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Michael Jackson was less involved in Off The Wall creating process comparing to Invincible album?

83magic said:
to imply that he was ‘doing nothing’ outside of the album is false and disrespectful. this is yet another sad & desperate attempt to minimise anything that came before 1987..
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To be honest, I think it's more of an Invincible thing. It's always the same with Invincible threads.

OP creates a thread about how Invincible is underrated, why everyone is wrong and why it's better than X. Then all the posts containing all the valid criticisms come in hard and heavy and the thread dies.

Some fans cannot comprehend that the music on the album might just be sub-par for Michael Jackson. They can list all the excuses they like, but nothing can change the fact that it was received the way it was - because it deserved the reaction it got.
 
Sometimes our experience of albums/songs isn't about how critically acclaimed an album/song is. Sometimes an album or a song ends up reminding us of a whole chapter in our lives, such as our childhood, or the teenage years.

For me, that album is History, because that's when I became an active fan, and listening to History takes me back in time to my teenage years and the start of my fandom.

For others, this maybe Invincible, or any number of the other albums. I think it's important to take care not to dismiss each others experiences.

I think this personal identification with an album/song is what makes us as fans want to defend certain albums more than others. I think we are lucky as MJ fans to have so many distinct sounding albums to disagree over like this🙂.
 
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I’ve also noticed that it’s become common to dismiss michael’s input on ‘get on the floor’ because he received a co credit, rather than a sole credit.

yet he’s the one who took louis johnson’s bass licks, and gave it structure, and put melody & lyrics on top of it. he arranged it and elevated it from a groove into an actual song. that’s not something to be underestimated especially when he was still in the early stages of his development as a songwriter.

there’s also the different voices he used, and the breakdown and climatic chants.
I’m not even a fan of the song lol 😂 but I recognise the genius that michael brought to it.
 
Masonh said:
Then what is?
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Whitney Houston & Frank Sinatra never wrote any songs. Neither did Elvis Presley (although he got co-writing credits for them because of Colonel Parker). A very small precentage of singers/bands self-wrote their material. Are you saying they all have no involvement with their records like they're A.I. or something? I also don't get this idea that self-writing is supposed to have some personal meaning. K.C. & The Sunshine Band wrote their songs and it's mainly party lyrics (Shake Your Booty, I'm Your Boogie Man, Boogie Shoes, etc.), There's also a lot of instrumental music, like jazz. With a lot of today's mainstream popular music, there's often 10 or more people credited, even songs without samples/interpolations.
mj_frenzy said:
Also, with so many outside songwriters and producers on the 'Invincible' album, it can be said that Michael Jackson sounds like a guest artist on his own album.
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Well, that's like the average popular album and/or songs today. Lots of features, usually with whatever rapper is popular at the moment like with Mariah Carey. Or DJ Khalid shouting his name or "another one" over a track, 😅 Or Puff Daddy, Timbaland, & Jermaine Dupri appearing in everybody that they produced music videos.
 
DuranDuran said:
Whitney Houston & Frank Sinatra never wrote any songs. Neither did Elvis Presley (although he got co-writing credits for them because of Colonel Parker). A very small precentage of singers/bands self-wrote their material. Are you saying they all have no involvement with their records like they're A.I. or something? I also don't get this idea that self-writing is supposed to have some personal meaning. K.C. & The Sunshine Band wrote their songs and it's mainly party lyrics (Shake Your Booty, I'm Your Boogie Man, Boogie Shoes, etc.)
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I just think people should stop being hypocritical and embrace things like they are. When people say something like "oww, whatever happens is not even Michael Jackson song, he just got credited on it with no reason", while Thriller, Rork With You and She Is Out of My Life are not Michael Jackon's songs too! This is hilarious.

And the point, that Michael Jackson was a guest on his own album? I mean, why?

In the way of songwritting? Well, no, he wrote 2 songs on his own. And lots of sogs lyrically connected to his life. He wrote 4 songs on Thriller and also 2 songs on Off The Wall. So it'not much different from Invincible

In the way of musical sounds? Again, no. Invincible has it's own specific musical touch, that would only MJ do. Same old beatbox of same old MJ. Invincible is just Michael Jackson simply being Michael Jackson, nothing special. I mean, there are a few songs, that do not sound like MJ songs to me. Like Heaven Can Wait, You Rock My World, Butterflies and Whatever Happens. But they are just an exception.

