What are the pros and cons to MJ's songwriting? And what did other songwriters contribute?

[filmandmusic]

Amazing this is playing around with sound, distorting it and coming up with something new and fresh, sampling is really cool

 

[Agonum]

Aha, yes… but that’s sampling, i.e., a completely different discussion.

 

[Richard76]

And Invincible's sampling game goes quite hard as well. Another plus, some of the most creative I've ever heard.

Invincible album is one of the best MJ albums! Haters sucks) Michael Jackson's Invincible just like his album Invincible

 

[AlwaysThere]

It has more than two chords though because the bridge plays another set of chords.

I definitely worded my comment poorly lol. The majority of the song is a D major chord, with some other ones interspersed throughout. It’s not a standard progression or sequence, it’s a stunningly simple yet sophisticated arrangement.

 

[mj_frenzy]

This is objectively one of the most asinine and nonsensical claims anyone has ever made on this site. Excluding the fact that most musicians have no technical prowess and limited musical capabilities (e.g., Madonna, The Beatles) and thus would require people to record and mix their material, the idea that MJ’s music was only listenable due to outside producers is hilarious.

I held out for so long, but I just can’t anymore. Welcome to the Ignore list.

Keep in mind that Dan Beck (who worked closely with Michael Jackson) is basically in agreement with me about that.

"[Michael Jackson] was a guy with ideas in his head and he would interpret them through musicians" (Dan Beck)

From this point we can name a lot of songs as plagiarism....For example Shout! MJ litterally took main sample from this song... Same thing about Ghosts and a lot of other songs... Michael always took music samples from songs of other artists to create his own music... That's what most singers do

Michael Jackson also took certain lyrics in order to use them in his own songs without giving proper credits for that.

For example, 'Little Susie' has certain identical lyrics to the 'The Bridge Of Sighs' 1844 poem (by English poet Thomas Hood), but the singer decided to credit himself as the sole writer of that song.

 

[zinniabooklover]

Let's look at that quote in full and give the context:

"Carl: The other thing that really surprises me about the guy is that he was such a wonderful songwriter, and it seems like you need to have some kind of grounded life experience to write these really relatable songs. Jackson was born in a bubble, yet he was still able to write songs that moved ordinary people.

Dan [Beck]: Very much so. I was around him when he was in the studio, and he was never particularly a musician in the technical sense – he was a guy with ideas in his head and he would interpret them through musicians. But I think so much of songwriting comes from isolation. Even as a child performer he had a lot of isolated time where he wasn’t like everybody else, and I think that’s why he became such a good writer. He was also a student of the whole business and I think that is part of it too."

 

[Agonum]

It has more than two chords though because the bridge plays another set of chords.

I believe only the main theme was subjected to the plagiarism claim. Maybe I’m confused, but I thought that was what we were talking about.

About that claim, by the way, I have to say that I find it laughable. Judging from the videos posted by @Mister_Jay_Tee, you will find that indeed the melody is similar in the first three measures, after which they diverge from one another. The theme of Will You Be There is the melody line and its rhythm measures one to eight (measures five to eight isn’t a full-on repeat of the first four measures, but has a variation in measure eight; if you want to be anal about it, the theme doesn’t end before measure nine, because of the elision of the closing and the repeated theme’s starting notes). I herefore struggle to make sense of the plagiarism claim.

@mj_frenzy : I find it remarkable that “music experts” would look at this case of alleged plagiarism, to conclude such a thing as “37 out of 40 notes … are the same”. To your defense, you were paraphrasing (you didn’t use quotation marks, after all). Makes me wonder what they really said, though! Because the aforementioned statement is inept to the point of not really meaning anything at all. No “music expert” would say such a thing. And you say there were three of them?

 

[zinniabooklover]

Reports: Michael Jackson Cleared Of Plagiarism Charge

Overturning a lower court’s decision, a Rome appeals court has cleared pop star Michael Jackson of plagiarism allegations in a case involving an Italian songwriter, news reports said. Al Bano…

www.billboard.com

"In May 1999, a lower court in Rome found Jackson guilty of plagiarism. The court ordered, then suspended, a $1,900 fine, but" ordered Jackson to pay court costs. Jackson’s lawyers appealed the decision.

Yesterday’s ruling ends the criminal trial, which started in 1995, two years after Al Bano, whose real name is Albano Carrisi made his claim. In a separate civil case Al Bano initiated involving the same song, a Milan court also found Jackson not guilty of copyright infringement. A Milan court of appeals upheld the 1997 ruling two years later."

 

[Victorious]

I don't think MJ got the melody from the Italian guy.

I do think one of the melodies of 'Heal The World' was inspired by the credit music of 'Jaws' though..

 

[mj_frenzy]

@mj_frenzy : I find it remarkable that “music experts” would look at this case of alleged plagiarism, to conclude such a thing as “37 out of 40 notes … are the same”. To your defense, you were paraphrasing (you didn’t use quotation marks, after all). Makes me wonder what they really said, though! Because the aforementioned statement is inept to the point of not really meaning anything at all. No “music expert” would say such a thing. And you say there were three of them?

One of these 3 music experts was Luciano Chailly (Italian composer and musicologist) who presented his arguments inside the courtroom and he managed to convince the judge of the strong similarity.

It was also reported back then that it was actually Yari (the son of Albano Carrisi and Romina Power) who first noticed the strong similarity.

Yari bought the 'Dangerous' album, and while listening to it, he noticed that the melody of 'Will You Be There' was suspiciously similar to the one of the 'I Cigni Di Balaka' song.

He told that immediately to his parents who were shocked, and that was the starting point of that case.

 

[Mister_Jay_Tee]

The irony of insinuating MJ might've plagiarized a song where state of Shock has a credited cowriter who says he shouldn't even be on the record liner notes.

 

[analogue]

There's only so many melodies people can come up with. It's impossible to be 100% original