This is a frequently debated topic, was it Michael's singing ability or dancing ability that made him so popular?

[IhateTheMedia]

We all know what his legacy is and it doesn't seem like it will ever change, but a widely debate topic as of late has been people claiming his singing ability wasn't the reason he became so popular and it was actually his dancing / entertaining, to the point of even claiming he was a overrated singer citing his usage of playback, this is usually done by people attempting to prop up other artists as well as fans the argument of "he didn't write his biggest hits" to downplay his songwriting ability by giving large amounts of credit to Quincy Jones / Rod Temperton. However it's weird since when people are asked who the best vocalist is, he wins.

Michael Jackson tops NME's Greatest Singers poll

Late vocalist beats Freddie Mercury

www.nme.com

What's your take on this debate?

 

[xam]

Where has this topic been hotly-debated? There are no links to the tabloid you mention. There are no links to the claims you allege people frequently make, too.

Why does any single thing have to contribute to his MJ's popularity at the exclusion of another? It can be all of them, with no exclusions:
* dancing
* singing
* MTV popularity
* TV appearances
* 'trademark' moves / looks / white socks
* album song choices
* planting fake stories in the media
* having the desire to be Number 1

 

[moonwalker39]

I think it was his stage presence. Although he was magic at both singing and dancing, i think his popularity heavily stemmed from the energy he gave and how unique he was in both areas

 

[IhateTheMedia]

Where has this topic been hotly-debated? There are no links to the tabloid you mention. There are no links to the claims you allege people frequently make, too.

Why does any single thing have to contribute to his MJ's popularity at the exclusion of another? It can be all of them, with no exclusions:
* dancing
* singing
* MTV popularity
* TV appearances
* 'trademark' moves / looks / white socks
* album song choices
* planting fake stories in the media
* having the desire to be Number 1

Michael Jackson: The Greatest Singer Ever…Really?

So Michael Jackson has topped our poll of the Greatest Singers Ever. Ever. Really? Jackson’s pipes had some fine moments during his early career. ‘I Want You Back’, ‘I’ll Be There’ and ‘She’s Out Of My Life’ were all brilliant displays of youthful soulfulness and heart. But it’s clear that for...

www.nme.com

They were so angry about it that they devouted a entire article complaining about it

 

[filmandmusic]

Michael Jackson: The Greatest Singer Ever…Really?

So Michael Jackson has topped our poll of the Greatest Singers Ever. Ever. Really? Jackson’s pipes had some fine moments during his early career. ‘I Want You Back’, ‘I’ll Be There’ and ‘She’s Out Of My Life’ were all brilliant displays of youthful soulfulness and heart. But it’s clear that for...

www.nme.com

They were so angry about it that they devouted a entire article complaining about it

Michael stopped being rated as a singer after the thriller album. It is his own fault because he started singing differently. I too like his voice a lot better than he was in his late teens and early twenties.

Anyway i approve of the poll

 

[@mjfanatic777]

Maybe it's both. I mean he's REALLY good at dancing and at singing. (Who's Loving You) Or just himself. He does capture the audience right away when he hits the stage.

(also @moonwalker39 I also live in Cali )

 

[@mjfanatic777]

 

[IhateTheMedia]

Maybe it's both. I mean he's REALLY good at dancing and at singing. (Who's Loving You) Or just himself. He does capture the audience right away when he hits the stage.

(also @moonwalker39 I also live in Cali )

I mean he's obviously excellent at both, but i'm always baffled at people who say he wasn't a good live singer

 

[@mjfanatic777]

I mean he's obviously excellent at both, but i'm always baffled at people who say he wasn't a good live singer

Maybe people hate that he used playback instead of live vocals. I don't blame Mike tho, dancing and singing at the same time is really hard and he ALWAYS wanted to give the best of the best for his lives. He didn't wanted to be huffing and puffing while singing

 

[moonwalker39]

Maybe it's both. I mean he's REALLY good at dancing and at singing. (Who's Loving You) Or just himself. He does capture the audience right away when he hits the stage.

(also @moonwalker39 I also live in Cali )

definitely, he was a master at his craft


(thats so cool )

 

[Smoothwalker]

We all know what his legacy is and it doesn't seem like it will ever change, but a widely debate topic as of late has been people claiming his singing ability wasn't the reason he became so popular and it was actually his dancing / entertaining, to the point of even claiming he was a overrated singer citing his usage of playback, this is usually done by people attempting to prop up other artists as well as fans the argument of "he didn't write his biggest hits" to downplay his songwriting ability by giving large amounts of credit to Quincy Jones / Rod Temperton. However it's weird since when people are asked who the best vocalist is, he wins.

Michael Jackson tops NME's Greatest Singers poll

Late vocalist beats Freddie Mercury

www.nme.com

What's your take on this debate?

He's unironically too good of a singer, so people just automatically assume he's using playback to cope with the fact that nobody else can sing and dance like him

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

For the first half of his life (25 years), he was topping the singers. For the latter half it was his dancing.

But there are incredible vocal moments in his latter days (Liberian Girl, Someone Put Your Hand Out, Stranger In Moscow, Earth Song) that Thriller era MJ really could never have done. And some performances and dance moves that older MJ was not nearly as smooth with (Keep on Dancing Live was an insane robot, and his tap dancing was at its peak in his youth)

So it just has to be both.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Michael stopped being rated as a singer after the thriller album. It is his own fault because he started singing differently. I too like his voice a lot better than he was in his late teens and early twenties.

Anyway i approve of the poll

You can literally pitch latter day MJ up and it would sound just like young MJ. And vice versa. The Toy and Best of Joy are identical. So is Little Susie Demo and final version. And etc. He didn't lose his touch.

