Michael - The Great Album Debate

While I agree that the quality of lyrics does not serve as evidence of authenticity, the mediocre lyrics definitely adds to the doubts. I don't see anything poetic in the Cascio lyrics. For the fist time in Michael's career, the songs that bear his name resemble the souless manufactured pop that are forgettable. Many times, the way the Cascio lyrics are penned leaves no room for people's imagination. The writer did nothing to challenge our thoughts.

The more I read about Michael Jackson, the more I realize how otherworldly brilliant he was. He's a true artist. Every fiber of his body down to his core is about art. It's still very difficult for me to visualize him singing lines like "taste your skin" or "stabbed in the back as a matter of fact" or "play me like a toy"...

I agree...the lyrics seem more amateur, more mediocre...They lack Michael's style...And no, it doesn't prove anything, but as I said before, Michael's work all comes together, flows well, all aspects of it, be it lyrics, composition, arrangements..His touch is everywhere on the music that he didn't even write...These songs leave me empty...So yes, it does add to the doubt and makes one wonder just how much involvement, if any, Michael had in these songs...Or if he would even agree to sing and be involved in these songs...It just seems unlikely to me....The lyrics to all the songs we've heard so far have been of poor quality compared to what we're used to...I could understand maybe one song, but 7(?)? (How many Cascio tracks have we heard so far?)

Yeah, that 'play me like a toy'...:mello:
 
I agree...the lyrics seem more amateur, more mediocre...They lack Michael's style...And no, it doesn't prove anything, but as I said before, Michael's work all comes together, flows well, all aspects of it, be it lyrics, composition, arrangements..His touch is everywhere on the music that he didn't even write...These songs leave me empty...So yes, it does add to the doubt and makes one wonder just how much involvement, if any, Michael had in these songs...Or if he would even agree to sing and be involved in these songs...It just seems unlikely to me....The lyrics to all the songs we've heard so far have been of poor quality compared to what we're used to...I could understand maybe one song, but 7(?)? (How many Cascio tracks have we heard so far?)

Yeah, that 'play me like a toy'...:mello:

I'm reading the M Poetica book by Willa Stillwater now. Some of the points she raised are very impressive. She truly studied the short films. Although I consider myself a hardcore fan now, I haven't picked up all the cues and messages. May be because I don't have a research and academic background. Anyway, her book makes me realize there is so much depth in Michael's works. He was not afraid of challenging his audience into an uncomfortable zone. He's so over just giving us the Michael Jackson we all want to see and listen. HIStory is a challenging album to listen to. The messages (social injustice, police brutality, false accusation, racial issues) are hard and provocative. Invincible may not be as personal, but is still a very sophiscated album. To me, it's a mystery that the consumated artist who gave all of himself in HIStory and Invincible would consider Burn Tonight. Was it a favor to a friend? May be. But, I really really really doubt he would have agreed to release the song in his own album.
 
I don't see a mistake here! It is "it's". But if you pronounce quickly and "swallow" the letter "t" in "it's", there is nothing uncommon there.

I'll give you an everyday example in British English:

" A bo'le o' wa'er " instead of "a bottle of water". "Innit" instead of "isn't it".

In American (and even British) English when you pronounce "I want to" a bit quicker it gives impression to hear "I wanna" even if your intention is not to say "I wanna" (listen to Lenny's "I want to go home" and sing along, you'll realize it for yourself). "Swallowing" sounds is a very common thing in many languages, but making tense mistakes is completely different.

You missed my point again, lol. Thanks for telling me that, I know all that. The is/it's thing isn't really what I was talking about, there are 2 other things in there that are very obvious. If you can't see them, then there is no point in discussing this any further. I don't mind them at all, and for you, if an artist you don't like did the same, you'd call it "mistake" and not art.

