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Is there such a thing as a bad MJ song, album or performance?

Galactus123 said:
Many would probably say HIStory Tour because most is lip-synced. Also the 1996 Brunei concert that looks like Dangerous Tour. There is more live singing in that but I'm not a big fan of that show.
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On a side note: Is he the 'fattest' he has ever been at the Brunei concert? As soon as the History Tour began he looked much more trained again
 
zinniabooklover said:
I'd love to know in what way the MITM video was a missed opportunity. Not everyone likes the video - which is fair enough - but I can't work out what the 'missed opportunity' is.
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I’ve always felt that cutting together a slideshow of stock footage and various cultural/societal milestones was a very lazy way of getting a point/message across, especially when it’s for a song like “Man in the Mirror.” I understand that the lyrics are as straightforward as they come, but it feels like there was an opportunity to do something more artistic and creative. Even the video for “Cry” had more gravitas and nuance than this one.
 
AlwaysThere said:
I’ve always felt that cutting together a slideshow of stock footage and various cultural/societal milestones was a very lazy way of getting a point/message across, especially when it’s for a song like “Man in the Mirror.” I understand that the lyrics are as straightforward as they come, but it feels like there was an opportunity to do something more artistic and creative.
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Aha! That makes complete sense and, if I may say so, is probably the most sophisticated comment I've seen on this video. I never thought of it as lazy - although I don't think it's unfair to describe it thus - but it certainly didn't take a lot of creative thought or effort. The images obviously came from a picture library which isn't exactly hard. The images are very strong and affecting, of course, and convey the message really clearly. But, I agree, the potential scope was so much greater.

AlwaysThere said:
Even the video for “Cry” had more gravitas and nuance than this one.
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I'm in a minority with this but I love the video for Cry. It's not Michael's strongest, of course. I would never put it up against his best work. But it works for me and, for sure, there is nuance there. It's a simple video but I think it has more layers than people give it credit for. I never watch the video for MITM - I stopped watching it very early on - but I watch Cry frequently.
 
AlwaysThere said:
I’ve always felt that cutting together a slideshow of stock footage and various cultural/societal milestones was a very lazy way of getting a point/message across, especially when it’s for a song like “Man in the Mirror.” I understand that the lyrics are as straightforward as they come, but it feels like there was an opportunity to do something more artistic and creative. Even the video for “Cry” had more gravitas and nuance than this one.
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That's a fair point, and yet, so few people are informed in history they won't ever see it. So maybe it's immortalized. It's the 80s anyway, they couldn't do the ambition of Earth Song quite yet.

Isn't there like a Moonwalker version where he is in the video?
 
mj_frenzy said:
Michael Jackson apparently thought that if he appeared on such social-oriented/protest statement music videos that move would distract attention from its social messages (because viewers would focus on him rather than on these messages).

But not appearing on such music videos unavoidably displeased many of his fans.
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This is accurate.
mj_frenzy said:
Apart from the lip-sync, the live performance of 'Blood On The Dance Floor' has another problem: it looks incomplete without a female, on stage partner.
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This is, an interesting take.
mj_frenzy said:
Michael Jackson was not really good at these types of song intros.

Another example is the rain intro of 'Stranger In Moscow' which although is not that long, yet it sounds so detached and disconnected from the rest of the song.
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mj_frenzy said:
The main problem with 'Black Or White' (during tours) has to do with its final minute where although the song had already ended Michael Jackson keeps walking on stage and executing some really pointless dance moves.
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This is hot dookie. And you still have the taste of young music critics from Twitter. You even talk like someone serving bad takes from Twitter. Cuz you all talk the same lol.
 
I've also never really been a fan of music videos cut together from already existing footage. I get why it was made that way and it works for the song but yeah it always kinda puts me off generally.
 
up914043 said:
michael was a perfectionist in his own right, but were there some projects even for his own standard subpar or there's no such thing?
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The entire Invincible album (except for Butterflies, of course), all of the Bryan Loren tracks, One More Chance (his worst vocal Imo), The Girl Is Mine.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The entire album is crazy. Whatever Happens is a perfect song that I guess is just too sophisticated for some.
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Whatever Happens is great, but Michael's vocal performance on that song is not very good, imo. Had Whatever Happens been released on his previous albums when his studio vocals were still great, I would consider it to be one of his finest songs.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
The entire album is crazy. Whatever Happens is a perfect song that I guess is just too sophisticated for some.
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I would not call Whatever Happens perfect by any means. His vocal isn’t great and I always found the exchange between MJ and Santana at the end odd, especially considering the two of them were never in the studio together. Nice production, though.
 
