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What Book to get - In the studio or Man in the music?

SkyWalk

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What is the best book to get in terms of learning about Michael's creativity and work ethics? What book gives the best detail of how Michael approached his work-life and made the music he made?
 
I choose Man in the music is very detailed about his creativity and the songs. But Get Both. Bruce Swedian also has some personal incite and details of working in the studio with MJ.
 
qbee said:
Bruce Swedian also has some personal incite and details of working in the studio with MJ.
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This one is easy. Man In The Music. Bruce's book had it's moments but was overall a huge letdown IMO.
 
I haven't read bruce's book yet but Man In The Music was an amazing read, so i recommend that one :)
 
Snow White luvs Peter Pan said:
Why was it a huge letdown to you? Could you be more specific? Please.
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I can't speak for Wildstyle, but for me, the book was disappointing because although it indeed had info about Mike in the studio, a big portion of the book involved Bruce's technical information about engineering in general and what not. It was sort of a waste of my money, IMO. For example, he had quite a bit of info on monster cable and choosing the right microphone, lighting, the recording process in general and specific models of studio equipment etc, which I ultimately ended up skipping. I just expected a lot more information about MJ in the studio, like the title suggests.

It was more like 'In the Studio with Bruce Swedien' :D
 
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To me it seemed rushed and thrown together with no real love or care. There wasn't a lot of info about Michael in there. It read more like a collection of his posts on gearslutz or something.
 
WildStyle said:
To me it seemed rushed and thrown together with no real love or care. There wasn't a lot of info about Michael in there. It read more like a collection of his posts on gearslutz or something.
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I totally agree! The book was a letdown for me as well.

I actually thought the book contained really interesting information. Personally I liked reading the technical information, but I can definitely understand that not everybody is interested in this. And since the book is called 'In The Studio With Michael Jackson', I can imagine people were expecting more anecdotes about Michael himself.

But the big disappointment for me was really the way it is written. It is incredibly disjointed - indeed, more like some forum posts or random thoughts bunched together (and not even in a structured manner) rather than an actual book. I remember getting annoyed while reading it, despite the fact that I found the information in it very interesting. It just felt incredibly rushed and I felt a bit cheated out of my money. More importantly, I thought (and think!) that it could have been so much better, given Bruce Swedien's knowledge and the amount of time he spent in the studio with Michael over the years.

I highly enjoyed Joe Vogel's book. It is not perfect and if you have already read interviews and articles about MJ's artistic side, a lot of the information will be familiar to you. Nevertheless, it is nice to have all this info bundled together with additional details in one well-written, comprehensive book. I thought it was a great read.
 
Definitely Man in the Music. It goes very in-depth and is quite a good read with tons of great pictures. It also nods at multiple unreleased songs; there's individual sections about Michael's post-2005 recordings and his classical album in the last chapter as well. I haven't even read Bruce Swedien's book yet, to be honest, but I probably will check it out for Christmas.

There aren't many bad things about Joe Vogel's book, but one of them is that it really hypes you up for Michael's unreleased material. For instance, Joe reveals that Michael recorded around 100 songs for the Dangerous album. Most fans will automatically think, "Michael has 100 releasable songs from the Dangerous sessions alone! We have unlimited material!" He doesn't really make it clear (for the most part) that there are dozens of songs that are unfinished. Not to mention that he praises multiple unleaked/unreleased songs, which makes me extremely jealous that I don't have them. He also has a few facts wrong, but no Michael Jackson book is going to be perfect.

Joe Vogel's book gets a 9.5/10 for me. Definitely the better choice.
 
I have had Bruce's book on my "wish list" for some time as well as Joe Vogel's book-but after reading his story about "gone too soon" and the Karen Carpenter tribute, I bought it the same day. I thought Bruce's book might be too technical for me, based on some lectures I've seen of his on You Tube-but Joe's book is FANTASTIC. I've had it about two months now and have read it probably 8 times already-some of the ways that he describes songs remind me of words coming out of my own mouth trying to explain to people how I feel about Michael and a song, etc. (except that I am in no way that articulate or descriptive). He gives good descriptions and explanations of what was going on in both the world and with Michael around each album that makes you understand and appreciate the music even more-and I loved that since I lived through all of that time. It just made me feel like really "got" the music and I was right that I felt that way while listening to certain songs.
It's just really all around great-and fantastically researched.
 
In the Studio with Michael - I learnt a lot more from Bruce than I did with Vogel.

Vogel's book is full of information which was already on the internet. It was all free. All he did was just put it into the book. I learnt nothing from him.
 
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