Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson (Excerpts on page 19)

[HIStory]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

LOL at the comments in this thread. So you guys just want to hear comments that fit you're narrative. You don't like to be challenged on the truth do you?

This is very dishonest. Since you were one of the most active participants in that old thread about the same subject, same book, you know well that this has been actually discussed to death here. So no it's not like people try to avoid discussing it because it supposedly doesn't fit our narratives. And you know that very well. I think it should be merged with that thread because it's nothing new, you just keep repeating the same stuff.

 

[Michaels Lover]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

:bs:

Sendt fra min Lenovo A7600-F med Tapatalk

 

[SmoothMJ]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

Why hasn't psychoniff been banned for being a troll?

Surely this latest anti-MJ thread - previously discussed to death by psychoniff elsewhere - is proof of his/her motive on here?

I can not be the only one who realised psychoniff's agenda ages ago?

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

Several articles have been printed about this book over the weekend since it is now back on sale. Besides the one Psychoniff posted, excerpts include Michael hitting Bubbles and intentionally turning down Janet's mic on Scream. Next week we are supposed to get an excerpt on how he intentionally got out of the HBO show.

The problem is not hearing truth. It's that people who have told one story for years (and after Michael's death too) are now telling different stories. So was that true or is this true or none of it? Just makes it garbage in my eyes.

This needs to be merged with the original thread.

 

[Bringing Brighter Days]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

Several articles have been printed about this book over the weekend since it is now back on sale. Besides the one Psychoniff posted, excerpts include Michael hitting Bubbles and intentionally turning down Janet's mic on Scream. Next week we are supposed to get an excerpt on how he intentionally got out of the HBO show.

The problem is not hearing truth. It's that people who have told one story for years (and after Michael's death too) are now telling different stories. So was that true or is this true or none of it? Just makes it garbage in my eyes.

This needs to be merged with the original thread.

we're getting every book in the planet except the one that is needed.........everyone is gonna try and make a buck until there's no more bucks to be made and even with this book, it's not going to explain the core root problem of what happened to Michael Jackson and what happened to the art of music over time, the moment we get that type of perspective, that's when steps can be made to rebuild things back to what they should be........

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

"Just because it's in print, does not mean it's the gospel"

 

[Galactus123]

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

I have no problem believing this. Sometimes people just make mistakes and see things differently. I don't think Michael would purposely take song writing credit that didn't belong to him. Maybe Buxer should have been credited for SIM with Michael. He doesn't say if he mentioned about to Michael.

 

[Psychoniff]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Brad should have been credited. MJ refused to credit him. Why is that so hard for folks to understand. If we flip the script and MJ was not credited, we would be up in arms about it.

 

[#MJforever57]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

This two thread are merge will fix it on the forum.

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Re: Michael Jackson REFUSED to give credit for SIM and songs....

 

[Ms. BlueGangsta]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

I don't even like the title of the book that sparked this thread.
"Making Michael", bye Felicia Michael made himself.

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Brad should have been credited. MJ refused to credit him. Why is that so hard for folks to understand. If we flip the script and MJ was not credited, we would be up in arms about it.

What makes you so absolutely certain that Buxer should have been credited? Surely they were playing/singing to a tape. Couldn't Brad prove he wrote it or he just blew it off? That seems strange to me, knowing songwriting royalties go on forever.

 

[SoCav]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

What nonsense is this? If the musician is literally playing what Michael tells him to, why should he get any writing credit for it? It doesn't work that way.

It is not always that simple though. The final quote there for instance says that MJ would sing a single note to a musician, but the musician would then choose which chord to play. Choosing with which chords to accompany a melody and how to voice them is a major part of the sound and feel of a piece of music, so I can see how it could spark discussions. Based on the quotes there it does sound like Michael would usually say what sounded good and what not though when he would get together to write with a musician, so he would still 'direct' the writing process so to say. I guess the question under discussion is whether he would have come up with those specific chords and voicings himself if the musician had not played them for him. If the answer to that is no, then this still does not automatically mean the musician should get a writing credit. The question then becomes whether the musician's contribution was significant enough to warrant a writing credit. These things are not clear-cut and I can easily see why the different people involved might have different perspectives on these things.