 

[83magic]

I think the moonwalk during the motown 25 performance changed everything. from that point on, his dancing became the focus for the mainstream public. prior to that, especially as a child, it was his singing that got everyone’s attention.

 

[miikasillanpaa]

I think that In his adult years he was mostly known for dancing, but i’d say that his voice was maybe what made him popular during the early 70s

 

[SmoothCriminal1995]

Both! The thing that made Mike so special is nobody could dance like him and nobody could sing like him either

In his autobiography, Mike talks about James Brown and he said "before he came along, a singer was a singer and a dancer was a dancer, it was unheard of for a performer to be amazing at both" that's how I feel about Michael.

 

[Blues_Away2023]

Listen to the Off The Wall album - nobody can deny he was not a fabulous singer , first and foremost.

Flawless smooth vocals. He changed to a more gritty style later in the 80's.

He was just blessed that in addition to great vocals, his dancing was incredible and the best in the business, especially as it became more polished and choreographed.

 

[Arklove]

He was both, but he was underrated when it comes to his voice.
Listen to his multitracks on Youtube - I was blown away at what he could do with his voice. The harmonies, the layering, just incredible. In the Black or White multitracks, he mimicked the sound of a harmonica, the 2Bad multitracks are also remarkable.

I just wish he was more recognized for this.

 

[IhateTheMedia]

He was both, but he was underrated when it comes to his voice.
Listen to his multitracks on Youtube - I was blown away at what he could do with his voice. The harmonies, the layering, just incredible. In the Black or White multitracks, he mimicked the sound of a harmonica, the 2Bad multitracks are also remarkable.

I just wish he was more recognized for this.

Pretty sure the problem is his singing ability is so good that people just assume he's using playback even when he's not

 

[Blues_Away2023]

Pretty sure the problem is his singing ability is so good that people just assume he's using playback even when he's not

Do you have any examples? It's usually pretty obvious when he is using playback in my experience.

 

[wendijane]

Singing. The ability to bring unity to his audiences. We did try for world peace. He strived very hard for that. so, singing powerful messages of unity & harmony.

 

[IhateTheMedia]

Do you have any examples? It's usually pretty obvious when he is using playback in my experience.

Elizabeth I Love You is clearly almost all live. Most of the time he sings half of the song live and the other half playback though people in the comments will always knock a performance claiming it's all playback. When it usually isn't, however he was more than capable of perfectly singing any song as we've seen of Smooth Criminal in MSG which was 100% live, he upped the tempo of the song and had lots of ad-libs
Michael Jackson - Smooth Criminal Live 1988

 

[Blues_Away2023]

Elizabeth I Love You is clearly almost all live. Most of the time he sings half of the song live and the other half playback, he's more than capable of singing everything live as we've seen with the bad era performance of Smooth Criminal

It's been a while since I've listened to that but from memory the welcome to Hollywood part was live and a few other lines but majority of it was lip synced.

His live vocals post 93 were pretty poor and very strained. I don't think he was capable of going all out on say Earth song , he never even sang stranger in Moscow or you are not alone live.

 

[IhateTheMedia]

It's been a while since I've listened to that but from memory the welcome to Hollywood part was live and a few other lines but majority of it was lip synced.

His live vocals post 93 were pretty poor and very strained. I don't think he was capable of going all out on say Earth song , he never even sang stranger in Moscow or you are not alone live.

It's funny because he rehearsed Stranger in Moscow live LOL, he just didn't sing it live

'
He also sang Earth Song perfectly here, you can hear his live vocals briefly it's exact same as the record

 

[Blues_Away2023]

It's funny because he rehearsed Stranger in Moscow live LOL, he just didn't sing it live

'
He also sang Earth Song perfectly here, you can hear his live vocals briefly it's exact same as the record

Yeah I've heard that before the amount of strain put on his voice would have been too much across the tour if he's singing like that.

The Earth Song performance, what part was supposed to be live? 1 or 2 secs?

You said that he's live singing is so good that people think he's using playback , the reality is that only a few secs are live and the 99% of it is lip synced.

 

[Smoothwalker]

It's funny because he rehearsed Stranger in Moscow live LOL, he just didn't sing it live

'
He also sang Earth Song perfectly here, you can hear his live vocals briefly it's exact same as the record

The problem was never his voice, it’s his health. His health was genuinely declining after bad. Sure he could sing these but it wouldn’t be good for him

 

[IhateTheMedia]

The thing is he is singing, but he just turns his microphone low and cranks the playback louder. I would assume it's due to his lupus. So you are right

Yeah I've heard that before the amount of strain put on his voice would have been too much across the tour if he's singing like that.

The Earth Song performance, what part was supposed to be live? 1 or 2 secs?

You said that he's live singing is so good that people think he's using playback , the reality is that only a few secs are live and the 99% of it is lip synced.

 

[mj_frenzy]

It's funny because he rehearsed Stranger in Moscow live LOL, he just didn't sing it live

Michael Jackson used to rehearse all the songs (from a tour's set list) live in order for him to be prepared in case the audio playback (of a song) went wrong during the actual show.

he never even sang stranger in Moscow or you are not alone live.

He actually sang 'You Are Not Alone' live, and this rare occassion took place during the Johannesburg HIStory concert (on October 10th, 1997).

Right after lip-syncing that song, he started singing it again but this time live (as an acapella rendition) much to the audience's surprise.

 

[Agonum]

You can literally pitch latter day MJ up and it would sound just like young MJ. And vice versa. The Toy and Best of Joy are identical. So is Little Susie Demo and final version. And etc. He didn't lose his touch.

Surely you haven’t heard the demo version for Little Susie, though?

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

Surely you haven’t heard the demo version for Little Susie, though?

What do you mean?