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Is Billie Jean at Motown 25 overrated?

analogue

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It's an iconic performance, no doubt about that. But when I see people call it MJ's best performance ever, I have to disagree. The dance moves haven't been fully perfected yet, and it's lip synced. His Billie Jean performances on the Victory, BAD, Dangerous and HIStory Tours were much better and more impressive.
 
I feel like we had this discussion about a million times already.
 
The general public might not have seen any of that. I haven't seen the History concert. Many people who were fans of Motown rather than just people who listened to Mike watched Motown 25 too. So the show is their reference. The media is going to write about something that the average person is more likely to know than a performance that only the fans of the act would know or care about.
 
analogue said:
It's an iconic performance, no doubt about that. But when I see people call it MJ's best performance ever, I have to disagree. The dance moves haven't been fully perfected yet, and it's lip synced. His Billie Jean performances on the Victory, BAD, Dangerous and HIStory Tours were much better and more impressive.
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I agree. I think that performance is nothing special. But it was first so that's why it's so iconic. For me the best Billie Jean performance that I saw is from Korea 1999 What More Can I Give special (although the lighting guy ****ed up few times with spotlight, microphone not working at the end, all those mosquitoes flying around him and curtain malfunction - with all that, for me still the best performance of Billie Jean by far). So many cool moves that he didn't usually do on HIStory Tour and the toe stand was EPIC! Perfection. He looked amazing also, the clothes, everything was perfect. His performance was excellent, but technical guys around him weren't on the level of professionality they had to be for an MJ show.
 
I agree...I usually don't watch it. whenever I watch this, the entire performance with the brothers (which is the best part of it), I usually stop it before BJ starts....I prefer the performances of BJ from the tours as well....
 
Maybe a little bit. It's a great performance but I don't watch it very often because it is lip-synced. It kind of ruins it for me.
 
At the time of the performance no.. not over rated at all! since then Michael has had much better quality performances that get overlooked simply because of the impact Motown 25 made because of the time it was done and what it introduced to popular music/tv...

It gets so much attention not because it is the best performance but the significance it has had on dance/entertainment.
 
analogue said:
It's an iconic performance, no doubt about that. But when I see people call it MJ's best performance ever, I have to disagree. The dance moves haven't been fully perfected yet, and it's lip synced. His Billie Jean performances on the Victory, BAD, Dangerous and HIStory Tours were much better and more impressive.
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Is Billie Jean Motown 25 his best performance ever? Probably not-there were probably other performances in tours that played to 20 thousand, 40 thousand people that might have been better-where every single thing clicked-from the vocals, to the dance steps, to the light cues, to the audience reaction. And if you're comparing apples to apples, seen by 50 million people at the same time, the performance at the Grammys 88, for me, definitely bests it.


But is Billie Jean Motown 25 overrated? Absolutely not. 90% of the 50 million people watching Motown 25, unless they were blessed to know about the Triumph/Off the Wall albums or caught the tour, had no idea what was coming. That when Michael stepped out on his own and glared at us through the camera lens-and the bass line starts-that someone we all knew and loved as a sweet, special kid known for happy dancey songs and sentimental, soulful ballads was suddenly singing and dancing to a song so wildly dark-that you felt the shudders run down your spine and your heart leap and your stomach turn over. A song and dance about a bad decision about one night of passion that went horribly awry of all things-he became a totally different person-almost possessed. Well, no way to explain it-it was just simply shock and awe.
Definitely not overrated.
 