For what it's worth: the story about SIM in the book is slightly different, because Buxer seems to suggest he wrote parts of the song even prior to getting together with MJ. He says that when he and Michael got together in Michael's hotel room in Moscow, he had a cassette tape with him containing cues for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 that he had worked on for Michael. He thought Michael wanted to hear how those were coming along, but instead he asked him to just sit at the piano and play. Buxer says that one of the things he played for Michael was one of the cues he had done for the Sonic game, that Michael loved that and that it became the verse for Stranger in Moscow. He says that he moved on to other chords from there and that they basically wrote the entire song together in an hour and a half. Later on he mentions working on the strings, piano, drums and beatboxing.

As for Stranger In Moscow, MJ isn't hear anymore to give his side of the story

This is true.

What makes you so absolutely certain that Buxer should have been credited? Surely they were playing/singing to a tape. Couldn't Brad prove he wrote it or he just blew it off? That seems strange to me, knowing songwriting royalties go on forever.

We don't know whether Michael always had tape rolling during his writing sessions. From the Brad Sundberg seminar we know he at least sometimes did when he was working in the studio, because Brad has the tape that contains MJ and Bill Bottrell writing Give Into Me together from scratch in the studio. I'm sure plenty of material like this exists from studio sessions, but who knows whether they always had a recorder running when writing in other settings like hotel rooms.

 

[HIStory]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

For what it's worth: the story about SIM in the book is slightly different, because Buxer seems to suggest he wrote parts of the song even prior to getting together with MJ. He says that when he and Michael got together in Michael's hotel room in Moscow, he had a cassette tape with him containing cues for Sonic The Hedgehog 3 that he had worked on for Michael. He thought Michael wanted to hear how those were coming along, but instead he asked him to just sit at the piano and play. Buxer says that one of the things he played for Michael was one of the cues he had done for the Sonic game, that Michael loved that and that it became the verse for Stranger in Moscow. He says that he moved on to other chords from there and that they basically wrote the entire song together in an hour and a half. Later on he mentions working on the strings, piano, drums and beatboxing.

Here is what he told about the Sonic thing to the fan magazine Black&White back in the 90s

B&W: Can you clarify the rumor that Michael had in 1993 composed the music for Sonic 3 video game, for which you have been credited?

Buxer: I've never played the game so I do not know what tracks on which Michael and I have worked the developers have kept, but we did compose music for the game. Michael called me at the time for help on this project, and that's what I did.
And if he is not credited for composing the music, it's because he was not happy with the result sound coming out of the console. At the time, game consoles did not allow an optimal sound reproduction, and Michael found it frustrating. He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music...

B&W: One of the surprising things in this soundtrack is that you can hear the chords from Stranger in Moscow, which is supposed to have been composed later...

Buxer: Yes, Michael and I had composed those chords for the game, and it has been used as base for Stranger in Moscow. [...]

So if he now claims he wrote the Sonic thing alone then this is contradictory to what he said when MJ was alive when he said they wrote it together. He actually said the only reason MJ was not credited because he did not like the sound of the console and did not want to be associated with it.

 

[kreen]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Making Michael is a great book full of new info and anecdotes. The fact that so many fans don't want to hear anything "negative" about MJ -- even when it's factual -- must be very disheartening to people like author Mike Smallcombe who devote years of their lives to researching MJ's music and then get criticized by the very people he works for -- MJ fans -- for not having produced the literary equivalent of that "The One" "documentary" from the 2000's; remember that one, a whole hour of celebrities talking about how great MJ was? Yeah, that was not boring at all...

Brad Buxer's story about SIM is not new and perfectly believable, considering it's the only song where he says his contribution warranted a credit but MJ didn't give one. And in the end he accepts it's MJ's call and there's nothing he can do.

 

[Ms. BlueGangsta]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Making Michael is a great book full of new info and anecdotes. The fact that so many fans don't want to hear anything "negative" about MJ -- even when it's factual -- must be very disheartening to people like author Mike Smallcombe who devote years of their lives to researching MJ's music and then get criticized by the very people he works for -- MJ fans -- for not having produced the literary equivalent of that "The One" "documentary" from the 2000's; remember that one, a whole hour of celebrities talking about how great MJ was? Yeah, that was not boring...

