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The main reason most people don't like Invincible album is Rodney Jerkins?

xam said:
I agree that it would have done better than You Rock My World. What I find amazing is how the label still had such an influence over MJ's career. The suits don't know a thing, and yet they dictate single release to a well-established artist. My only reservation is Unbreakable being different yet somewhat similar (in meaning) to the album title - Invincible. A cause for some confusion, maybe.

If I'm not mistaken, didn't MJ say he didn't want those (terrible!) remixes on Blood On The Dancefloor, too...but the label got what it wanted?
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For me Blood On The Dance Floor is 5 songs! Remixes are not part of the album, because they are terrible...
 
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I agree with what was said about MJ being "uncool" in 2001. I remember before the 30th anniversary show I even used to make fun of him. You just didn't think of him for a few years there. Rarely heard him on radio. In fact I think you hear him way more now than you did back then. When I got back into him shortly after the 30th anniversary show and my teacher heard about it she literally laughed at me. His image was irrepairably damaged in the years after HIStory just because of his relative silence and the media's continued dogpile.

As for HIStory underperforming, I am not sure by what metric. Because it was a double CD it was more expensive than most. He just came from the most brutal scandal any celebrity had ever faced and he still trot out a couple of number 1 songs, some songs with chart success and sold about 30 million in total - I believe US sales of 8 million? I am not sure what the album should have been projected to do given the situation.
 
I agree with the "uncool" sentiment as well. HOWEVER, I was 19 when Invincible came out and I was just starting to go to the clubs/bars. Let me tell you, people would FLOCK to the dancefloor to dance to YRMW - EVERYONE loved that tune. I think people felt it was "classic" MJ and although the album was quickly forgotten to the mainstream, there was still that spark, that magic that still exists.

I think it was a little of both - the album underperformed as it just wasn't up to Michael Jackson standards and Sony sabotaged it was well.
 
Agonum said:
Is it really too long?

Dangerous: 77:03
HIStory Continues: 77:14
Blood on the Dance Floor: 75:55
Invincible: 77:01
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14 songs
15 songs
16 songs.

14 songs is probably the maximum amount you can put on an album. Dangerous is good but it also leaves you wanting more and getting enough of each song. And even then people complain about the long intros of some of these songs.

HIStory is fine, but most people have it out for Come Together.

Blood I will not even discuss. Y'all only listen to the first five songs anyway.

Invincible is 16 tracks and 16 tracks is way too much music. MJ filled the CDs up because he wanted to, and the fans may want him to too, but that doesn't mean it's efficient.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Invincible is 16 tracks and 16 tracks is way too much music. MJ filled the CDs up because he wanted to, and the fans may want him to too, but that doesn't mean it's efficient.
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People didn't have a problem buying Janet's albums that had an average of 20 tracks, but a lot of them were skits, intros, & interludes. I have a Janet remix single for State Of The World which has 13 mixes of the same song. There were those 2 CD albums by rappers like 2Pac & OutKast, and Prince's 3 CD Emancipation. Many 1990s albums were the equivalent of a 2 vinyl record set like Aaliyah, TLC, Madonna, Van Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so on. HIStory is a 3 record set. It was not only Mike who filled up a CD. It seems that some people on this site think that Mike did things exclusively, and don't know what was going on with music in general. Like people wondering why The Girl Is Mine was released first, instead of something else, when there were a lot of songs by other artists from that period that were the same style. I guess they are too young to know the bigger picture. I also think that's why a lot of people on here can't get into the J5/Jacksons records or Off The Wall because they are not that familiar with the type of music on those records. It's the equivalent of a person when Thriller came out, is not as likely to get into the music of the 1930s or 1940s.
 
I've said it before but if Invincible was 16 tracks full of Billie Jean level quality there would be no problem.

A decent chunk of Vince was filled with crap like Privacy.

Are we too blinded by our love for MJ that we can't accept that Invincible was just not very good?
 
DuranDuran said:
People didn't have a problem buying Janet's albums that had an average of 20 tracks, but a lot of them were skits, intros, & interludes. I have a Janet remix single for State Of The World which has 13 mixes of the same song. There were those 2 CD albums by rappers like 2Pac & OutKast, and Prince's 3 CD Emancipation. Many 1990s albums were the equivalent of a 2 vinyl record set like Aaliyah, TLC, Madonna, Van Hagar, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and so on. HIStory is a 3 record set. It was not only Mike who filled up a CD. It seems that some people on this site think that Mike did things exclusively, and don't know what was going on with music in general. Like people wondering why The Girl Is Mine was released first, instead of something else, when there were a lot of songs by other artists from that period that were the same style. I guess they are too young to know the bigger picture. I also think that's why a lot of people on here can't get into the J5/Jacksons records or Off The Wall because they are not that familiar with the type of music on those records. It's the equivalent of a person when Thriller came out, is not as likely to get into the music of the 1930s or 1940s.
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Where did I say Mike was the only one who filled up a CD? He wasn't. Mac Demarco released a 199 song album
I just think invincible was too long. And not sequenced well. Mostly because the middle part wasn't very good, sure. But it's worse together. Each song Independent is, alright. Yes, substitute it for your favorite Invincible outtakes, fine. I still say shorter records are usually best. Tightly focused and sequenced.

