History could have been better

[analogue]

Here's something I've noticed

Eminem writes an angry song(And he's had plenty of those). Media's reactions is ''He's so talented'' and ''It's great how he expresses himself''

Michael writes an angry song. Media's reactions is ''Oh my god, stop being so whiny. Go back to singing harmless pop songs''

 

[jtabbott8]

I agree with pretty much everything that everyone is saying to some degree.

I do wish that HIStory and BOTDF had been done as one project though, as the tracks were all recorded during the same time period, and considering MJ openly didn't like remix's at the time.

 

[HIStory]

Who was this guy who said that every track in an album should be good enough to be a single ?

Yes, his name is Michael Jackson.

Once again, why did they prefer "Blood on the dancefloor" to the History Tracks ?

I guess Lady In My Life, Get on The Floor etc. are crap songs in your book as well because they did not end up as singles. (In actuality, I think Get on The Floor is one of MJ's best songs, yet it was never a single and a hit.) Sorry, but your arguments do not make one ounce of sense. You also ignore a lot of factors around MJ during HIStory that affected his image, popularity and marketability a great deal at the time but which have nothing to do with the music itself. You also seem to have the mentality that a song is only good if it's a hit single, which is completely wrong. There is a lot of hit music that is crappier than even the worst song on HIStory, yet it's a huge hit. And a lot of great music never becomes a hit. So to say HIStory is bad because it did not produce a lot of hits is a pretty shallow way of thinking. HIStory was never going to be the light hearted hit pop album anyway. Its themes and sound is just way too "heavy" and not radio friendly enough for that. But not being radio friendly does not mean it's bad. There is a huge amount of music that radios would never play but they are greater than the kind of the music radios play.

And Money Don't Matter 2 Night peaked at #23 on Billboard, #19 in the UK and was not a Top 10 hit anywhere and hardly even Top 20. In fact, I think besides the UK it was only in the Top 20 in Australia (#18). I guess it means it's crap. Just saying.

As for what is promoted and what isn't, it's mainly the record label's decision not the artist's. But talking about record label decisions, do you think that Rock My World should really have been the lead single from Invincible? Do you think that's one of the best songs on Invincible? Or Cry is? Because I do not. And that's just one example of the totally wrong decisions of Sony regarding what is promoted and what isn't. So again, what is promoted and how much effort is being put in the promotion has nothing to do with the quality of the music.

 

[speeddemon88]

I cant believe what im reading here lol. Well i dont know about others, but i come from Europe and all the singles from History were on tv and remember them like it was yesterday and there were so many off that album too! So i dont understand how it was not a success. I dont know about usa, but here we got everything TDCAU, YANA, Childhood, Earth song, Scream and Stranger in Moscow, following with History remix, which was huuge here.

 

[JEMFTV]

Some guy was saying that Is It Scary should have been on HIStory, but it didn't was included, Michael was against it himself, because it didn't fit the mood of the album.
And to be honest, BOTDF, Superfly Sister, Morphine weren't finished at the time, (and Ghost wasn't finished until in 1997).
So why should've been the tracks on the album?

 

[loka]

In the History booklet, it's written "Music first" and not "Lyrics first". But MJ forgot this rule from Quincy Jones himself in the final stage of the album History.

Definitely, somes songs like Blood on the Dancefloor, Morphine and is it scary should have been in the History album instead of Money, This Time around or Come Together...

You know it but you don't want to accept it... Too Bad.

Call it fanatism.

 

[AgentMJ]

Speaking of the long version of Come Together is there anywhere online I can get this? Im assuming its not on iTunes or Spotify?

Here you go, it was released on the Remember the Time single back in the day

 

[HIStory]

In the History booklet, it's written "Music first" and not "Lyrics first". But MJ forgot this rule from Quincy Jones himself in the final stage of the album History.

Definitely, somes songs like Blood on the Dancefloor, Morphine and is it scary should have been in the History album instead of Money, This Time around or Come Together...

You know it but you don't want to accept it... Too Bad.