I for one have heard enough negativity about Michael to last 5 lifetimes.
You can go anywhere on the internet where Michael is being discussed and find plenty of negativity about MJ, it isn't exactly rare. :no:

Additionally, when anything about MJ pops up people run with it like Usain Bolt.
Information could come out that MJ didn't care for Cesar salad, and a few minutes later you'll see a headline on the net that says "THE KING OF POP HATED VEGANS, CLICK TO SEE MORE ABOUT HOW HE THOUGHT SALAD WAS THE DEVIL'S FOOD!!!!".
I'm not kidding either. :no:
Years after his death people still do that mess.

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Making Michael is a great book full of new info and anecdotes. The fact that so many fans don't want to hear anything "negative" about MJ -- even when it's factual -- must be very disheartening to people like author Mike Smallcombe who devote years of their lives to researching MJ's music and then get criticized by the very people he works for -- MJ fans -- for not having produced the literary equivalent of that "The One" "documentary" from the 2000's; remember that one, a whole hour of celebrities talking about how great MJ was? Yeah, that was not boring at all...

Brad Buxer's story about SIM is not new and perfectly believable, considering it's the only song where he says his contribution warranted a credit but MJ didn't give one. And in the end he accepts it's MJ's call and there's nothing he can do.

I don't think that's necessarily true, kreen. I wouldn't mind truth and some new interesting things about the making of the songs or about Michael.
Bad or good.
It is the same story from 95, but it changed a little when he told it to Vogel and it's a little more different here. Each time, his part gets built up.

Did he say why he didn't push or even question for a credit when he's saying that he actually wrote the music? Why was he so passive about Michael's decision then?
I can't imagine him thinking "oh, well, that's life. No credit for me." And let it go.

 

[HIStory]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Making Michael is a great book full of new info and anecdotes. The fact that so many fans don't want to hear anything "negative" about MJ -- even when it's factual -- must be very disheartening to people like author Mike Smallcombe who devote years of their lives to researching MJ's music and then get criticized by the very people he works for -- MJ fans -- for not having produced the literary equivalent of that "The One" "documentary" from the 2000's; remember that one, a whole hour of celebrities talking about how great MJ was? Yeah, that was not boring at all...

Brad Buxer's story about SIM is not new and perfectly believable, considering it's the only song where he says his contribution warranted a credit but MJ didn't give one. And in the end he accepts it's MJ's call and there's nothing he can do.

If what SoCav wrote about the story in the book and if the extracts in the review are correct Brad's story did change. Like I said initially he and MJ wrote the music for the Sonic game - and thus the basis of SIM - together, now that MJ is not here to reply it is claimed Brad wrote it all alone. Also the book extracts I read indicate Brad basically wrote all of the music for SIM. With each telling of the story his role seems to get bigger and bigger. That too is contradictory to what Brad claimed when MJ was alive which was that they wrote it together - including the music for the Sonic game.

You guys who always try to play this "MJ was no saint" card forget that other people aren't either - they too have their egos and possible motives to twist facts. Just because something is in print and someone worked on it it does not mean it is an unquestionable fact and it is above dissection and criticism. Nothing wrong in questioning changing or one-sidedly biased and self-serving stories, in fact it is called critical thinking. I have to add I don't know if Brad actually changed his story or it was Smallcombe who slightly twisted Brad's story to make it sound more negative about MJ than it was initially, but no one is above criticism be it Brad Buxer or Michael Smallcombe.

Also I read other extracts from this book earlier and while the book in its ads promised to not to focus on sensationalism these extracts did exactly that. There are such some extracts mentioned earlier in this thread.

Also the YANA story is once again used as something to indicate that MJ had this pattern of taking credit for songs he did not contribute to at all. While he did that on Invincible I don't think that was the case before that. Considering what was said by Robert Hoffman in the Gearslutz forum YANA is a song where you can actually pretty much debate if someone (in this case MJ) should have got co-writing credit or not.

You Are Not Alone was kind of a basic R&B groove with a verse and chorus. The rest of the arrangement came from MJ, and lots of overdubs by Steve Porcaro with programming by Andrew Scheps. I like to think R. Kelly's subsequent success with ballads came from watching what MJ did with his initial track idea.

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-...orked-michael-jacksons-dangerous-album-4.html

So why use that story once again as an example of MJ taking credit left and right for things he did not do? I think he actually could have got co-writing credit but when R. Kelly was upset about it he was alright with not getting one. But considering the fact that he did contribute to the final result it would not have actually been so outrageous as this book seems to indicate if he had been credited.