Part of the genius of art is going wild in the creation and then sorting through it all until it's boring. Then moving on.
 
Blues_Away2023 said:
Invincible was just not very good?
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"Good" or "bad" is an opinion of the listener. Vanilla Ice's album To The Extreme sold over 10 million copies in the USA, which is more than any individual album by Aretha Franklin. Whether something sells or not does not always have that much to do with quality. Unless you think Vanilla Ice's music is better than Aretha's.
 
Mister_Jay_Tee said:
Where did I say Mike was the only one who filled up a CD?
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Your comment implies that Invincible wasn't successful because it had 16 songs, or filled up the CD. When other albums had the same amount or more songs and were popular. 80 minutes is 80 minutes. The amount of songs is does not matter as long it fits into the 80 minutes a CD lasts. You could have 3 songs that are 25 minutes each (common with jazz, classical, prog rock songs & some disco songs too). Or 30 songs from the 1950s & early 1960s when the average song on an album was 2 minutes & 20 seconds. Same for when there were no albums and everything came out on a 78. A 78 could hold very little time, less than the later 45. I have the Live At The BBC album by The Beatles. It's 2 CDs and altogether, it has 69 tracks. 2 pre-CD albums can often be put on 1 CD.
 
DuranDuran said:
"Good" or "bad" is an opinion of the listener. Vanilla Ice's album To The Extreme sold over 10 million copies in the USA, which is more than any individual album by Aretha Franklin. Whether something sells or not does not always have that much to do with quality. Unless you think Vanilla Ice's music is better than Aretha's.
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There's no denying though that Invincible splits opinions like no other Michael Jackson album.

I enjoy the album as a hardcore MJ fan but if I was a neutral who only knew Thriller or Bad I would throw the album away like it was a piece of trash. It has too much filler and not enough quality.
 
Blues_Away2023 said:
There's no denying though that Invincible splits opinions like no other Michael Jackson album.

I enjoy the album as a hardcore MJ fan but if I was a neutral who only knew Thriller or Bad I would throw the album away like it was a piece of trash. It has too much filler and not enough quality.
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If you were a neutral you wouldn't know it (Invincible) exists in the first place hahaha
 
Blues_Away2023 said:
True and that's the sad aspect of the album - it made no impact whatsoever on the music scene.
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I just went to Youtube and more people have watched Heaven Can Wait (which was a minor R&B hit at #72) than Torture by The Jacksons which has a lead by Mike. Heaven Can Wait was uploaded in 2019 and Torture in 2013.

You Rock My World - 260,899,848
Butterflies - 24,367,099
Heaven Can Wait - 11,820,020

Torture - 9,367,942
State Of Shock (with Mick Jagger) - 492,368 (the Live Aid version with Mick & Tina Turner has 5,608,183 / Mike & Freddie Mercury has 3,670,294)

These are the group videos that have the highest #:

Jackson 5 ~ I Want You Back (Goin' Back To Indiana special) - 108,389,920 (not an official upload)
The Jacksons ~ Blame It On The Boogie - 90,102,397

The 1984 street Pepsi commercial has 128,708,275 views, but it's labeled as Michael Jackson, not The Jacksons. So is the stage one, but it only has 7,155,135. I guess there must be a lot Carlton Banks fans, lol.
 
The run time of the album is irrelevant as far as sales are concerned. It's not like you're sat in a dark room and forced to listen to an entire album before buying it. The reason Invincible flopped was due to the quality of the songs released to the public, the lack of a proper marketing strategy, and the relative tarnishing of Michael's name. Had Michael dropped a 2001 Billie Jean, Beat it and Thriller, the album would have sold. He didn't. Had Sony promoted the album better, it would have sold more. They didn't. Had Michael's name been perceived as relevant in 2001, it would have sold more. It wasn't. It was a perfect storm of negative factors, none of which having anything to do with album runtime.

