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Woah, When did HIStory come out as a stand alone release?

Re: radio

barbee0715 said:
Duran, you're such a music expert-so I'll ask this (stupid) question-I thought NJS was a fusion or hybrid of R&B, dance pop and rap/hip hop. Most all new music I hear anymore always has some rap in it, it seems-so what makes it different than NJS?
I just figured NJS took over the pop world and it never went back. :( I also thought that's why Dangerous 25 would do much better this time around-since everybody in the album buying age bracket would love it now. Including the US.
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NJS is not rap/hip hop, although it has some influence from hip hop and also from "go-go" music like Chuck Brown. New Jack was generally by singers. There were some rappers who released records with a NJS sound, but they were usually produced by NJS producers. There was rap and R&B hybrids from the beginning of recorded hip hop like The Sequence and The Force MDs. Teen acts like Stacy Lattisaw & New Edition also rapped in their songs. Even older acts like Stevie Wonder, Blondie, Millie Jackson, & Johnny 'Guitar' Watson had done some rapping in the early 1980s. I think Blondie's Rapture was the first rap song to hit the pop Top 10.

Like with disco (.ig Frank Sinatra, Ethel Merman, The Chipmunks), when many acts started to release NJS records, like Boy George, Sheena Easton, The Whispers, Gap Band, James Ingram, Aretha Franklin, James Brown, etc., it became over saturated, so it died out. Remember, The Jacksons released the 2300 Jackson Street album 2 years before Dangerous came out and it had some NJS songs on it, and Teddy Riley produced a couple of songs on it. Randy's 1989 solo album with his group The Gypsys was New Jack too. Really after you heard it all the time for several years, NJS starts to sound alike. Maybe NJS had not made it overseas, so it was a new sound to them with Dangerous. Bobby Brown had the biggest selling NJS album. Bobby is probably the only one who had major crossover success in the 1980s but I don't know if he was really popular outside of the USA. Most NJS acts mainly got R&B airplay.
 
Blood on the Dance Floor doesnt sound like NJS to me. It has the same drums as RTT fair enough but I really don't thing it wasnt released in the States due to the sound being outdated in the US. NJS sound in the UK/Europe was very non existent hit wise- Spice Girls, No Doubt, Hanson, Oasis, R Kelly. In the US it seemed to have many similar number ones. In the US no one cared for the club dance music scene, so BOTDF remained un-promoted for that reason. Michael would never have released a single he would have considered that sounded out dated, just listen to the Quincy interviews on Bad. BOTDF was a huge european success because it was just a great song, with a really catchy chorus, great dark production and a memorable simple music video to boot. Its a terrible terrible shame that it was unnoticed and underappreciated by the American music industry and an even bigger shame that Sony didnt release it as a single.

Again Michael proving his genius by holding off on this track for 8-9 years before unleashing it at the perfect time to nab a number one for himself in the middle of promoting his previous album. Sheer genius and it paid off in dividends.
 
innuendo141 said:
Blood on the Dance Floor doesnt sound like NJS to me. It has the same drums as RTT fair enough but I really don't thing it wasnt released in the States due to the sound being outdated in the US. NJS sound in the UK/Europe was very non existent hit wise- Spice Girls, No Doubt, Hanson, Oasis, R Kelly. In the US it seemed to have many similar number ones.
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Blood On The Dance Floor was released in the US as a single. That's why they put the Wyclef remix on the maxi single, to update the sound. The Fugees were popular at the time. It hit the top 10 on the dance chart in Billboard. The dance chart was for remix maxi singles which were not counted on the regular singles chart. The songs on the dance chart may not necessarily get radio airplay, as it mainly counts what is popular in clubs. The club goers are the main purchasers of remix singles or albums. You say NJS was not a thing in Europe. That's my point, NJS was a popular thing in the US and there were many NJS records in the 1980s and early 1990s. That's why Blood was out of style.
 
On the History On Film DVD, it has the Refugee Camp remix instead of the mix that was on the album.
 
