tracks are disgusting. I think part of the reason CDs died is because of the Walmart edition, Target Edition, Tower edition, Virgin edition, Amazon edition etc.

It's absolute nonsense.

You know what every other artist did with their outtakes in 2001? They released them as the B-sides on singles. It's always better to spend 1.99 on a CD single with a couple of unreleased tracks, rather than spending 12.99 on a version of an album you've already got. Or 64.95 on five copies of an album you've already got. That's for chumps.

That's actually the reason lots of fans used to buy singles - not for the title track, but for the B-sides. I think the reason MJ didn't have a lot of UK number ones is because his singles were quite poor value (ie hardly any unreleased tracks).


I'm glad you don't work at a record company.

Stop thinking like a profit-hungry executive and start thinking like a value-conscious fan.
I really miss CD singles. That's how I used to find new artists. Music stores in the mall used to have a ton for .49-1.99. It was cool how they often had extra tracks such a remixes, instrumental, acapella. I often bought both.
Bonus tracks had nothing to do with killing off the CD. That was the car manufactures/XM radio's doing. XM paid to have CD players removed from cars. As of now, no car in the USA has the option for a CD player. Prior to this, only select models of Subaru/Lexus/Cadillac offered it. It's been difficult getting one for a decade.
 
Cutting “Shout” for political reasons makes absolutely no sense lmao. I’ll maintain that it’s one of the best songs MJ made during that era, but I don’t believe for one second that any external pressure made him cut it.

When he says "politics", he's not literally talking about politics, but internal conflict between the writers and producers who worked on the song. Supposedly, co-writer Roy Hamilton was complaining over the publishing rights to the song.

It does make sense that there were issues surrounding "Shout", seeing as it was the only track to be replaced at the last minute. "The Lost Children" was probably more problematic to include, but MJ wasn't going to put his foot down on "Shout" like he did that song. Part of me actually thinks 9/11 may have been a factor in "Shout" being removed, too, because "You Are My Life" was recorded after that tragedy took place.
 
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it seems like he just had a personal beef with Rodney Jerkins, who was the most prolific producer on Invincible. Even then, I don't see why Jerkins or any of other producers would have cared about "Shout' being on the album

Oh, I think he may have been talking about John McClain, who produced "Shout"'s replacement "You Are My Life". McClain was managing MJ at the time, iirc.
 
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