As for You Rock My World, it was something of a success I think. It was a nice piece of classic MJ. I don't think it is as good a song as Scream or Black or White though. But some 20 years later you can occasionally hear it played when out and it's been remixed and added to various soundcloud mixes. The song didn't come and go completely forgotten. But to make a comparison, think of the song "Ms California". It's a banger, right. But do you remember the album it came off? No. Was there a "moment" for that artist any larger than that? No. That's kind of how You Rock My World and Invincible stands in the pantheon of music. A little early 00s blip on the music radar for Michael but little more.
 
DuranDuran said:
I just went to Youtube and more people have watched Heaven Can Wait (which was a minor R&B hit at #72) than Torture by The Jacksons which has a lead by Mike. Heaven Can Wait was uploaded in 2019 and Torture in 2013.

You Rock My World - 260,899,848
Butterflies - 24,367,099
Heaven Can Wait - 11,820,020

Torture - 9,367,942
State Of Shock (with Mick Jagger) - 492,368 (the Live Aid version with Mick & Tina Turner has 5,608,183 / Mike & Freddie Mercury has 3,670,294)

These are the group videos that have the highest #:

Jackson 5 ~ I Want You Back (Goin' Back To Indiana special) - 108,389,920 (not an official upload)
The Jacksons ~ Blame It On The Boogie - 90,102,397

The 1984 street Pepsi commercial has 128,708,275 views, but it's labeled as Michael Jackson, not The Jacksons. So is the stage one, but it only has 7,155,135. I guess there must be a lot Carlton Banks fans, lol.
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Heaven can wait's relative Youtube success is due to the TikTok trend a few months back. I wouldn't call #72 on an R&B chart any kind of hit. There were probably only 72 relatively new R&B songs released by any major label in that past year. All that number suggests to me is a few obscure radio stations gave the track a bit of a shot before it was flung back into obscurity until only recently.
 
DuranDuran said:
I don't know how much it sold. But going by the US method it would have to be certified as selling 40 times platinum to be a 20 million seller. If it's 20 times platinum, then that's 10 million. There's also the case that platinum in the US is more than platinum in other counties and the RIAA only counts US sales. So the worldwide number might not mean anything. For example, let's say that HIStory sold 20 million worldwide and half of that is US sales. Which is 10 million, or 5 million in actual unit sales. Let's also say that other countries, the 10 million is actual unit sales. So in this case that means it didn't really sell 20 million, but 15 million.

These sales numbers don't mean anything anyway. They can easily be faked, like Prince giving away his Musicology album at concerts for each ticket sold. That was counted as sales by Billboard. If a family of 6 went to the concert, then then got 6 CDs, Normally 6 people in the same house do not buy the same album. At most they will just copy it if they want it. There's also the rumor that Eagles - Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 is not accurate. Same for the Sony hype sticker saying Thriller sold 104 million or RCA saying Elvis Presley sold over a billion. In other cases, sales are albums shipped to stores, & not actually purchased. Record labels have also reported to the RIAA some albums sold less than they really did to get out of paying as much in royalties to the act, or to keep them in the hole. Reporting sales to the RIAA is voluntary anyway, it doesn't have to be done.
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Exactly. I wish this was acknowledged more, because the sales of the HIStory album are actually misleading. CD sales in the US are calculated by how many discs are sold. Since HIStory is a 2 disc album, it sold 10 million units meaning 20 million discs total. I remember reading Sony was actually disappointed by these numbers, which could easily be part of what lead to their strained relationship and eventual falling out with MJ.

It’s interesting because many fans view Invincible as sort of an outlier- that it sold significantly less than previous albums. While there’s some truth to this, in reality MJ’s album sales had been steadily declining since the mid-90s.
 
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DuranDuran said:
Your comment implies that Invincible wasn't successful because it had 16 songs, or filled up the CD.
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It only implies that because others insist that the record had to be the second reign of MJ, and we're all well aware that it wasn't & why it wasn't. The thread is asking why people dislike the music itself, not why it didn't dethrone Thriller.

I'm talking about the actual flaw of the CD, which is it's sequencing. If most fans only dislike the album because it makes them feel bad to be a Michael Jackson fan, that's too bad. It's their problem. A lot of Invincible songs, have gotten lots of kudos, lotsa love, independently. No, not every song on the album is hit worthy, many distinct album tracks actually. No, not every "technical single" choice is even great. But every one that made it to radio in North America did reasonably well.

You Rock My World charted at number 10, as high as many of his biggest hits from the 80s, and higher than most of his 90s singles. So did Butterflies at #14. Butterflies literally peaked as high as Who Is It, never mind most fans adulate that song, me included. So what makes Butterflies a worse song?