HIStoric said:
Same with Vision. Not sure what they were thinking in all honesty.
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That was the more popular version in the US. Whenever it occasionally gets shown on VH1 Soul today, the remix is what is shown. That was the sound that was in at the time in the US. That's why the original mix was considered dated and likely why it didn't get much radio airplay. It was a leftover from Dangerous, not really a new song.
 
12" single

These are the 3 versions on the US 12" maxi single, plus one for Dangerous.
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DuranDuran said:
That was the more popular version in the US. Whenever it occasionally gets shown on VH1 Soul today, the remix is what is shown. That was the sound that was in at the time in the US. That's why the original mix was considered dated and likely why it didn't get much radio airplay. It was a leftover from Dangerous, not really a new song.
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Sorry i dont agree with this. Still doesnt sound dated to me. I didnt say NJS wasnt a thing in Europe, I said at the time BOTDF was a number one single in X amouny of countries, there were no other NJS songs among that list. The list of other artists all had hits from March 97 onwards. BOTDF was released in April 97. I also made the point that the US and UK had many similar number ones durknh during that time in 97.

It was my mistake thinking it wasn't released in the US though, i always believed this. But i can not for a minute believe that BOTDF sounds in any way dated. Not do I think Dangerous sounds dated. But this is my own opinion. As i said, Michael would not have chosen a lead single from a project that he would have believed to have sounded dated. That wasnt the way he worked. If it soundsdated to you, then fair enough though.

Edit: Actually I must admit Ive always found the difference between UK/European charts and the US to be puzzling to say the least, so you could be right. Ive never considered the US charts to be of any relevance to me because the charts have always been so different and always seem so rnb based from what ive seen.
 
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innuendo141 said:
Edit: Actually I must admit I've always found the difference between UK/European charts and the US to be puzzling to say the least, so you could be right. Ive never considered the US charts to be of any relevance to me because the charts have always been so different and always seem so rnb based from what ive seen.
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In Europe, they make hits out of remixed Elvis Presley songs (A Little Less Conversation). That doesn't really happen in the US. :D Like the acid jazz stuff popular in some countries during the early 1990s. That was basically a copy of 1970s R&B and funk. Acid jazz didn't really get much airplay in the US, because it didn't fit with what was on the radio in the 1990s. Jamiroquai is considered a one hit wonder in the US, but they're supposed to be big in the UK. If you wasn't exposed to a sound as much, maybe it doesn't sound dated. Dated doesn't mean it's bad, just that it sounds like something that came from a certain period of time that doesn't fit with what's current. It's like the songs on Off The Wall wouldn't have fit on Top 40 and R&B radio of the 1990s. Disco was out of style. They could remix the songs to a current sound and some of them were.
 
I think the European public is generally less concerned with always being "hip" and "up to date" in terms of musical styles than the US. In Europe if a song sounds good to people then it sounds good, no matter if the style is "outdated" or not.

Although since the Internet age I think tastes on both sides of the Atlantic have converged, but I remember back in the early 90s when I was a kid and watched MTV Europe and then watched the US charts every Sunday evening and how different the tastes were between Europe and the US back then. Most songs in the US top 20 were not even known in Europe and vica versa. The only time MTV Europe played those songs were in those one or two hours a week when they showed the US charts. I was pretty an odd ball for liking some US artists that my class mates never even heard of. The only NJS artist that crossed over in Europe was maybe Bobby Brown - but only really with Humpin' Around. So in Europe he was more or less a one-hit wonder, I think. (Of course, MJ and Dangerous were big, but I do not really consider Dangerous a NJS album - see below.)
Because of my attention to what was going on in the US I know what NJS is and how it sounds. I also agree with Duran that after you have listened to a couple of NJS records from the time they all start to sound alike. Which was the big problem of the genre, I think.

As for Dangerous, while the NJS influence is obvious (Teddy is considered the father of NJS!) I do not really consider it a NJS album. An album with NJS influence? Yes. A NJS album? No. But then, at the time a lot of big name artists had NJS influences on their albums - from Madonna to Prince. Quincy Jones himself went on to produce NJS albums (eg. Tevin Campbell). It wasn't just MJ. It was most of everyone involved in R&B and pop. I think the parallel with the disco era in the 70s is quite appropriate - and in that way I see a parallel between Off The Wall and Dangerous.