Nite Line said:
Whatever Happens is great, but Michael's vocal performance on that song is not very good, imo. Had Whatever Happens been released on his previous albums when his studio vocals were still great, I would consider it to be one of his finest songs.
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What makes his vocals not good? You think he forgot his technique or something?
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
What makes his vocals not good? You think he forgot his technique or something?
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I don’t know. Maybe his nose surgeries or lip surgeries affected his singing? Maybe his health issues? Or maybe his prescription drug addiction?

But having said that, there are songs on Invincible that he sounds great on, such as Speechless.
 
Nite Line said:
I don’t know. Maybe his nose surgeries or lip surgeries affected his singing? Maybe his health issues? Or maybe his prescription drug addiction?

But having said that, there are songs on Invincible that he sounds great on, such as Speechless.
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So you don't have a real answer. You just saying whatever I'm afraid.

MJ was an interpretive singer who sang music emotively. He didn't care about holding notes or sounding pretty or any of that, and he stopped doing that pretty much whenever he needed to. Earth Song is wonderfully imperfect vocally and that's what makes it sound good. Sure you'll say there's still a big difference but idk, they all have the same ambiance to me.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
So you don't have a real answer. You just saying whatever I'm afraid.

MJ was an interpretive singer who sang music emotively. He didn't care about holding notes or sounding pretty or any of that, and he stopped doing that pretty much whenever he needed to. Earth Song is wonderfully imperfect vocally and that's what makes it sound good. Sure you'll say there's still a big difference but idk, they all have the same ambiance to me.
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Of course, no one knows the real reason behind Michael’s vocals declining. I was just speculating.
 
PurpleThriller said:
It seems to me that you've never really understood the song and/or its message.
''(Rain)can be used as a symbol of sadness and melancholy, which is especially typical in literature and works of art, as well as movies.''
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zinniabooklover said:
Exactly so.

The rain at the beginning of the song sounds quite heavy which could also suggest isolation or perhaps feeling cold, isolated, trapped. Maybe in the video the rain could be seen as potentially cleansing but on the record, to me, the rain sounds full of foreboding.
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I am talking about how the rain sound effect sounds in the intro of the 'Stranger In Moscow' song.

It should have been done in a better and more effective way (for example, like the rain sound effect intro of Kylie Minogue's 'I Feel For You' song).
Victorious said:
On a side note: Is he the 'fattest' he has ever been at the Brunei concert? As soon as the History Tour began he looked much more trained again
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It appears that the fattest that Michael Jackson has ever been was during 2002.

One can realize that by watching his 2 performances in that year (i.e., American Bandstand, A Night At The Apollo), or by watching the 'Living With Michael Jackson' documentary.
 
mj_frenzy said:
I am talking about how the rain sound effect sounds in the intro of the 'Stranger In Moscow' song.
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And so am I. To me, the sound of the rain on the record suggests many different things including, but not limited to, foreboding, coldness, isolation. These are the ideas, images, sounds that come into MY mind when I listen to the song. You clearly hear different things. Which is fine. That's how music works.

mj_frenzy said:
It should have been done in a better and more effective way (for example, like the rain sound effect intro of Kylie Minogue's 'I Feel For You' song).
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I think Michael's rain sound effect on SIM is beautifully effective. Kylie's sound effect has more of a Black Sabbath feel to it. Which is fine on a Sab's record. Kylie's version is a little bit melodramatic and works well enough, I suppose. I'm lukewarm about it but I don't rate Kylie so no surprise there. But Michael was going for something very different, or so it seems to me. So that OTT effect wouldn't have worked at all. Michael judged it perfectly, imo.
 
I used to not like SIM's intro for what it was worth. I decided it's pretty nice. It's slow and quiet but it has a good build up, a nice sense of countdown, no doubt for a stage performance. It makes very little sense to have something bombastic and in your face and/or melodramatic when the beat is designed to grab you first.
 
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