Call it fanatism.

So your opinion and taste is a fact? And everyone who doesn't agree with you and does not share your taste is a "fanatic"? Alright then.

 

[loka]

So your opinion and taste is a fact? And everyone who doesn't agree with you and does not share your taste is a "fanatic"? Alright then.

you accuse me of being a Troll because of my opinions...

I accuse you of being a fanatic...

 

[J5master]

you're accused of being a troll because you state your opinions as fact and you bring up irrelevant stuff to back up said opinion AND you don't read or respond to any of the viable points made in this thread.

 

[OnirMJ]

If History was as good as you say, then the promotion would have follow with Money, DS and 2 BAD or History. But they stopped it and started something else...

They even thought that a remix of the song History was a smarter choice...

Why ?

Scream was released on May 31, 1995; HIStory/Ghosts was released on July 30, 1997 in Europe and UK and Stranger in Moscow was released on August 28, 1997 in US. That is 2 years and 3 months of intensive worldwide promotion which was accompanied with World Tour!!!!!!!

Smile, Is It Scary and On The Line were all planned as singles but release of Smile was canceled in late 1997, Is It Scary was released as a Promo single and On The Line was released as part of the Ghosts box-set!

D.S. and 2 Bad were never even considered for a single release.

Sony wanted to release Money as 4th single instead of They Don't Care About Us but Michael insisted on They Don't Care About Us.

Remix of HIStory was part of HIStory single which contains Radio Edit of Album Version, meaning that the song was sent to radio stations. Only music video featured the remix. Also the single peaked #5 in UK, #3 in Italy and #4 in France!!! Amazing, definitely not a flop.

Again HIStory and Blood on the Dance Floor: HIStory in the Mix were ONE (1) project! Blood on the Dance Floor was released to promote HIStory. Examples: Born This Way by Gaga was released May 23, 2011 and Born This Way: The Remix was released November 18, 2011. Exactly the same thing. Or Teenage Dream by Katy Perry was released August 24, 2010 and Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection was released March 23, 2012 with three brand new songs from Teenage Dream sessions!

 

[OnirMJ]

Definitely, somes songs like Blood on the Dancefloor, Morphine and is it scary should have been in the History album instead of Money, This Time around or Come Together...

You know it but you don't want to accept it... Too Bad.

Call it fanatism.

Definitely you are a moron. You know it but you don't want to accept it... Too Bad. Money & This Time Around some of the best songs on HIStory and some of the best MJ songs ever recorded. Too bad if you can't hear that.

Come Together is nice, nothing special Bad Era song. But I think it don't fit on the album.

 

[HIStory]

you accuse me of being a Troll because of my opinions...

I accuse you of being a fanatic...

No, I accuse you of being a troll because of your style. As others have also noted that you are in troll territory with some of your comments which seem to be deliberately argumentative.

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

I think HIStory is GREAT, especially if you count the 5 songs from 'Blood'.

But i also can't help.. For a long time i'm thinking about how a perfect release of the HIStory album could have looked.

First: I would have ditched the Greatest Hits Disc & the Remixes on Blood.

Second: I still would have made 2 CD's. And each of the discs would have had a special theme. And through applying the themes to each disc, either one of them would have been a little more coherent & with a little bit better flow.

Namely i would have called the album "HIStory - Past, Present & Future [Book 1 & 2]"
First CD would be: Book 1 - The Hate Disc
Second CD would be: Book 2 - The Love Disc

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p><a href="http://t.co/EW60uKLYtA">pic.twitter.com/EW60uKLYtA</a></p>&mdash; Xscape_MJ (@Jujujunior) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jujujunior/status/509043728452173824">September 8, 2014</a></blockquote>
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This way "Past, Present & Future" would still fit, because it deals with things happening in the past, present & future.
Each disc is for a certain emotion. That's the important point for me: I can't listen to YANA, DS, Tabloid & Susie in a matter of minutes. When i'm in HATE mode i listen to all the songs of the respective disc.
When i'm in LOVE mode i listen to the other disc.