Like Duran said when Dangerous came out NJS was on its way out. Just like when OTW came out disco was on its way out. That did not stop OTW from becoming a highly acclaimed and very influential album. Why? Because while it had heavy disco influence it did not really sound like your general disco record of the era. It was a lot more sophisticated, a lot more creative, it took disco to another level. In my view Dangerous did the same with NJS. It doesn't sound like your general NJS record. It's a lot more creative, a lot more sophisticated, a lot more unique, it took NJS to another level IMO. It's a lot better album than a general NJS album.

As for BOTDF, to me it is simply a great and catchy song, I don't care if the style was considered outdated by the time it came out or not. A good song is a good song, period. And I think most of Europe didn't care either that's why it was a big hit. I think we have to consider also that by the time of BOTDF Michael got a lot of hostility from the media - and especially in the US that general hostility towards his person was also transmitted to his music. Just think of how TDCAU was treated! (Which is ironically one of his biggest, most presistent hits today, so I guess Europe got it right more than the US about whether that song was worthy or not.) So when talking about his chart performances at the time in the US I don't think it's all about just the music but a lot of it is also about how his person was perceived at the time.
 
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Respect77 your post is too long to quote, but I agree with every word of it. Excellent post.
 
I also want to add that I think by the late 90s MJ did not really fit into any mainstream trends. What was mainstream in the late 90s? Hip-hop and gangsta rap on one hand. Neo punk (eg. Green Day, Offspring etc) in rock music (grunge went out of style by the time). Eletronic dance music started to rise. In pop it was all about light-hearted bubble gum pop (Spice Girls, Hanson, boy bands). Michael with his heavy, industrial sounds and dark themes did not really fit anywhere in the mainstream at the time IMO.
 
respect77 said:
I also want to add that I think by the late 90s MJ did not really fit into any mainstream trends. What was mainstream in the late 90s? Hip-hop and gangsta rap on one hand. Neo punk (eg. Green Day, Offspring etc) in rock music (grunge went out of style by the time). Eletronic dance music started to rise. In pop it was all about light-hearted bubble gum pop (Spice Girls, Hanson, boy bands). Michael with his heavy, industrial sounds and dark themes did not really fit anywhere in the mainstream at the time IMO.
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Definitely. In the mid to late 90's pop was becomming more "Pop" sounding than ever. All we need to do is take a look at what were hits around that time. Look at how dark MJ's singles were from 93 onwards Michael's singles were:

Give Into Me
Will You Be There
Gone Too Soon
Scream
Childhood
Earth Song
They Don't Care About Us
Stranger In Moscow
Blood on the Dance Floor
HIStory/Ghosts

That list speaks for itself. Of all of those songs, only "You Are Not Alone" could be considered your typical (albeit epic and phenomenally performed and produced) single. All the rest are either dark or not like anything else being released at the time. Michael really was untouchable at this time with regards to his originality compared to a lot of what was being released. Songs like these definitely weren't common place in either the US or UK charts at that time.

Looking at that string of singles is mind blowing once you take a step back. What a phenomenal time to be a Michael Jackson fan.
 
Re: radio

Fiona said:
I always think people who said BOTD was dated are kind of missing the point. The whole song and the video is going for a chic-retro, 80s club feel. It achieved exactly what it set out to and was a fantastic single. By that time, MJ could've released anything and it would've been trashed. It was more about the media agenda against his personal life than it was about the music.
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Well said Fiona. That's why I think Michael's single choices around this time was very indicative of his mind frame. He'd been through the wars and in my opinion was at his artistic and creative peak. The subtleties around this time quite important like you mentioned.
 