Both songs also charted higher than Senorita and Like I Love You by Justin Timberlake, two huge hits by a breakout young star around the same time.

People complain about Invincible, the album. And really this entire era, because it's unsatisfying. And fine, just say that already. It wasn't gonna be an unmitigated reign for MJ in the 80s again.

HIStory has a way better campaign and it could've done better too. Even Dangerous was lowballed a few too many times. (Certain) Casuals lump them in the same bag as Invincible fyi.

Anyway, MJ broke records by the literal end of the decade again anyway, and that was even before he was mourned. So what does it matter that he wasn't adulated entirely like always?
 
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Sony went hard for HIStory in promotion and I think when it didnt at least reach Dangerous sales they were probably looking at the best ways to break even on their massive investment in him. You're either going to have to keep throwing money at him and hope for the best, and you're going to have to hope he tanks and he's forced to sell his half of the ATV catalogue.

It's hard to know exactly when that choice was made. Was it made with Blood on the Dancefloor? Was it made perhaps even before Dangerous when they stopped promoting him so much in the US? Definitely by the time Invincible was a month old they'd already pulled the plug but there were signs of a bit of a distrust in his continued reign long before it all went a bit pear shaped.

I think some of the issue is fan and public expectations as well. When you release an album like Thriller and you follow it up with two of the top ten selling albums of all time, you set an unfair precedent for yourself. Sony signed a billion dollar deal assuming that these hits would just keep flowing. And why wouldn't you? By 1990, Michael had been the most consistent hit machine probably ever. I don't think anyone could have predicted the scandal that would soon ensue.

Michael reached unprecedented heights in fame, popularity and success in the 80s and I think in an alternate universe, where there are no Jordy Chandlers, he mostly maintains that into the 00s. But we can't pretend the allegations didn't happen or that they didn't have an absolutely cataclysmic effect on his popularity and selling power.

Sony may have felt HIStory flopped but I don't see it that way. For him to still have multiple hit songs from album after the scandal, two number ones I believe, and even more top 10 hits worldwide, plus sell out world tour I thought was astonishing and spoke to a kind of resilience that most artists would not have had. It was probably never really going to be the same again but there's another part of me that thinks if he kept his nose clean and worked more on his public image, he could have ressurected his career later in the decade.

But lets look at what Michael could have done better leading into Invincible that may have put him on a better footing:

- How about a NO to Debbie Rowe?
Michael had just come off of a marriage that many thought was a sham. Then he goes and "marries" Debbie Rowe and has her artificially insemenated with children. It's not a good look. He couldn't have had his own kids with Lisa-Marie? He couldn't have fathered the traditional way with a far more attractive woman? I guess Mike didn't know who to trust and it may have felt like a safe option but it wasn't an option that did his career any favours.

- Stop cancelling shows!
He cancelled a lot of shows from 1997-2001, a lot of them would have been televised events giving him a chance to maintain some sort of observability as an artist. You cant disappear artistically, have the media absolutely fry you and come back and sell again (without an absolutely mindblowing album which he did not have).

- More POSITIVE public visability
Too reclusive. This is more to the above point. A perception around Michael was being built and he wasn't doing much of anything to stop it. He probably felt like they'd twist anything he'd do. But with the cancelled shows, the Debbie Rowe marriage, he wasn't doing himself many favours.

- Blood on the Dancefloor shouldn't have been released as an album
This one somewhat on Sony. You release a confusing release and it flops predictably, and in the minds of the public, you're Michael Jackson and you've just flopped. Let's all feast on that. I remember there were entire TV shows produced to talk about the decline of Michael Jackson's sales, as though the whole show was to put the boot in. He was popular enough to mock for being unpopular it seems.

GHOSTS should have been something else -
Well trodden ground. Not really bringing much new to the table. Looks like someone trying to recapture the spark. Something else should have been done with Ghosts rather than Thriller 2.

ABSOLUTELY SHOULD HAVE DONE THE LIVE ONE NIGHT ONLY SHOW -
That show should have happened. He had unique ideas for it, collapsed then didn't do it. He couldn;t just keep not doing things. If he had a brilliant and original show, maybe HIStory does better, maybe Sony perceive him better?

Everything is 20/20 hindsight but some of his decline was foreseeable and preventable on his part. But in the end I don't think it matters. People love to rub shit on Michael because of his decline but forget he had to get 'that big' in the first place to even have such a decline. No one has ever been as big as Michael Jackson was. A lot of smug media types loved rubbing that decline in but none of them will be remembered in 50 years whereas Michael absolutely will.