Let me quick elaborate on the LOVE disc. Obviously it's not a collection of just some love songs.
It's more a collection of things which MJ loves & are important to him.
-Blood: Is about the dangers of love & relationship
-YANA: Is about true Love for a girl/or someone MJ really cares about & who shouldn't feel alone.
-HIStory: For the loving of yourself, for self-awareness, self-confidence.
-Earth Song: The love for our planet.
-Little Susie: MJ's love for the voiceless, the neglected children of the world & his love to tell their story.
-On the Line: Same as HIStory
-Superfly Sister: MJ's concerns about easy love & the dangers of it. Also as 'Blood'
-Elizabeth i LOVE You: As in: Love You
-Come together: Well, people should come together & love each other

 

[HIStory]

^ Interesting concept, but I don't think MJ would have called a disk "Hate Disk". And I don't think those songs are about hate. Those songs are about legitimate criticism of people who have hurt him and of society.

 

[Deleted member 9375]

http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/members/50468-MJJuniorSinceMW@MJJuniorSinceMW, quite an interesting idea and interesting point, but I would agree with respect77 in terms of calling disc one "The Hate Disc". It's a little too forceful and misrepresentitive of a lot of those tracks. Would you really consider something as beautiful and poetic as Stranger In Moscow an out and out hate song? You can't really say that Stranger In Moscow is a hate song, but Blood on the Dancefloor and Earth Song are then love songs, because all your really doing then is choosing your own context, when both love & hate exist in each song to begin with. Although, personally I don't feel there's any hate in Stranger In Moscow. There's hurt and loneliness, yearning and a need to feel comfort. A longing to be found, ie-stranger. It's to melancholy to be considered hate. Perhaps something like Tabloid Junkie could be described as such, but there's so much subtext going on in many of those songs, and Smile a hate song?

 

[analogue]

I think HIStory is the most selfish album Michael ever made, and I mean that in a good way. For 90% of that album he didn't care about making radio friendly hits, he just wanted to tell his story.

 

[loka]

i still can't believe that MJ prefered Money or DS to "Is It scarry" and "Morphine"...

 

[OnirMJ]

i still can't believe that MJ prefered Money or DS to "Is It scarry" and "Morphine"...

It's not all about which song is "better" song. Album concept and how songs fit to each other is also very important. Is It Scary was not on the album because it didn't fit the theme of the album. Another Day was not on Invincible because MJ thought that rock song wouldn't fit with the rest of the album.

And speaking about those four songs you mentioned:
1. Money
2. Morphine
3. Is It Scary
4. D.S.

Money is a masterpiece. Morphine is also amazing but it would be too controversial if it was released on HIStory. I'm not a big fan of Is It Scary. D.S. is probably MJ's weakest song along with Privacy and 2000 Watts but MJ wanted to send a message to the world about Tom Sneddon and he did just that.

 

[ChickenMcNuggets]

I've never been a big fan of HIStory, I've always been much more into 'boogie Mike' (circa '73 to '82). It does still have some brilliant tracks, though. The first five tracks are properly awesome (yeah, I've always really liked This Time Around, love that hard-slamming track), but the whole constant angry/anti-tabloid/lost-childhood stuff gets too much for me after that.

 

[HIStory]

^ There is ONE anti-tabloid and ONE lost-childhood song on HIStory...

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

^ Interesting concept, but I don't think MJ would have called a disk "Hate Disk". And I don't think those songs are about hate. Those songs are about legitimate criticism of people who have hurt him and of society.

I know that, of course.
I was more thinking about the HATE MJ received & therefore wrote this songs.

I'm open to better suggestions. Let's give me some ideas.

I was searching for a good expression of contrast, like "the ying" & "the yang"...
I also had these in mind:
The Black Disc / The White Disc
The Dark Disk / The Bright Disc
Night / Day
War / Peace (Ice Cube had 2 albums, released separately in the late 90's, titled The War Disc & The Peace Disc)
Dream / Nightmare

But to me LOVE & HATE is still best description of the situation.
The Hate MJ received.
The Love MJ gives.

