Are The Dr Freeze Sessions Vocally The Best Of MJ's Career?

[SilkySnare]

You gotta get past the "gritty" sound of Invincible and actually listen to the way the vocals unfold. It's really out of this world.
People can try and sing Billy Jean and get close...but no one can come close to, let's say, Unbreakable.

The way vocals shift left and right, from high to low...changing mood and tempo...Perhaps it's the super rich musical composition that overshadows vocals on Invincible, so people don't really get a chance to appreciate them, unless they really take their time and listen carefully.

I urge you to just sit down, take your time, forget what people think about Invincible and just listen to this incredible album. It's so rich, dense, unique and grown up. It's angry but not overflown with runaway emotions, as was HIStory. It's more in control, more methodical, more professionally done than anything before it. It's a culmination of everything that Michael has learned up to that point, combined with his incredible creativity, humour, anger and of course tenderness.
The background ad lib moans and screams are so advanced that I cannot, for the life of me, memorise them. For example, during the chorus of Bad, it goes:

Because I'm bad, I'm bad come on..cha!
You know I'm bad, I'm bad you know it...tha!
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on..you know!

It's relatively easy to memorise the "chas" and "thas". Same with other songs, once you listen to them a thousand times, you can sing along and not miss any "chas", "thas", "ugghs" and "whooos".
But try to do that with Unbreakable, Hearthbreaker or Invincible. There are such subtle and hidden background things that you simply lose yourself. It's gonna take me a LOT more time to own Invincible the way I own his other albums.

But the background stuff and and ad libs are just one small part of the superior vocals on Invincible. I could go on and on about the flow, rhythm and pitch. And don't get me started on the lyrcis! His previous songs feel almost empty when compared to Invincible. There is SO MUCH text, so many things said and done. The songs are super rich with lyrics, I don't think any other pop or RnB artist ever achieved this.

But then, you've got Speechless, for all your Thriller needs. You've got Break of Dawn, Heaven can Wait,...You've got every possible theme you can wish for on this album. You even have a modern version of Speed Demon called 2000 Watts. Dude, this song is so damn special, I'm soooo happy he included it. You can have your Blue Gangsters all you want, I would never trade it for 2000 Watts

 

[ScreenOrigami]

I urge you to just sit down, take your time, forget what people think about Invincible and just listen to this incredible album. It's so rich, dense, unique and grown up. It's angry but not overflown with runaway emotions, as was HIStory. It's more in control, more methodical, more professionally done than anything before it. It's a culmination of everything that Michael has learned up to that point, combined with his incredible creativity, humour, anger and of course tenderness.

I agree, and I’d like to offer the idea that everyone has to be at the right point in their life to fully comprehend a piece of art. What doesn’t click with you right now may fall into place at a different point in time.

I read an article about Wassiliy Kandinsky today that reflects this. In his own words:

[In great art] the spectator does feel a corresponding thrill in himself. Such harmony or even contrast of emotion cannot be superficial or worthless; indeed the Stimmung of a picture can deepen and purify that of the spectator. Such works of art at least preserve the soul from coarseness; they “key it up,” so to speak, to a certain height, as a tuning-key the strings of a musical instrument.

In each picture is a whole lifetime imprisoned, a whole lifetime of fears, doubts, hopes, and joys. Whither is this lifetime tending? What is the message of the competent artist? … To harmonize the whole is the task of art.

The spiritual life, to which art belongs and of which she is one of the mightiest elements, is a complicated but definite and easily definable movement forwards and upwards. This movement is the movement of experience. It may take different forms, but it holds at bottom to the same inner thought and purpose.

The life of the spirit may be fairly represented in diagram as a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts with the narrowest segment uppermost. The lower the segment the greater it is in breadth, depth, and area.

The whole triangle is moving slowly, almost invisibly forwards and upwards. Where the apex was today the second segment is tomorrow; what today can be understood only by the apex and to the rest of the triangle is an incomprehensible gibberish, forms tomorrow the true thought and feeling of the second segment.

At the apex of the top segment stands often one man, and only one. His joyful vision cloaks a vast sorrow. Even those who are nearest to him in sympathy do not understand him. Angrily they abuse him as charlatan or madman. So in his lifetime stood Beethoven, solitary and insulted.

In every segment of the triangle are artists. Each one of them who can see beyond the limits of his segment is a prophet to those about him, and helps the advance of the obstinate whole. But those who are blind, or those who retard the movement of the triangle for baser reasons, are fully understood by their fellows and acclaimed for their genius. The greater the segment (which is the same as saying the lower it lies in the triangle) so the greater the number who understand the words of the artist. Every segment hungers consciously or, much more often, unconsciously for their corresponding spiritual food. This food is offered by the artists, and for this food the segment immediately below will tomorrow be stretching out eager hands.

Source: https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/06/02/kandinsky-concerning-the-spiritual-in-art/

I thought of Invincible when I read this.

 

[DifferentKindOfLady]

I have invincible for a very long time but I never heard the album with too much attention, like I used to listen to Bad for example. But on saturday I felt a need to listen to invincible, like the album was calling me. And I heard it with the same heart I listen to Bad, and I LOVED it! Butterflies is one of my favourites, Break of Dawn, Cry (is my favorite since I listened to the album the first time) and I can go on and on.

 

[ScreenOrigami]

But on saturday I felt a need to listen to invincible, like the album was calling me.

This is exactly how I feel when I reach a point in my life where it’s time to reassess something I previously didn’t care much about. The key is to always keep an open mind to be able to let the magic happen.

 

[DifferentKindOfLady]

This is exactly how I feel when I reach a point in my life where it’s time to reassess something I previously didn’t care much about. The key is to always keep an open mind to be able to let the magic happen.

Yeah, I didn´t care much about invincible even though I played the album many times. But now I see that album in a different way We have to give opportunities in order to fully understand everything

 

[DanGerouS-]

every album is special on its own, so is invincible.

i just think the outtakes are very strong and his best work. too bad he didnt release them on invincible.

 

[KOPV]

I am a firm believer that some of MJ's best vocals have gone unheard. He styalized his voice for an beautiful sound, but I bet you when he just freely went for it without anyone watching.... There would be magic that has never been shared! So much is left in experimentation and pushing to limits.

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

I am a firm believer that some of MJ's best vocals have gone unheard. He styalized his voice for an beautiful sound, but I bet you when he just freely went for it without anyone watching.... There would be magic that has never been shared! So much is left in experimentation and pushing to limits.

That's the dream, my friend, Hopefully the best is yet to come