Re: News and discussion about upcoming MJ album [Update Pg15]
Well, we've discussed this before and I don't think we are going to agree (and that's okay of course). I think the comparison between the Michael album and Invincible is completely invalid. Firstly, most fans didn't think it sucked. But that's besides the point. The key difference is that Michael created Invincible. If you thought it sucked, then the reason you disliked it was that what he wanted to create and release at that point simply didn't appeal to you. That's completely different from disliking something because the people who are now in charge of what Michael left behind decided to release those highly controversial tracks, edited songs in ways that were not true to Michael's vision, etc. You simply cannot compare the two. Secondly, MJ had a proven track record. If you thought Invincible sucked, you had plenty of reasons to think he would release something that you did like again in the future, because of his previous albums (assuming you didn't think everything from Off the Wall upto HIStory sucked too). The only studio album the Estate has given us thus far is Michael. Therefore it is only logical that fans base their expectations of the upcoming album on it.
As for the comparison to other artists' posthumous releases: sure, plenty of crappy collections have been released for other artists too. You know why things improved in some cases? Because fans voiced their displeasure and did not blindly love everything that was fed to them. The moment we stop criticizing when criticism is due, all hope is lost for an improvement in the quality of future releases.
Of course. Differences in opinion is what keeps this forum thriving.
To begin, I would like to offer my opinion that the reason the estate is often considered to be doing so terribly is because expectations are much, much too high. It isn't wrong to expect greatness from the estate, but it
is wrong to expect perfection. The estate releases reproduced songs, fans get angry and say Michael wouldn't have wanted them presented in such a manner. The estate plans to release untouched songs, fans get angry and say Michael wouldn't have released his unfinished recordings to the world. (And yes, I've actually read comments that have said that.) We cannot forget that (a) the estate isn't in possession of everything we want, and in which case they need to spread out their releases as much as humanly possible so the vault doesn't dry up; and (b) Michael is dead. We aren't dealing with him right now. With that in mind, we cannot expect each release to follow Michael's creative vision 100%. We can hope that it gets as close as humanly possible, but if you review each release from now until the end of time, there will be aspects that fans will feel wouldn't have appeared if Michael had spearheaded the project.
Yes, Michael did have a proven track record, which is why one would believe that his next album would indeed be impressive. But the estate does too. This Is It, Vision, Bad 25, the Cirque du Soleil agreements/soundtrack... these are all good projects. Not amazing, but very good. And yes, complaints can be made about all of these, but most of them are nitpicking and barely reflect the quality of the project itself. Being that
Michael is the ONLY studio album released by the estate I will acknowledge that it can be worrisome. But being that there have been several other impressive projects that have dropped since then, it isn't fair that we bash them repeatedly. They CAN do good.
Yes, giving criticism where it is due is always necessary. But so is giving credit. I see people consistently slamming Bad 25 because they are simply unhappy with the number of tracks included + the Wembley concert (which all connect to my [a] and
posts in the first paragraph) without giving ANY credit. That isn't right. When you screw up, you deserve criticism, but they also deserve a pat on the back for what they did right. Sure, Bad 25 wasn't perfect. But we got six unbelievable songs, a great quality live CD and a phenomenal live DVD of what many feel is Michael's BEST performance, not counting the great packaging. But some fans will do all but acknowledge that, only deciding to focus on what the package DIDN'T give us.
To summarize, yell at the estate when you need to, but when they do something right, give them credit. I'm not directing this at ALL fans; many of us do applaud them when necessary. But some don't, and it's those people that start conversations like this.