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

http://www.mjjcommunity.com/forum/members/50468-MJJuniorSinceMW@MJJuniorSinceMW, quite an interesting idea and interesting point, but I would agree with respect77 in terms of calling disc one "The Hate Disc". It's a little too forceful and misrepresentitive of a lot of those tracks. Would you really consider something as beautiful and poetic as Stranger In Moscow an out and out hate song? You can't really say that Stranger In Moscow is a hate song, but Blood on the Dancefloor and Earth Song are then love songs, because all your really doing then is choosing your own context, when both love & hate exist in each song to begin with. Although, personally I don't feel there's any hate in Stranger In Moscow. There's hurt and loneliness, yearning and a need to feel comfort. A longing to be found, ie-stranger. It's to melancholy to be considered hate. Perhaps something like Tabloid Junkie could be described as such, but there's so much subtext going on in many of those songs, and Smile a hate song?

You're completely right. But as i said, it's not about MJ's hate for anyone. He deals with the hate he received.
Other ones would say "he was hurt by other people". I would say he had to deal with hate. The media was the most hateful of them all.

And smile, yes that's another topic.
I would have to disagree on most opinions which were stated in this thread. Smile to me is not a "happy song" & not the ONE bright spot on otherwise aggressive, dark & sad album.
To me smile is the saddest song of them all. Yes he says: "Smile though your heart is aching, even if it's breaking..." But the fact is, the heart is aching & breaking. "Smile and MAYBE tomorrow..."
Also the strings & whole arrangement are more sad & weary to me, then happy & up lifting..
The LaLaLa & whistling at the end - to me also more sad then anything else...

It's on "my first disc / Hate" , because it's reflects MJ's feelings after dealing with those allegations & this situation in general..

That also brings me to the hardest part of the HIStory album for me:
Finishing the album with Susie & Smile.
That was really hard to digest. And even to this day, i don't enjoy listening to these 2 songs. Even though Susie is a Masterpeace & Smile is a great song too. Just to dark & sad to finish this album.
If the ending would have been Susie - Smile - History, that would have been a little better IMHO.
I was in a hole when the cd had played out...
And i came out that hole, by listening to the so called "dark songs" like This Time Around, Scream, They Don't Care.. or DS & Money. for me those are not dark songs, they are fight songs. And THAT was up lifting part to me - MJ was fighting, he guarded himself against those made up stories..
Best song on HIStory for me is Tabloid Junkie - that's a true masterpiece & a symphony of new & unexpected sounds (also like scream).
So many times MJ already had surprised me, with this song he did it again.
The verses, the chorus, the layering of the vocals, those insane beats, aaahhh goosebumps...

Completely out of place on HIStory was Come Together. But that's been mentioned already in here...

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

It's not all about which song is "better" song. Album concept and how songs fit to each other is also very important. Is It Scary was not on the album because it didn't fit the theme of the album. Another Day was not on Invincible because MJ thought that rock song wouldn't fit with the rest of the album.

And speaking about those four songs you mentioned:
1. Money
2. Morphine
3. Is It Scary
4. D.S.

Money is a masterpiece. Morphine is also amazing but it would be too controversial if it was released on HIStory. I'm not a big fan of Is It Scary. D.S. is probably MJ's weakest song along with Privacy and 2000 Watts but MJ wanted to send a message to the world about Tom Sneddon and he did just that.

IMO Is It Scary, Ghosts & Morphine would have fitted better on the album & HIStory would have benefitted from those tracks.
YANA & Come Together instead, don't fit at all.

And the masterpieces of the 4 songs you are listing to me are Is It Scary & Morphine.
Though Money is great & DS not bad and, as you say, has the right message, they are no way near those other two. At least in my book.

 

[Bubs]

I think HIStory is the most selfish album Michael ever made, and I mean that in a good way. For 90% of that album he didn't care about making radio friendly hits, he just wanted to tell his story.