I'm really done with this now, the debate was quite funny, you twisting my words and putting words in my mouth and telling me what I said (which was always the opposite of what I had actually said) and then you basically replying to yourself, then me trying to explain and you doing the same again, rinse and repeat. This is going nowhere. Maybe if you tried to understand other people's posts instead of just trying to come up with the wittiest reply ... So ok, you win. ;)
 
Last edited:
^^ LOOOOL...So, Milka, what do you think of the Cascio tracks? :D

Like I said in my first post in this thread, I don't really have an opinion anymore. Endless discussions like this one are not really my thing. ;) I just hope one day there will be actual proof, like a video, even a short one - and yes, I don't know what they are waiting for either. There are things though that make me think they are not fake, but yeah, I don't want to join this discussion, without any concrete proof, either side could be right. As long as there is no proof that they are fake AND that Malachi is involved, I refuse to bash and accuse him. Accusing someone with no real evidence, that's ... well ... wrong. Yeah, sorry for stating the obvious again.
 
I would say that the fact that the songs sound identical to Jason Cupeta, along with the fact that there is no evidence that Michael recorded them, is a pretty big piece of evidence.
 
I would say that the fact that the songs sound identical to Jason Cupeta, along with the fact that there is no evidence that Michael recorded them, is a pretty big piece of evidence.

See, this is what makes me wonder...Not just that the songs sound scarily like Jason and NOT like MJ, but the fact that there is NOTHING to say Michael recorded these. No little anecdotes, no memories, no stories, no handwritten notes, no footage...Michael's normal habits in the studio are completely absent...Does that not make people wonder? Not like handwritten notes would prove anything, but it could possibly give us SOMETHING, and for pretty much every song we've ever heard of Michael have something attached to it...A lone microphone stand without Michael and Teddy and Eddie saying, 'It's Michael'...isn't gonna cut it...And people wonder why we're still discussing this after 9 months? It's no wonder we can't let it go...I don't need proof either way...It's obvious to me when I listen to the songs that it's not Michael..
 
You missed my point again, lol. Thanks for telling me that, I know all that. The is/it's thing isn't really what I was talking about, there are 2 other things in there that are very obvious. If you can't see them, then there is no point in discussing this any further. I don't mind them at all, and for you, if an artist you don't like did the same, you'd call it "mistake" and not art.

I'm really done with this now, the debate was quite funny, you twisting my words and putting words in my mouth and telling me what I said (which was always the opposite of what I had actually said) and then you basically replying to yourself, then me trying to explain and you doing the same again, rinse and repeat. This is going nowhere. Maybe if you tried to understand other people's posts instead of just trying to come up with the wittiest reply ... So ok, you win. ;)

Hey Milka,

Bumper is not like what you have just described. He's probably one of the most thoughtful members here, as evidenced in the numerous lengthy and respectful exchanges he's had with Ivy in the past eight months.

Sometimes, we have to realize that what we wrote does not always reflect what we meant to say. Different people interpret information differently. If you feel Bumper is not getting your points, then you may want to explain it further. I know it can be frustrating sometimes.

The exchange you had with Bumper is interesting. It shows how different people have different views on art. But, if you don't want to talk about it anymore. That's totally fine.
 
And yet, for some bizzare reason, people want to defend them. I just don't get it.

Well, I did at first...I didn't want to say they were fake, although deep down, no matter how much I continued to listen to the songs and try and find Michael's voice in there somewhere, I felt I wasn't listening to Michael Jackson at all...It became increasingly difficult as time passed to defend these songs and the people responsible for them. With all the silence and leaving fans hanging for THIS long, with all the discussion we've been having, I find it useless to defend them because I don't see any reason to...Sweeping it under the rug is not the way to deal with Michael's musical legacy...
 
Like I said in my first post in this thread, I don't really have an opinion anymore. Endless discussions like this one are not really my thing. ;) I just hope one day there will be actual proof, like a video, even a short one - and yes, I don't know what they are waiting for either. There are things though that make me think they are not fake, but yeah, I don't want to join this discussion, without any concrete proof, either side could be right. As long as there is no proof that they are fake AND that Malachi is involved, I refuse to bash and accuse him. Accusing someone with no real evidence, that's ... well ... wrong. Yeah, sorry for stating the obvious again.

Agree with you that it's not right to make an accusation without proof. However, a discussion on the songs' authenticity can still take place. One can still have a discussion without accusing anyone.