Fiona said:
I always think people who said BOTD was dated are kind of missing the point. The whole song and the video is going for a chic-retro, 80s club feel. It achieved exactly what it set out to and was a fantastic single. By that time, MJ could've released anything and it would've been trashed. It was more about the media agenda against his personal life than it was about the music.
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You Are Not Alone received heavy airplay on pop, R&B, and adult contemporary stations in the US. Way more than Scream, although it was played regularly. I remember the R&B station would play the version with Naughty By Nature instead of the album mix. None of the other singles from History got much attention though. I don't know about Europe, but in the US there's the age of the performers. Ageism is a big factor on US radio. How many other acts popular the 1980s (let alone one from the 1970s) was still getting radio airplay in 1997? Not John Mellencamp, Bruce Springsteen, Duran Duran, Prince, Huey Lewis & The News, Sting, George Michael, Stevie Wonder, etc. Not any of the hair metal bands, except maybe Bon Jovi. These acts were still releasing records. Sting had to do a car commercial to get attention to his record. On the adult contemporary & smooth jazz radio formats, there is less emphasis on age than on pop, R&B, and hip hop stations where youth rules. Maybe Madonna & U2 still got some radio attention, but even with them, it wasn't to the same extent as they did in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Also, in the US, people in the general mainstream don't go for retro. Once a music style is dead, it generally doesn't come back. Sure there's current acts here that play new wave, big band jazz, Frank Sinatra style crooner pop, disco, hard rock, etc. but they don't get Top 40 radio airplay and that's generally the only way to get a hit single.
 
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DuranDuran said:
Also, in the US, people in the general mainstream don't go for retro. Once a music style is dead, it generally doesn't come back. Sure there's current acts here that play new wave, big band jazz, Frank Sinatra style crooner pop, disco, hard rock, etc. but they don't get Top 40 radio airplay and that's generally the only way to get a hit single.
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Uptown Funk kinda proved this wrong though.
 
barbee0715 said:
Maybe Bruno Mars will save the recording industry again. It's time to bring good music back. :)
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He's my current favourite by a country mile!

Anyways guys to get back on topic, I bought this and should be getting it in the post in a week or so. Will post some pics
 
innuendo141 said:
Uptown Funk kinda proved this wrong though.
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One song does not change the general culture. There's not a bunch of songs like that on the radio. It's like Cher had a surprise hit with Believe when she was over 50. Carlos Santana sort of did with his Supernatural album, but he had young popular acts singing on it that helped sell his record. Same with Tony Bennett. The success of those records did not make Top 40 play other older acts.

For the most part, funk was never really mainstream, even in its heyday in the 1970s and early 1980s. It was mostly popular with the R&B audience, less so with the pop audience. There were some exceptions like the Ohio Players. It's not like Uptown Funk was by an actual funk act. It was by a pop act that was kinda popular already like Bruno Mars. The Time wouldn't have received the same attention if they put out. Even if the same exact track was used and Bruno's voice was replaced by Morris Day's. There's modern acts like Amalia Townsend who does old 1980s synth funk, but they're not on the radio. Uptown Funk was technically by Mark Ronson and his next single Feel Right with Mystikal got nowhere near the same attention as Uptown Funk. Feel Right has a James Brown sound.
 
innuendo141 said:
Uptown Funk kinda proved this wrong though.
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Daft Punk - Get Lucky, Lose yourself to dance,
Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines
Bruno Mars - Treasure

I think some of the biggest hits recently have been quite retro.
 
Robin Thicke is like Bruno. They were current acts that were already getting radio airplay. They're not acts who only does retro sounding music like Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Vintage Trouble, Osaka Monaurail, or Leon Bridges. Robin's song had T.I. on it and he's also popular in the US. T.I. even has a TV show and has appeared in movies. Pharrell is well known too. Robin & Bruno having a bigger hits than acts who specialize in funk and old R&B is like Dangerous being more popular than records by actual New Jack Swing acts.
 