Nicely put. To me, History is like his autobiography, thus I can't nor do I want to make any "imaginary" changes to it. It is like reading Michael's Moonwalker. You don't complain what he wrote in his book, or what you prefer Michael should have written, it is all Michael, take it or leave it

 

[MJJuniorSinceMW]

^
No.

(YANA = R. Kelley / Come Together = Lennon/Mc Cartney)

Just for example.

 

[J5master]

^ There is ONE anti-tabloid and ONE lost-childhood song on HIStory...

RIGHT!!! People act like MJ had track after track about those two topics on history. No, not really. He might have referenced them in certain songs (like "scream" and "2 Bad") but whole songs about it? yeah, just 2.

 

[TheManinTheMirror]

Would have pretty much been the most amazing album ever if they had of included blood on dance floor, morphine and is it scary instead of d.s, little susie and either come together/smile.

You can't replace Smile, that goes right along with Childhood, and Little Susie has to be after Morphine, or before Morphine on the album. For it to fit.

 

[analogue]

^
No.

(YANA = R. Kelley / Come Together = Lennon/Mc Cartney)

Just for example.

Those two songs are so out of place

 

[jamba]

You're completely right. But as i said, it's not about MJ's hate for anyone. He deals with the hate he received.
Other ones would say "he was hurt by other people". I would say he had to deal with hate. The media was the most hateful of them all.

And smile, yes that's another topic.
I would have to disagree on most opinions which were stated in this thread. Smile to me is not a "happy song" & not the ONE bright spot on otherwise aggressive, dark & sad album.
To me smile is the saddest song of them all. Yes he says: "Smile though your heart is aching, even if it's breaking..." But the fact is, the heart is aching & breaking. "Smile and MAYBE tomorrow..."
Also the strings & whole arrangement are more sad & weary to me, then happy & up lifting..
The LaLaLa & whistling at the end - to me also more sad then anything else...

It's on "my first disc / Hate" , because it's reflects MJ's feelings after dealing with those allegations & this situation in general..

That also brings me to the hardest part of the HIStory album for me:
Finishing the album with Susie & Smile.
That was really hard to digest. And even to this day, i don't enjoy listening to these 2 songs. Even though Susie is a Masterpeace & Smile is a great song too. Just to dark & sad to finish this album.
If the ending would have been Susie - Smile - History, that would have been a little better IMHO.
I was in a hole when the cd had played out...
And i came out that hole, by listening to the so called "dark songs" like This Time Around, Scream, They Don't Care.. or DS & Money. for me those are not dark songs, they are fight songs. And THAT was up lifting part to me - MJ was fighting, he guarded himself against those made up stories..
Best song on HIStory for me is Tabloid Junkie - that's a true masterpiece & a symphony of new & unexpected sounds (also like scream).
So many times MJ already had surprised me, with this song he did it again.
The verses, the chorus, the layering of the vocals, those insane beats, aaahhh goosebumps...

Completely out of place on HIStory was Come Together. But that's been mentioned already in here...

Re Smile--yes, I agree there is a huge sadness and pain in that song BUT the idea is 'if you just smile" maybe tomorrow "you'll find that life is still worthwhile." It IS another 'fight song' (I like that concept) if you look at it as showing how to find the power to keep going AND keep fighting. It is also a powerful homage to Charlie Chaplin, who wrote the song, and whose life is a major parallel to MJ's--he was falsely accused in a paternity suit and the blood test that proved he was not the father was thrown out of court b/c it was not accepted as proof at that time. Chaplin was exiled from USA (denied entry). There is a fairly decent movie with Robert Downy playing Chaplin if you're interested. I think in Moonwalk MJ also talks about how smiling makes you feel better even if you are sad--just smiling lifts your mood and gives a new outlook. He believed in that.

Re Come Together, I believe it totally belongs on HIStory b/c that album is very carefully structured like a book (as MJ called it Book 1) and I see 'Come Together" as the midpoint, like the binding that holds the pages together in a book, and a way to seguey from the anger to the sorrow and to the more loving, gentle messages