And just because there was a few times, when Michael Jackson didn't show up in studio, doesn't mean that he was a guest. It means, that he was going through tough times. And wasn't really in shape for working.

Invincible album is ruined MJ album. Still it's MJ album. Good or bad, it's not important. It's part of MJ discography.
 
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The average radio listener does not know or care who writes songs or not. Like they used to say on American Bandstand "it has a good beat and I can dance to it". Decades ago it was common for a lot of artists to record the same songs, which later became known as "standards" or Great American Songbook. In a year apart, I Heard It Through The Grapevine was a hit for Gladys Knight & The Pips and Marvin Gaye. The Creedence Clearwater Revival long version was popular too around the same time. Sugar Sugar by The Archies was a hit in the 1960s and they don't exist. The Archies are cartoon & comic book characters. Milli Vanilli wasn't the first or last fake group, just the one that sold the most, plus Rob & Fab became famous. Many of these types of acts were so-called "one-hit wonders" so they were never found out
 
Masonh said:
In the way of songwritting? Well, no, he wrote 2 songs on his own. And lots of sogs lyrically connected to his life. He wrote 4 songs on Thriller and also 2 songs on Off The Wall. So it'not much different from Invincible
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9 songs on Bad, 4 on Dangerous, 7 on History. So, by your logic there's a massive decline, that should explain the failure of the Invincible album.😜
 
Fuzball said:
9 songs on Bad, 4 on Dangerous, 7 on History. So, by your logic there's a massive decline, that should explain the failure of the Invincible album.😜
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1 on Off The Wall and 2 on Invincible you forgot to mention
 
DuranDuran said:
The average radio listener does not know or care who writes songs or not. Like they used to say on American Bandstand "it has a good beat and I can dance to it". Decades ago it was common for a lot of artists to record the same songs, which later became known as "standards" or Great American Songbook. In a year apart, I Heard It Through The Grapevine was a hit for Gladys Knight & The Pips and Marvin Gaye. The Creedence Clearwater Revival long version was popular too around the same time. Sugar Sugar by The Archies was a hit in the 1960s and they don't exist. The Archies are cartoon & comic book characters. Milli Vanilli wasn't the first or last fake group, just the one that sold the most, plus Rob & Fab became famous. Many of these types of acts were so-called "one-hit wonders" so they were never found out
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Average listener does not even care about Off The Wall. It's part of a history now. Not Invincible album case
 
Fuzball said:
The average listener care about OTW, Thriller, Bad & Dangerous. These are his prime albums.
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His prime ablums are Thriller, Bad, Dangerous and History. OTW these days known only by die hard fans. But even little fellas from tiktok know about Invincible
 
May be a discussion about popularity of albums is a bit outdated. We live in the age of streaming now. People listen to playlists, not albums. So may be young people haven't heard of the album Off The Wall, but they surely encounter songs like Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough or Rock With You. Just yesterday, I was in a shopping street where a new shop was opening. They had a dj on the street... and what was he playing? Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough. I saw all those heads bobbing to the music. Everyone knows it. Everybody likes it.
 
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Good point Piek, don't you think that's always been the case though? When I listened to songs in the past by any other artists, I had no idea what albums they came from, I just liked the songs I liked and was never interested in albums. And I may have taken an interest of an artists future songs if I happened to like a song of there's. It might seem incomprehensible, but there will be people who listened to MJ like that 😂. Today we have steaming platforms, in the good old days there was radio play, and the music video channels. I think playlists have always been a thing.
I think it's only the serious fans from any artists that are more fluent in album literacy.
 
Piek said:
May be a discussion about popularity of albums is a bit outdated. We live in the age of streaming now. People listen to playlists, not albums. So may be young people haven't heard of the album Off The Wall, but they surely encounter songs like Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough or Rock With You.
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They sure do. Those songs are all over commercial radio, in supermarkets, at family gatherings etc. OTW songs pop up all the time on BBC Radio 2. Which is not exactly a cutting edge radio station, lol. It's very mainstream, not really aimed at the younger demographic although they play Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter etc etc, all the usual suspects!