Many discoveries happen not because people have proof first. But, because of people's persistence to find proof. I'm not saying this discussion will lead us to proof. However, I have to acknowlege that I've learned a lot from the disucssions here. Anything from law, to linguistics, to Michael's works to each other. It's not as useless as people think it is.

Or, we can simply talk about the production, the lyrics and the vocal quality of the Cascio tracks.
 
Last edited:
You missed my point again, lol.

Well, if I missed your point, please rephrase it. In short I understood that you defend artistic freedom. As far as I am concerned, all I said is that each freedom (including the artistic one) must be protected or else anyone could claim to be an artist, which clearly is not the case.


Thanks for telling me that, I know all that. The is/it's thing isn't really what I was talking about,

Well you mentioned "is" vs "it's". I don't know what else you meant. Sorry for misunderstanding, but to me it was not clear what you meant.

there are 2 other things in there that are very obvious. If you can't see them, then there is no point in discussing this any further. I don't mind them at all, and for you, if an artist you don't like did the same, you'd call it "mistake" and not art.

The colloquial sentence you pointed out does not contain language mistakes in the lower register such as slang. If I missed something point the mistakes out to me. Here's hat I see:

Hurt so bad sometimes it's hard to breathe. => It hurts so bad that sometimes it is hard to breathe. = the bolded part is missing and it is not disturbing because it is colloquial English. Linguistics is fully aware of this and even if it might sound strange even this colloquial English is coded. Slang grammatical books such as "Black English" do exist (ex. "She don't" isntead of "She doesn't", "(It) hurt" instead of "It hurts", etc.)

This again is absolutely not comparable to the tense mistake I was refering to (he gave all he's got), because it does not fit in any neither artistic nor linguistic category. It is not slang, not colloquial, not informal, not formal, ... it is nowhere to be seen except in the list of pure mistakes. I even don't know how such a tense structure could be defendable. It would be exactly the same as if I said "I wish I am." It would be a pure mistake. Even the extremely flexible (with maximum artistic freedom) heavy slang-rapping artists use "I wish I was/were" and not "I wish I am". That is the code I was referring to. Some linguistical "ethics" must be respected or else the concept "art" loses its meaning, and people like Victor Hugo, Pushkin or Goethe could be compared to Malachi, Porte or Cascio (...brr, it gives me creeps).


I'm really done with this now, the debate was quite funny, you twisting my words and putting words in my mouth and telling me what I said (which was always the opposite of what I had actually said) and then you basically replying to yourself, then me trying to explain and you doing the same again, rinse and repeat. This is going nowhere. Maybe if you tried to understand other people's posts instead of just trying to come up with the wittiest reply ... So ok, you win. ;)

It is not about winning or having wittiest replies, but about setting some things straight. I am sorry, but it is unacceptable to say that artistic freedom has no limits when referring to a tense mistake. It is just too easy. It is also minimizing true artists who are perfectionists and never make such primary school level mistakes.

I am not looking forward to discussing it any further either, but I find that today the concept "art" is irritatingly used as easily and as fast as "I love you" when people don't actually mean it.
 
Does anyone know anything about "manutd"? He lurks around in this thread a lot but he is yet to post at MJJC.
 
I know but it just seems strange that he has been here for months and all he does is view this thread.
 
Well I don't know...maybe he/she's still trying to form an opinion based on the highly stimulating discussion in here :D
 
:lmao: Well, I'm pretty proud of the fact that we've kept this thread alive for the last 9 months and 1036 pages...despite not having any 'proof' that or concrete evidence :D

I wonder what percentage is naughty talk compared to serious discussion? :scratch: :lol:
 
^^may be the naughty talk is one of the reasons why people like to lurk here. :fear:

only perverts like us can mix anthenticity discussion and naughty talk so seamlessly. :punk:
 
^^ Yup, we can turn it on and off at the drop of a hat...We're just THAT good ;) :naughty:
 
Ok, just a few things (yeah, I know, I'm like a boomerang, I always come back ...)

Well, if I missed your point, please rephrase it. In short I understood that you defend artistic freedom. As far as I am concerned, all I said is that each freedom (including the artistic one) must be protected or else anyone could claim to be an artist, which clearly is not the case.