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barbee0715 said:
But is Billie Jean Motown 25 overrated? Absolutely not. 90% of the 50 million people watching Motown 25, unless they were blessed to know about the Triumph/Off the Wall albums or caught the tour, had no idea what was coming. That when Michael stepped out on his own and glared at us through the camera lens-and the bass line starts-that someone we all knew and loved as a sweet, special kid known for happy dancey songs and sentimental, soulful ballads was suddenly singing and dancing to a song so wildly dark-that you felt the shudders run down your spine and your heart leap and your stomach turn over. A song and dance about a bad decision about one night of passion that went horribly awry of all things-he became a totally different person-almost possessed. Well, no way to explain it-it was just simply shock and awe.
Definitely not overrated.
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I guess you would have to be old enough to remember the impact that it had at the time, to fully understand that. For the time, it was something spectacular, yes, as it was something that wasn't seen before. And for that, it's definitely not overrated. But performance-wise, it's not as good as other performances of the song later on. And so it's easy for people who aren't old enough to remember Motown 25, to say that it's overrrated, simply because of the performance alone. I'm not old enough to remember it myself, and i don't think I will ever really understand something like that. But then again, no entertainer in my life time has never even come close to Michael. If we have no clue about the impact it had, what else can we compare it with other than the performance alone? :thinking:
 
Michaels Lover said:
I guess you would have to be old enough to remember the impact that it had at the time, to fully understand that. For the time, it was something spectacular, yes, as it was something that wasn't seen before. And for that, it's definitely not overrated. But performance-wise, it's not as good as other performances of the song later on. And so it's easy for people who aren't old enough to remember Motown 25, to say that it's overrrated, simply because of the performance alone. I'm not old enough to remember it myself, and i don't think I will ever really understand something like that. But then again, no entertainer in my life time has never even come close to Michael. If we have no clue about the impact it had, what else can we compare it with other than the performance alone? :thinking:
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Sure, I understand that, and I think this thread is really asking two totally different question-is it overrated and is it the greatest performance. Like I said earlier, I still think the Grammys 88 performance of 'The Way You Make Me Feel/Man in the Mirror' blew Motown 25 Billie Jean out of the water.
And yes, I suppose people that got their first exposure to Michael when he was already a global mega superstar would look back on Motown 25 and think that's not so good-he did it better on the Bad Tour or whatever. I've seen a ton of Billie Jean performances that are on a technically higher level but for me, it just doesn't match the rawness and the electricity of that first time.
People too young to experience it would just have to know the history and imagine what that must have been like-to know somebody as well as we knew Michael as a kid-and then he springs into this whole other person. The superstar you first saw. And yet he's the same kid. Quite amazing.

Everybody's answer will be different-because of the time you discovered Michael, the shows you've seen, etc.
 
I have seen that performance lots of times. And I do L.O.V.E. that performance. But it will never be one of his best Billie Jean performance. I really L.O.V.E. the ones he did at his Munich and Bucharest Dangerous Concerts. And the one he did at the 1995 VMAs. I thought they were way better than the Motown 25 one.
 
barbee0715 said:
People too young to experience it would just have to know the history and imagine what that must have been like-to know somebody as well as we knew Michael as a kid-and then he springs into this whole other person. The superstar you first saw. And yet he's the same kid. Quite amazing.
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that's the thing that's so hard to imagine. even though I know the history and have seen it on video a million times, I will never understand it completely
 
Michael Jackson's performance of Billie Jean at Motown 25 stands as the greatest buildup of anticipation for the performance of a song in music history.

because of Motown 25, the future performances of Billie Jean became staple moments during his solo tours.

he had great moments performing Billie Jean over the years..he stuck that moonwalk during the Billie Jean performance at the Bucharest concert that aired on HBO....he stuck that Moonwalk

During the Bad Tour in my home town, he literally moonwalked across the entire stage w/out breaking stride, from one side of the stage to the next

but that Motown 25 was special, for the performance of Billie Jean he did on that night, he did the greatest pose for, the greatest pelvic thrust for, the greatest leg kicks for, the styling of the hair, the placing of his imaginary comb in his pocket, the greatest pop locks for, the greatest set of spins for, the greatest mash potatoes dance for, and even the moonwalk itself even though it was for a briefer moment than the moonwalk he would do in latter years, that moonwalk was more spontaneous.......

