This is what I blame Sony for still, actually. Yes, MJ had extravagant taste, he wasn't much for budgeting. But that was never an issue before seemingly; why bet against Michael Jackson's ideas? When has he failed to deliver you a video that got attention? He would've helped pay too even.And he should have then been a collaborative partner helping with the promotion and having a realistic expectation of video budgets (I heard rumours he wanted twenty million for Unbreakable!)
This is too much to keep up with. Wishy washy, using music as a seasonal thing gets old.Sony actually intended for "Butterflies" to be the second single at the start, but after 9/11, they planned to release "Cry" instead as a way of sending condolences to all those who lost loved ones in the tragedy. So, the reason it wasn't released in America was because it bombed at radio testing? Makes sense, but if they decided to release "Butterflies" as the second standalone track in America like they originally planned, then why not release it as a single worldwide?
A fabulous set of posts, MC. So interesting, so informative. I've never been in the music industry but used to be around a lot of people who were and all of this is sparking memories of stuff I used to hear.[...] This was certainly the case for the Bashir documentary - a UK production which had nothing to do with Sony UK.
To be clear, I have no feelings for Sony one way or another. But it is really odd that people blame Sony for this and that….One thing I can tell you for sure, if MJ had been engaging with Sony, I am quite certain the UK team would have put a stop to the Bashir documentary and I think that documentary, more than anything, derailed MJ.
He just didn't seem to have good management in the latter part of his career.By around March 2002, Sony were mostly not involved in MJ and his decisions. The exception being approaching him for legacy projects.
Again, I was very far from the decision making powers, but I got the impression there were big issues with MJ’s management (or lack of).
It is a promo single. The cover art exists.Speed Demon was going to be the 10th and final single release from Bad.
Sounds like quite an interesting job to have. I worked a bar in quite a big club in London in the early 90s, but never got involved with the promo side.My association with the music industry was just for a few years after uni and limited to club promotion in UK/Europe (tracks to clubs, and alignment with radio DJs and club media). But this, I guess, was quite an important of the promo campaign for a lot of acts in the UK and Europe in the 90s/00s so I was involved in the overall campaigns to some degree.
I see. Like I said, I never really thought about this. I knew Dave Morales wasn't doing it out of the goodness of his heart, but I had no idea how it worked. Thinking about it now, it's obvious it would have to be a sum like that if someone is going to make a career out of it, doing perhaps only 2 tracks per year.Depends on the remixer.
It was really silly money sometimes, so there would be a lot of bulk buying - so you could have a big name mixer provide 10 mixes for 250k upfront plus royalties (but there sometimes wouldn’t be much differences in the mixes).
Yeah this never made sense to me. If Sony didn't promote it & he complained about it...why didn't he do it himself. I remember him saying when he was hungry for this..."promotion is most important"To be fair Michael didn't do much to promote it himself either. He did a signing at a record store, performed You Rock My World at the 30th Anniversary shows and did a radio interview. That was it. He could haved performed more songs from Invincible at The Apollo, American Bandstand and United We Stand, but instead choose to perform songs from his previous albums instead.