The problem is ... and I wasn't even defending Malachi's "all he's got" thing, that and some people in this thread saying that grammar, etc. always has to be right in song lyrics or poems, etc., that's what I have a problem with. Because sometimes BREAKING the rules of language is part of it and has its own meaning. And then you come along being the critic, saying "I'm a linguist, there are mistakes in there and this is not art". When in reality, in this case, you just didn't get the poem and don't allow breaking rules as part of the work of art. I'll give you an example that you won't like at all, because if you google him, you'll see that he was influenced by Dada (which is quite obvious anyway), Ernst Jandl and in particular this poem:

http://www.buchklub.at/magazine/gorilla/hoffnungsreich/cybertour/autoren.htm

I don't know how much German you speak or understand, he was Jewish and his father was killed by the Gestapo, his grandmother died in Auschwitz. His life and art was obviously influenced by his experiences during the Nazi regime and WWII. Now see the poem on the right of that page called "schtzngrmm". Which stands for Schuetzengraben, which means trench. He broke all language rules. There are not even vowels. But, especially when you HEAR it, you understand. How it is about war and the horrors of war. I'd say no matter what language you speak, you'll still understand it. Had he followed the rules and used vowels and rhymed "Schuetzengraben" with whatever ... the message would have been lost. You can hear him read it here:

http://www.ernstjandl.com/archiv_sound.html

You might laugh about it at first, but if you think about what he did here, what the message is, and why and where he is coming from, you'll get it. And how it was necessary to break the rules for the message.

Also, the reaction to art can be part of the work of art. So even if the piece of art seems to be totally stupid or seems empty, its purpose can be to provoke people and to provoke a reaction. And if the reaction is "that's not even art, that should be forbidden" or something similar to that, you can see what the purpose was - showing that people want to forbid or ridicule everything they don't understand. This might be more relevant or better understood in some countries in Europe like Germany and Austria, see "degenerate art" and what happened to artists and their art during the Nazi regime - and the problem with rules is, where do you draw the line? It's ok as long as the grammar is ok? Or it's ok as long as it doesn't question dictatorship? Who makes the rules and why? Or see former Eastern Europe and tons of authors who were also dissidents. And some were killed for their art, because they didn't want to follow the rules. They fought for freedom (not just in art) and in the end helped end communism. Google Vaclav Havel as an example.

A recent example would be Ai Weiwei.

So what is bugging me a lot more in this discussion than Malachi's little grammar mistake is the reactions to it and how people are saying you can't use language any way you want in art. His little mistake led to you saying that if artists do that, the message will be lost, language will turn into Gibberish ... which of course won't happen if artists break rules, they do that all the time but our language is still fine and we can still understand each other (even us non-native speakers who make mistakes because it's not our first language). To me that just shows some kind of latent fear of everything that is "different" and therefore people are insisting that rules have to be followed.

Well you mentioned "is" vs "it's". I don't know what else you meant. Sorry for misunderstanding, but to me it was not clear what you meant.

It was the only thing that I pointed out because of how it sounds, and because you could hear both, that was just me wondering which it is (and I think it is "it's" for the reasons you explained).

The colloquial sentence you pointed out does not contain language mistakes in the lower register such as slang. If I missed something point the mistakes out to me. Here's hat I see:

Hurt so bad sometimes it's hard to breathe. => It hurts so bad that sometimes it is hard to breathe. = the bolded part is missing and it is not disturbing because it is colloquial English. Linguistics is fully aware of this and even if it might sound strange even this colloquial English is coded. Slang grammatical books such as "Black English" do exist (ex. "She don't" isntead of "She doesn't", "(It) hurt" instead of "It hurts", etc.)

Well, he says "sometime", not "sometimes". And yes, I know why and you don't have to explain it to me. And then there is something else, but YOU are the linguist, if you don't see it, that either means I'm wrong (which could very well be) or you need to go back to school. ;) My point though was that you made it sound like only things pretty close to Oxford English are allowed in art. I just gave you one example why it's not - and why this example? Because for some reason that's one of my favorite lines in a song ever, lol. Yeah, I know I'm weird.