it was like, all the stars lined up for 1.) when he said "I like the old songs allot, but especially I like the new songs", the audience like knew what song was going to be performed w/out actually really knowing it....2.) we knew he was going to do the moonwalk w/out knowing that he was going to do it, so when he did it, that audience and the TV viewing public responded to it the way we did.

a performance so memorable, the entire nation talked about it the very next day, all day, and that excitement carried over for the rest of the year, and talked about to this very day
 
analogue said:
It's an iconic performance, no doubt about that. But when I see people call it MJ's best performance ever, I have to disagree. The dance moves haven't been fully perfected yet, and it's lip synced. His Billie Jean performances on the Victory, BAD, Dangerous and HIStory Tours were much better and more impressive.
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But he also lip-synced on the Dangerous and His Story tours. Stop hating!
 
Psychoniff said:
You're all a bunch of haters!
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I love the Motown 25 performance with a passion then and now-and believe me, I never ever noticed lip synching. But you need to calm down and get control of yourself and quit calling people names.
 
Psychoniff, here, take this :chillpill: and have a :hug:
 
I don't think so, because the rest of Motown25 was very average next to it. It is not just his moonwalking, but all that dancing he does in the song and the fact it is truly iconic. It may not be his absolutely very best performance of all time (Mainly as it is just one song and a 6 minute medley with his brothers) but what it meant for his career too.
It's impact can not be understated, it came in between Billie Jean and Beat it and according to most of the sources I read, its broadcast in May 1983, saw Thriller start to fly off shelves at an even quicker rate (Like nearly a million copies a week). Plus I think it was the performance in addition to the singles Billie Jean and Beat it, that must have made millions world wide, committed Michael Jackson fans.

It was the culmination of 2 main things, now we knew he could really dance, along with sing some incredibly catchy songs. The other thing, being the impact of his performance and success had on other black artists into the mainstream too. In many ways, Prince, Lionel Richie and later Whitney Houston and a few others saw their careers take off more thanks to Michael opening that door and breaking down the soft barrier that separated Black and white music after the downfall of disco around 1980.

Plus I can never not watch this performance in its entirety, that dancing glues your eyes to the screen!
 
I think the issue here is there is a difference between big fans and the casual public. The Motown 25 perfeomance was amazing, iconic, and the performance most people (in general) think of when they think of Michael Jackson on stage.

However, we as fans know that this was only a percentage of what Michael was able to do on a stage. The routine was groundbreaking, and MJ never felt the need to change a step when performing it from 83-01.

To me, as a fan I think it is overrated for some reasons, but under appreciated for others, if you get me? Many people who would have watched live in 83 would not have realised that MJ was lip syncing, where as we would know from the first line. I dont think this should take away from the performance- It gave Thriller a ridiculous boost in sales so essentially, the performance did everything it was supposed to in more.

I've come to terms that lip syncing is a big part of Michael Jacksons live history. Obviously I prefer live vocals, but I have gotten over the face that many performances sound identical. BUT, to me MTV 95 is far superior to Motown 25 in every way.

For a show filled with the some of the best singers of all time, very few stood out. Michael eclipsed absolutely everyone. The Supremes were a disaster, Smokey was good but made it seem like he was at a niece's wedding, Adam Ant (WTF). Stevie, Marvin and the Battle of the Bands were all great, but what Michael did was put on a spectacle of a whole other level. This all adds to the performance and legacy.
 
Overrated?.. Absolutely not!.. I can watch it the same as any other performance, it was magical to me as a kid & made me an MJ fan as far as I can remember.
 


MJ's leg kicks were quicker and more fluid, and the pop locks were more striking.....

the spins were like lightening........just the anticipation leading to the moment was unforgetable
 
It was not his best performance of Billie Jean, but I don't think it is overrated despite the blatantly obvious lip syncing. Michael's performance captured everyone's imagination and it has its rightful place in HIStory.
 
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