I don't know, but to me stories like this seem to be petty and blown out of proportion to try to portray MJ in a certain way. Maybe it's just because these reviews tend to focus on these things, but based on those it does seem to be the underlying theme of the book to want to portray MJ in this light.

I think already the title of the book "Making Michael" is kind of disrespectful and to me it indicates an intent to imply that MJ and his success was the product of other people and not of his own. (How come then that most of these so called "makers" of Michael Jackson never achieved any success without him?) It already indicates a bias for his collaborators. Thing is when someone writes a book about someone that involves interviewing people, often book authors will kind of form an alliance of sympathy with the people who they met and interviewed for their book - at the cost of those who they didn't. So I don't think anything or anyone is above bias or criticism. That includes Michael Jackson but also Michael Smallcombe.

 

[jamba]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

I went to a Sundburg seminar with Buxer where it was a small group and the song SIM came up. I will have to go back and find my notes. What came up, as I recall without checking my notes (which I can do later when I have time) is that MJ was very down, very depressed, and didn't say much--just wanted Buxer to play, and basically Buxer played a chord sequence. MJ did not sing, as he did when he and Bottrell worked on "Give In to Me," which Sundberg played the tape of in another seminar I attended. Obviously, there was a discussion of the chords because Buxer has said many times that as he left MJ, he had in mind to say, "Did we just write a song together?" But he didn't. The lyrics are so powerful and MJ wrote those--I just think Buxer is not doing a good thing by discussing this so much now. It is kind of sad because MJ is not here to give his side, and Buxer knows that, of course. I think he feels really bad about not getting credit and I like Buxer enough to think there is some truth to his complaint, but it's hard to know with the one-sidedness of this. Having said this, and I hate to bring in another thing, but it is relevant--apparently MJ and Bill Bottrell had some disagreements and what I was told it was related to 'business"--just wonder what the story is on that, not that I want more 'dirty laundry." Maybe we need to let some things go. When people disagree, there are always 2 sides to the story and the truth can be in between, not all on one side only but a mixture of the 2 sides. I haven't read that book BTW or this entire thread.

 

[SoCav]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

I don't know, but to me stories like this seem to be petty and blown out of proportion to try to portray MJ in a certain way. Maybe it's just because these reviews tend to focus on these things, but based on those it does seem to be the underlying theme of the book to want to portray MJ in this light.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the book. Admittedly I have not finished reading it yet, but I have read several parts of it by now and Smallcombe lets the collaborators do the talking and primarily relies on quotes. To me he does not seem to editorialize all that much or skew things in a certain direction, he mainly just reports the information he has.

He also includes multiple perspectives on the credits issue, btw. Some of the quotes that were posted here by musicians about MJ not giving credit come from a section that describes Michael's songwriting process. The two critical quotes are preceded by a quote by Bill Bottrell saying "He has an entire record in his head and he tries to make people deliver it to him. Sometimes those people surprise him and augment what he hears, but really his job is to extract from musicians and producers and engineers what he hears when he wakes up in the morning." And they are followed by Matt Forger and Bill Bottrell's perspective on the crediting issue:

Matt Forger totally disagrees with this viewpoint. "These were situations where Michael worked with different people to help him realise his ideas; sometimes the people working with him contributed ideas as well," he said. "It would have to be a case-by-case evaluation. I worked on many songs that Michael created from scratch. Others may have opinions of their own, but other people were not responsible for writing his hit songs. They may have played a part, but it was usually in support of him."

Bill Bottrell is also in Michael's corner, "Michael was better than most at knowing the difference between writing and everything else that goes on," he said. "We split our compositions clearly and fairly."

The book also does not focus on 'controversial' issues (I think the reviews give a false impression in that sense), it simply does not avoid them. I have enjoyed it thus far.

 

[HIStory]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the book. Admittedly I have not finished reading it yet, but I have read several parts of it by now and Smallcombe lets the collaborators do the talking and primarily relies on quotes. To me he does not seem to editorialize all that much or skew things in a certain direction, he mainly just reports the information he has.

He also includes multiple perspectives on the credits issue, btw. Some of the quotes that were posted here by musicians about MJ not giving credit come from a section that describes Michael's songwriting process. The two critical quotes are preceded by a quote by Bill Bottrell saying "He has an entire record in his head and he tries to make people deliver it to him. Sometimes those people surprise him and augment what he hears, but really his job is to extract from musicians and producers and engineers what he hears when he wakes up in the morning." And they are followed by Matt Forger and Bill Bottrell's perspective on the crediting issue:

The book also does not focus on 'controversial' issues (I think the reviews give a false impression in that sense), it simply does not avoid them. I have enjoyed it thus far.