And your "I wish I am" example - the funny thing about it is, grammar wrong, but people would still understand it. Language and people's ability to understand it are quite flexible.

http://www.ecenglish.com/learnenglish/lessons/can-you-read
 
I wonder what percentage is naughty talk compared to serious discussion? :scratch: :lol:

As someone who is trying to lurk in here from time to time, 80 % naughty talk. Which usually means after reading for a few minutes I totally forget what the thread is about and feel the urge to join in and say something naughty. So far I managed to contain myself somehow. ;)
 
As someone who is trying to lurk in here from time to time, 80 % naughty talk. Which usually means after reading for a few minutes I totally forget what the thread is about and feel the urge to join in and say something naughty. So far I managed to contain myself somehow. ;)

:lol: You must give in to those urges, since you don't want to talk about the actual songs ;)

See? This thread is for everyone :fear:
 
The colloquial sentence you pointed out does not contain language mistakes in the lower register such as slang. If I missed something point the mistakes out to me. Here's hat I see:

Hurt so bad sometimes it's hard to breathe. => It hurts so bad that sometimes it is hard to breathe. = the bolded part is missing and it is not disturbing because it is colloquial English. Linguistics is fully aware of this and even if it might sound strange even this colloquial English is coded. Slang grammatical books such as "Black English" do exist (ex. "She don't" isntead of "She doesn't", "(It) hurt" instead of "It hurts", etc.)

This again is absolutely not comparable to the tense mistake I was refering to (he gave all he's got), because it does not fit in any neither artistic nor linguistic category. It is not slang, not colloquial, not informal, not formal, ... it is nowhere to be seen except in the list of pure mistakes. I even don't know how such a tense structure could be defendable. It would be exactly the same as if I said "I wish I am." It would be a pure mistake. Even the extremely flexible (with maximum artistic freedom) heavy slang-rapping artists use "I wish I was/were" and not "I wish I am". That is the code I was referring to. Some linguistical "ethics" must be respected or else the concept "art" loses its meaning, and people like Victor Hugo, Pushkin or Goethe could be compared to Malachi, Porte or Cascio (...brr, it gives me creeps).

IMO, the rhythm, phrasing, and sound of words is more important than grammar rules in songs and poetry. Of course, grammar rules shouldn't be ignored to the point that listeners and readers can't figure out what the artist is saying. That's not the case here, though. Everyone knows what the songwriter is trying to communicate with "he gave all he's got."

Who gets to decide which linguistic rules must be obeyed and which may be ignored? I think that's for the artist to decide. Maybe you find that this particular verb tense conflict is distracting from the art. That's fine, but that doesn't mean that everyone feels that way. The use of this phrase in the song can easily be defended. Either the songwriter believes that this phrase is slang, and that listeners are familiar with it, or the songwriter may have intentionally ignored linguistic rules beause he thought that the rhythm, phrasing, and sound of these words fit the song. You may disgree with the songwriter, but that doesn't mean that his decision was wrong.
 
I never said all songs have to be written in perfect English. And I also FEEL songs, just like you Milka. You choose to focus on the words 'illogical' and 'wrong'. But I said them in a certain context. You make it sound as if I'm putting every song under a miscroscope.

If a writer makes a habit out of wanting to use expressions/methaphors in his songs, but not using the 'right' expression/methaphore, or mingling them together and invents a new one, that's something I see as something that distinguishes him and therefore that's great material for me to compare. I happen to find it interesting to have a deeper look into Jason's lyrics because of that.
 
:lol: You must give in to those urges, since you don't want to talk about the actual songs ;)

See? This thread is for everyone :fear:

Well, maybe if you posted a gold pants picture for inspiration ... but then I'll make a joke again, something like "that's fake, it's socks" trying to start another "fake" discussion on the forum (who says it always has to be about the Cascio tracks) and then I'll be picked on until I leave the thread like it happened to me in the other thread about the gold pants months ago for seemingly disrespcting the force or something. So don't do it.

IMO, the rhythm, phrasing, and sound of words is more important than grammar rules in songs and poetry.

Yep, that's one of the things I was trying to say, in a lot more words.
 
Back
Top