Piek said:
Just yesterday, I was in a shopping street where a new shop was opening. They had a dj on the street... and what was he playing? Don't Stop 'Til You Ge Enough. I saw all those heads bobbing to the music. Everyone knows it. Everybody likes it.
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Discussions about OTW pop up online all the time, people battling over whether it's better than Thriller or not. The general public knows these songs well. HCW was trending on TikTok a couple of years ago which was great. If OTW hasn't been trending on TT that doesn't mean anything, imo. I don't think APOM has had a TT moment (afaik) but that's no reflection on Bad as an album.

As for Michael's involvement in the creative process, we don't have tons of footage of every conversation that happened in the studio between Michael and his team. We don't know the content of every phone call he might have made during an album's creation. And I'm OK with that. The creative process should be a little mysterious, it's OK if we only have a partial picture of what happened.

83magic said:
[...] just because only three of michael’s compositions made the album, that doesn’t mean that’s all he created during this time. songs like ‘little susie’, allegedly , ‘sunset driver’ and even an early version of ‘wanna be startin’ somethin’, were written during this period.
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Excellent point. I think there's a weirdly schematic way of looking at the creative process going on here. Michael was creating an album, he wasn't solving a maths equation. Songs were being written that wouldn't see the light of day for years to come.

83magic said:
[...]truthfully, 1978-1984 was probably when michael was the most prolific. with back to back projects with little to no breaks. [...]
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I think he was frantically busy for the entire decade of the 1980's but this ^ was definitely an intense period.
 
Masonh said:
Only Workin' Day and Night. That's it
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Mason this is a waste of time, Michael wrote Don't Stop Til You Get Enough after humming a melody in his kitchen. Michael wanted Off The Wall to SEPERATE him from The Jackson 5 and to kick start his solo career, hence why Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Tom Bahler all helped write songs for the Album.
 
WolfMJJ said:
Mason this is a waste of time, Michael wrote Don't Stop Til You Get Enough after humming a melody in his kitchen. Michael wanted Off The Wall to SEPERATE him from The Jackson 5 and to kick start his solo career, hence why Rod Temperton, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Tom Bahler all helped write songs for the Album.
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Truthfully, how much opportunity did MJ have to write songs for OTW? Yes, the Jacksons had been very successful for a decade but they were, in some ways, considered a boy band. I thought Quincy had some apprehension with working with Michael at first because he thought he was just a Vegas act.

No major recording label, particularly in the late 70s, was going to hand over complete creative control to an unproven 20 year old putting out his first adult solo album. Mason, do you really expect him to have been given the chance to write every song on the album? Of course they were going to be bringing in professional song writers to assist with the project.

Obviously, he was in a very different situation 20 years later with Invincible.
 
LiveItOffTheWall said:
No, he also wrote Don't Stop Til You Get Enough. If you want to list songs he co-wrote then that would include Get On The Floor. But absolutely 2 songs written by just himself.

What are you missing about DSTYGE??
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he said by himself that he wrote it with Greg Phillinganes
 
Masonh said:
Average listener does not even care about Off The Wall. It's part of a history now. Not Invincible album case
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I hear Rock With You & Don't Stop (also The Jacksons' Shake Your Body) way more on oldies radio than anything released after the Bad album. The Quincy produced stuff. The only time I hear Butterflies & You Rock My World is if I'm listening to a R&B radio station. As far as the last 2 albums are concerned, I hear You Are Not Alone the most. I hear nothing else from the HIStory album anywhere (unless you count the 1st CD. Maybe This Time Around very rarely, probably because of Biggie Smalls). Not even Scream. I hear songs from The Jackson 5 Christmas album on the radio more often and they're only played in November & December.
 
LiveItOffTheWall said:
Truthfully, how much opportunity did MJ have to write songs for OTW? Yes, the Jacksons had been very successful for a decade but they were, in some ways, considered a boy band. I thought Quincy had some apprehension with working with Michael at first because he thought he was just a Vegas act.

No major recording label, particularly in the late 70s, was going to hand over complete creative control to an unproven 20 year old putting out his first adult solo album. Mason, do you really expect him to have been given the chance to write every song on the album? Of course they were going to be bringing in professional song writers to assist with the project.

Obviously, he was in a very different situation 20 years later with Invincible.
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Off The Wall felt like
"Yo, Mike, it's Quincy, we have lots a material for you, real stuff, all you have to do is record it and maybe we'll give you a chance to put one or two song of yours on this LP"

Invincible felt like
"Yo, Darkchild, it's Mike, I want to record new matertial, let's make some music, go to junkyard"
 
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