Thanks.

This is what I was missing from the reviews so far - a balanced representation of opinions. The reviews seem to be very one-sided in what they emphasize which is not surprising from a tabloid like Express, but it is surprising from some of the fans in this thread who also read the book yet they only seem to be interested in quoting things which put MJ in a negative light and which in themselves seem to want to indicate that he was stealing songs left and right from everyone (yes, Psychoniff, I am looking at you).

There was also someone else who said at the beginning of the thread that he came away from this book thinking less of MJ both as a person and as an artist. Later he kind of tried to backtrack on it when he saw that's surely not going to sell this book to people here. But still the damage was done. In my mind definitely because personally I am not interested in yet another book trying to diminish MJ either artistically or personally. And it's not an issue of not wanting to hear anything negative, but we have had enough MJ bashing and enough people promoting themselves at his cost for more than 20 years. MJ was an artistic genius and I am interested in books finally pointing out and analyzing that, rather than people patting themselves on the back for supposedly "making" Michael Jackson happen.

So I am interested to hear your opinion when you finish it.

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

^^Yes, that helps. I like that it has multiple points of view. We all see things differently.
The negative things are in the reviews so you don't know what to think.
For example, the story by those 2 guys that produced Janet's albums. How Michael came in, made lots of noise, danced and stomped all over the studio so Janet got intimidated and didn't record her vocal.

You'd think that would make them angry since Janet was their girl, and puts Michael in a petty negative light but they say it was the greatest experience they ever had.

 

[SoCav]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

For example, the story by those 2 guys that produced Janet's albums. How Michael came in, made lots of noise, danced and stomped all over the studio so Janet got intimidated and didn't record her vocal.

You'd think that would make them angry since Janet was their girl, and puts Michael in a petty negative light but they say it was the greatest experience they ever had.

It does not come across as negative in the book at all imo. Rather, they say they were blown away by Michael's singing, and that they were not used to a singer stomping his feet, snapping his fingers and clapping his hands during recording sessions, as MJ was known to do. The part about Janet not wanting to follow MJ, as well as the bits about MJ going back to record a new vocal in Minneapolis, just shows they were competitive and that he was a perfectionist. I don't think either of those are revelations, nor negative.

Judge for yourself!

When they entered the studio to record the vocals, the plan was to record Michael's first, and Janet's immediately after.

"So we were sat there, Terry, Janet, and myself, and Michael is wearing these hard shoes and some kind of jewellery, which you're not really supposed to in case it interferes with the vocal," Jam said. "Everything is fine... Michael said his headphones are ok, and his voice is smooth after he drank his usual hot water with Ricola cough drops. So he says, 'Let's give it a go'. The music comes on, and for about ten seconds, Michael just starts dancing around, stomping... snapping his fingers... clapping, which is really unusual. And suddenly, he just started singing."

Jam says they were simply blown away. "I had never seen or heard anything like it in my entire life. We had to almost hold onto our chairs due to the sheer energy and force of his singing. And when it was over, Terry and I were speechless. So Michael's like, 'How was it?' And we're like, 'Yeah... great', and Michael then asks us if we want him to do another vocal, and we're like, 'Sure!' And he nailed it in about four or five takes. Then Janet turns to us and says, 'I think I'll do my vocals in Minneapolis!' I mean, how do you follow that?! When Janet was leaving, Michael said to her, 'Are you not doing your vocals now?' And Janet says, 'No, I'm doing them in Minneapolis'."

What was supposed to be a three-day session had now stretched to a week and a half. Jam and Lewis returned to Minneapolis where they recorded Janet's vocal, before sending Michael a rough mix. Happy with the mix and Janet's vocals, Michael then told Jam and Lewis that he wanted to re-record his lead vocal over in Minneapolis, as he thought he could make improvements. "It really showed his competitiveness and his perfectionism," Jam said. "Of course we told Michael that he was welcome to come to Minneapolis."

The pair did record their background vocals together. "The two of them singing together was amazing," Rob Hoffman recalls. "Super tight, no bad notes, one part after another. When they took a break they sang the show tunes they used to sing as kids. Again, perfect harmony."