And so with Invincible, was it a flop? Sure... by Michael Jackson standards - completely unfair standards to hold a mortal to. Part of the reason it flopped was Michael himself, and part of it was also a media that wanted nothing more than to feast on the carcus of his decline. A decline had to happen but of course it didn't have to happen as ingloriously as it did. And the decline can be marked from 1993 until the very end. But let's give the man some credit, in 2009 he sold almost a million tickets in just a few days to his first concerts in 12 years. He may have dropped a very average album in 2001, that had very modest success, and he may have been the butt of every joke... but he was a living legend and an icon.
 
Hollywood_Tonight said:
It’s interesting because many fans view Invincible as sort of an outlier- that it sold significantly less than previous albums. While there’s some truth to this, in reality MJ’s album sales had been steadily declining since the mid-90s.
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So was every other veteran artists records. When was the last time Paul McCartney had a popular album? Probably the md-1980s. The Beatles still today outsell Paul's & Ringo's new music and the Fab 4 haven't existed since 1970. People in general don't listen to their parents music and definitely not their grandparents. The 1st Jackson 5 album came out in 1969. Who else from that time period that was still active even sold what Invincible sold. In the early 2000s Rod Stewart resurrected his career with a series of Great American Songbook albums that sold a lot in the US, but he isn't hot now as far as albums.

Mike basically aged out of Top 40. The adult R&B radio format plays new songs by veteran artists. Charlie Wilson, the former lead of The Gap Band, has had a lot of success there. As of today, Drake has 69 top 10 hits on the Hot 100 and close to 300 songs on the chart overall, more than anyone else in history. If Mike was still alive & recorded those same 69 songs with the same exact music tracks and put them out, they wouldn't have had the same success. Madonna, Run-DMC, & Will Smith wouldn't have either. Because Drake is a younger artist that is more likely to get a lot of airplay today. Taylor Swift is gonna have a concert movie released later in the year and it is predicted that's it's going to be the highest grossing concert film ever. More than This Is It, Hannah Montana, or that old Led Zeppelin one from the 1970s. Beyoncé has won more Grammys than anyone else.
 
Hurley509 said:
Michael reached unprecedented heights in fame, popularity and success in the 80s and I think in an alternate universe, where there are no Jordy Chandlers, he mostly maintains that into the 00s.
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We'd think of Michael the same way we think of Paul McCartney now, or Bruno Mars. A really good artist who we just enjoy every time we see him, who makes a song or two we really like on the radio, and just kinda move on with our day. If it's more hardcore than that, we'd just enjoy. Pretty much the same we are now.
 
Hurley509 said:
- How about a NO to Debbie Rowe?
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From what I read ages ago somewhere, Michael himself did not want to marry her but his mother insisted on it. So he did. I think it's completely fair to say that Michael has paid a high price, personally and professionally, to give what he has given us. I bet we don't know the half of it.
Hurley509 said:
ABSOLUTELY SHOULD HAVE DONE THE LIVE ONE NIGHT ONLY SHOW -
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Especially as he got older. One show. Not torturing himself. Live vocals. Just a smashing show. Sells like crazy. Could not agree more.
 
Hurley509 said:
- How about a NO to Debbie Rowe?
Michael had just come off of a marriage that many thought was a sham. Then he goes and "marries" Debbie Rowe and has her artificially insemenated with children. It's not a good look. He couldn't have had his own kids with Lisa-Marie? He couldn't have fathered the traditional way with a far more attractive woman? I guess Mike didn't know who to trust and it may have felt like a safe option but it wasn't an option that did his career any favours.
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He wanted to create children with Presley, but she rejected this proposition. And according to songs from Invincible album. She had a lot of gambling debts and was too frivolous... Michael Jackson wanted to a familiy, while Lisa wanted to have fun. That's why he decided to brake up with her. Pls, correct me if I'm wrong
 
Hurley509 said:
- Blood on the Dancefloor shouldn't have been released as an album
This one somewhat on Sony. You release a confusing release and it flops predictably, and in the minds of the public, you're Michael Jackson and you've just flopped. Let's all feast on that. I remember there were entire TV shows produced to talk about the decline of Michael Jackson's sales, as though the whole show was to put the boot in. He was popular enough to mock for being unpopular it seems.
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BOTDF should have been released as full HIstory Vol.2 album. He should have included songs like In The Back, On The Line and Familiy Thing. This album could be a great sequel to HIstory
 
The Blood On The Dancefloor release goes to show you what the record execs know: nothing.
Anyone could tell you those new songs should not be bundled with the crappy remixes, but yet they go and do it.
 
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