respect77 said:
Although since the Internet age I think tastes on both sides of the Atlantic have converged, but I remember back in the early 90s when I was a kid and watched MTV Europe and then watched the US charts every Sunday evening and how different the tastes were between Europe and the US back then. Most songs in the US top 20 were not even known in Europe and vica versa. The only time MTV Europe played those songs were in those one or two hours a week when they showed the US charts. I was pretty an odd ball for liking some US artists that my class mates never even heard of. The only NJS artist that crossed over in Europe was maybe Bobby Brown - but only really with Humpin' Around. So in Europe he was more or less a one-hit wonder, I think. (Of course, MJ and Dangerous were big, but I do not really consider Dangerous a NJS album - see below.)
Because of my attention to what was going on in the US I know what NJS is and how it sounds. I also agree with Duran that after you have listened to a couple of NJS records from the time they all start to sound alike. Which was the big problem of the genre, I think.
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LOL. That all brought back memories of 90s MTV for me. So true though. I used to love watching the US top 20 on MTV and it was radically different from what we were consuming.

I think the thing with America as well is how everything feels a little pigeon holed by genre. I think in the 90s America really struggled to place Michael and he fell by the wayside where radio was concerned - particularly when the Billboard charts at that time were essentially just about radio play. He wasn't quite pop, he wasn't quick rock, he wasn't quite R&B. Whereas in the UK the main radio stations are/were basically hits (any genre) or oldies. Totally simplifying both sides of that but in essence I do think there's a fundamental difference there between the two countries.
 
Re: 12" single

DuranDuran said:
These are the 3 versions on the US 12" maxi single, plus one for Dangerous.
tumblr_nx62zuSC601rw606ko1_1280.jpg
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It's a shame the BOTDF album didn't get more promotion in the USA. Only 2 singles were released from the album here. BOTDF was the first single. Surprisingly, the second single from BOTDF in the USA was actually Stranger in Moscow. Yes, SIM. SIM was released in the USA almost a year after it was released in the rest of the world and on the back of the CD single it said special versions from the BOTDF album!
 
MattyJam said:
I just want to weigh in here a moment and say that I've always detested that Refugee Camp remix of BOTD and find it so annoying that they used this horrid remix on both HIStory On Film Vol 2 DVD and Vision DVD.
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I never understood that. Why not put the original on the DVD? If you want to include the remix as well you can as a bonus. There was still space on the bonus DVD.
 
respect77 said:
I never understood that. Why not put the original on the DVD? If you want to include the remix as well you can as a bonus. There was still space on the bonus DVD.
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With Vision I think it might have been a "Put the longest version of the video as that's clearly the uncut version" element. I still love the Refugee Camp Mix but it's nothing compared to the oridge.

Also annoyed me how it was an edited/alternate version on Number Ones. Some scenes missing/added but he doesn't rub her legs etc. Can't remember which version was used for Visionary.
 
Re: radio

Fiona said:
A lot of the EDM/dance/electro stuff that has become really popular these last 5 years or so sounds like stuff that was being played in the European club scene 15 years before it became this massive phenomenon Stateside.
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True, but Electronic dance music history goes much further back than 15 years though.
The american EDM trash of the last 5 years or the euro dance pop trash of the 90s are nothing but the disgusting commercial peak of the iceberg.

As for BOTDF - the song... when i first heard it, at the peak of my MJ fandom, i thought it sounded super dated.
But not in a good retro way, just dated and out of touch with what was going on.
And next to that it's not exactly a hit song.
The only reason it still did quite well in Europe was because it correlated with the HIStory tour promo and hype.
On it's own I think it would have flopped here as well.

I think the only good song on the BOTDF album is Is It Scary.
 
Re: radio

MJInTheMirror said:
What do you think about Morphine, SS and Ghosts?
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Morphine and Ghosts are ok, but more like album fillers. Superfly Sister is one of the few MJ songs that I love to hate. :D
Btw, i actually like the BOTDF song, I just don't think it made a great single.
Aynway, my 2 cents..


It's great news that the HIStory Disc 2 is finally available on it's own!
Has anyone compared the mastering yet? Still the same as in 1995? (Loudness wise)
 
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Re: radio

Electro said:
It's great news that the HIStory Disc 2 is finally available on it's own!
Has anyone compared the mastering yet? Still the same as in 1995? (Loudness wise)
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I would imagine its the same as the version released in 96, with the edited songs. Dont know if its been so much as remastered over the years.
 
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