 

[#MJforever57]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

I guess that why i have not read the book. I am tried of the negative on Michael. Michael imo has giving more to the world of music then i have seen from any artist why does the negative always over shadow the positive it sad that the world can't see the real Michael Jackson. That why it should be more doc on Michael the man was a genius and the world need to see that. Respect77 i agree with your post so true.

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

^^SoCav, i like the passages you're posting from the book and oh how I wish there was a tape of Michael and Janet singing show tunes.

It's hard to tell sometimes from reviews/articles about books and sometimes it's obvious. Sullivan's 3 interviews about his book was all it took for me to know it was trash. That bio last year was the same. I'm not going to throw money away. This does sound different.

 

[kreen]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

The book is great and it's not "negative" by any stretch of the imagination, it's basically an ode to MJ's greatness. But because it was written by an objective man doing his job, there's maybe 5 % of all anecdotes that are slightly critical. You're doing yourselves a disfavor by not reading it.

Besides, absolute truth about all historical matters is elusive. We'll never know 100% what precise percentage of SIM came from MJ as opposed to Buxer. Songwriting is an organic process with a little bit of magic in it. All the book says -- and versions of the story have been around for years -- is that Buxer should have been cocredited the way he was on later songs like Hollywood Tonight and others.

 

[kreen]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

^^SoCav, i like the passages you're posting from the book and oh how I wish there was a tape of Michael and Janet singing show tunes.

It's hard to tell sometimes from reviews/articles about books and sometimes it's obvious. Sullivan's 3 interviews about his book was all it took for me to know it was trash. That bio last year was the same. I'm not going to throw money away. This does sound different.

Sullivan's book was worthwhile and some fans' campaign to destroy it without having read it was a blemish on our community.

 

[barbee0715]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Sullivan's book was worthwhile and some fans' campaign to destroy it without having read it was a blemish on our community.

The more detail that you and SoCav have given on Smallcombe's book has made me interested-it took me awhile to purchase Vogel's book-I remember it was when he published a story about "Gone Too Soon" (which wasn't in the book) that made me race over to Amazon to buy it. And I love it.

I understand what you mean about that campaign with the "false reviews", etc. I would never do anything like that, and I didn't think something like that was even necessary-I ignored the tabloid reviews of the book, but he gave three interviews that I intentionally watched, and that was all it took for me not to buy the book. I did discuss those interviews here, but that was the extent of it.

I personally think Randy Taraborelli's 91 biography is very worthwhile-although I would never read the new updated versions. Most people would disagree with me and consider those books trash, but I think they've read the later versions.

 

[HIStory]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Sullivan's book was worthwhile and some fans' campaign to destroy it without having read it was a blemish on our community.

There are absolutely and provably nonsencical (and potentially harmful) things in Sullivan's book from shady and untrustworthy sources like Marc Schaffel (who was used extensively in the book), Howard Mann, Ray Chandler (who was used for the 1993 allegations) and tabloid stories were often presented as fact. Some parts were good - eg. the 2005 trial part - because there his sources were people like Mesereau. But a couple of good parts don't make a book great. Thing is people are allowed to be critical of books and are allowed to point out falsehoods, inaccuracies in a book. Books are not above criticsim. (And yes I have Sullivan's book.)

Back on the subject of this thread, it sells for $2.53 on Kindle so I will check it out and see: http://www.amazon.com/Making-Michael-Inside-Career-Jackson/dp/1910782513

 

[Psychoniff]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

Shadow Deeps review:

Well, I read the book. I'll probably give it another read as I'm sure one thing or another slipped me by the first time through.

I'll start by saying this... truth be told, my knowledge of MJ is limited compared to the wide array of unprecedented knowledge compiled by veteran members here. So if this book is just a rehash of previously available information, that's news to me. Making Michael is balanced, logical, coherent, concise, accessible, and well written, but at least in my experience, moves very quickly for a book that's 444 pages in length overall. This book does not pander to stans by any means and definitely does not paint Michael to be any sort of saint (hey, that rhymes, what do you know ), but I was sort of hoping it would have explored more of MJ's darker side. However, I really have no right to complain of that as I will concede to the fact that I was once a stan and cringe very hard at some of my earlier posts on this board (and I would edit them but people have replied to them, so such a course of action wouldn't reflect well upon them or me). My view of MJ is entirely different than it used to be, and that in and of itself feels very liberating.

I don't want to spoil too many things about Making Michael for those who haven't read it yet, so I'll discuss what truly stood out most to me (if you seek to avoid all spoilers and have yet to give it a read, stop reading here):

1) It seems that in accordance to this new book, Michael's foremost ambition was to be a filmmaker, E.G an actor and director (at least that's what I took away from the book going by Michael's "no immortalization" note should he have never achieved a career in film atop his career in music... which he didn't). Would he have been successful? I have no idea - what we've seen of Michael's acting ranges from passable to simply bad. It is saddening that he died before he had the chance to realize his vision, but Michael was rather at fault for such since neither his lifestyle nor his state of mind proved healthy in the end (Michael, especially with his low pain tolerance, simply didn't have the strength to overcome his adversities, problems, and hardships, much less face them). His burning desire to be a filmmaker makes sense since he was essentially forced into music and show business by his father, although his natural talent for performing made him successful as well as the work ethic Joseph basically beat into him.

2) Michael piggybacking the Sharpton artists rights movement with "Sony sucks", because of his beef with Tommy Mottola and Sony, and so he could leave Sony with his catalogue of master recordings without repaying his debt. Michael basically attacked Sony because he didn't get his way with them, not because they necessarily did any wrong to or by him (which goes to show that Michael was not very responsible or mature on a personal level). What's even more appalling is that Michael made horrible accusations about Sony and Tommy without them ever having been proven (does that sound familiar and possibly hypocritical?).

3) Michael taking Bad's slave tapes home to make alterations behind Quincy's back. Of course that wasn't called for, but no wonder they went their separate ways more or less. It shows that Michael was not afraid to be manipulative, cunning, and even backstabbing so as to get his way. I'm sure folks here know by now that Michael was not afraid to discredit his fellow collaborators either, although there are indeed conflicting accounts presented in the book. Brad Buxer with Stranger in Moscow and Jerry Hey in Speed Demon (although the latter person was "compensated" for that with extra money) present one account (Michael not accrediting or refusing to accredit others for writing), and R. Kelly presents another (Michael retracting his co-writer credit for YANA immediately upon R. Kelly's first complaint).

People seem to get different impressions of MJ according to the book - some found him to be exceptionally generous, others did not have such great experiences with him. Another highlight that this book offers is humor. Michael eating toilet paper is one such example, and upon being questioned about it, retorted with the question: "Didn't you ever eat Kleenex when you were little?" - if that isn't gross, it's surely hysterical. "Smelly Jelly" being Michael's version of "funky" is certainly funny if it isn't fascinating.

So, in summation, I can surely recommend this book to anyone interested in MJ whether they already know the information it has to offer or not. It's well thought out and accentuates MJ's professional victories as well as his professional wrongdoings. It gives off a balanced and honest account on MJ, which is something many other books don't do in favor of appealing to stans

 

[HIStory]

Re: Making Michael: Inside the Career of Michael Jackson

^ Here you are again trying to start something, Psychoniff. And that in a very cowardly way too. By taking someone else's rather controversial opinion about MJ from another board and hiding behind it. Didn't you already try this trick once when it backfired because that fan from another board actually popped up here and was rather not amused that his opinions that he posted on another board were re-posted by you here without his consent?

This is unfair to him and unfair to us, because 1) we are unable to reply to him directly, 2) he did not post this on this board and to us. And it is extreme cowardiance on your part because you obviously constantly try subtle or not so subtle trolling on this board, but instead of being open about your apparently negative views about MJ you are hiding behind someone else's opinion - someone who is not even on this board. Why don't you post your own review of the book instead? You only mentioned small snippets - typically taking the negative bits and pieces out of context, as usual from you.

I am reading this book now and I am at Thriller. So far I haven't seen anything negative, although nothing really new either. If you read Moonwalk and you read articles about MJ's art and music, you have probably heard most of the stories - at least so far. Probably the more interesting part will be after Bad, hopefully there will be some new and interesting info there and when I am finished I will give a review. But those who seem to want to focus on the negative keep bringing up the same few stories - which tells me that actually there are few very negative stories in it. It's just some fans extreme negativity towards MJ why they are focusing on the same few stories (and that over and over again!) to be able to say something negative about MJ and keep bashing him about something (eg. not giving credit to Brad Buxer) - apparently you have to do that to not to look like a "stan". LOL.