█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

but yeah, that didn't notice that for a while either.

While Michael and Jermaine's lead vocals were live, the other brothers' background vocals were pre-recorded, as was Debarge's background vocals (There's short footage if you can find it online of Smokey and others in a recording studio recording the J5's background vocals for I Want You Back)

I think other groups' had some pre-recorded vocals also


http://boundless-expression.tumblr.com/

http://themichaeljacksonarchives.tumblr.com/

I was a bit too young to know when it happened but by the time I was old enough it seemed to be fairly common knowledge.

i don't be going back on shit like that too much. I mean it's a classic performance for the moonwalk. And so often that's all you ever see. Showing the whole clip to the kids for the first time this weekend is how i took notice. And I did that after seeing another clip on youtube and thinking why am i showing them him doing a lip sync performance of the original performance, only to find out the original was a lip sync performance.

The idea of Mike lip syncing before the 90's to that point was an absurdity, and yet there he was. My whole childhood was in the balance. Dare I do the search that could destroy all myths. Took me a couple of hours to gather the strength, but I finally sought out the Bad tour footage. Cause if he lip synched his way through that, I really would have felt duped cause that shit literally shaped my impression of him. Thankfully hew as doing 90:10 real singing to backing vocals back then. I'm guessing it was around the 90's that he went so heavy with it.

Shit made me think for real though, ain't no way MJ would have been able to hold up vocally for them 50 dates dancing and all at the same time.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

The producers fought against it till the last minute because it didnt conform to the show's theme of honoring Motown classics, but Mike said that if they didn't let him do it, he wouldn't do the show... and they needed him to inject some youth energy into the proceedings because Motown's current acts were a bit lackluster.

So there was not a lot of rehearsal, and the band didn't know the song either.

and also he wanted the editing rights to his performance and he got both and also gave a Performance which turned the man into a Legend over night it seemed.

>and also gave a Performance which turned the man
>into a Legend over night it seemed.

dude that is 30 years back. and i hope this ain't a mocking MJ thread or the MJ Police will get you for this

>dude that is 30 years back. and i hope this ain't a mocking
>MJ thread or the MJ Police will get you for this


Man..cut it out Maxx...The dude just made a regular post....Mike ain't God...Let that man cook...

its a Iconic Performance and who ain't seen that performance again?

and if you ever start in on me again I'll come at you, ya dig? keep the peace and we won't have no static

A lot of folks thought he was singing live too.

I didn't realize it until I went back to revisit it when Youtube became popular.

When it happened, and for years afterwards, I always thought he performed it live.

It was obviously a Great performance though. Classic.

"and if you ever start in on me again I'll come at you, ya dig? keep the peace and we won't have no static" .. for some reason, this made me laugh and choke on my drink a bit haha.. you're a true internet treasure dude

Your the worst type of fan

he lip synced 'the way you make me feel' - but then sang the shit out of 'man in the mirror'.

it's an amazing performance.

he lipsync'd a lot. it always kinda makes sense in context, but at the same time... it's not so much a matter of thinking he couldn't sing them songs, but the idea that he was actually singing them songs while moving around the stage like that was part of the super humanness of him. This all makes it more strategized smoke and mirrors. But again seems more like a trend post 90's. I'm glad my show was before that because he was singing his ass off on that tour. His headset mic though... that's his tell. Cat will be grabbing on to that thing for life, to make you feel like he's really trying to sing into it... LOL!!

MAXXX I'm not trying to downplay MJ at all. Just calling it like I see it.

It's funny how the whole notion of lip syncing changed over time though. At one point I thought, what made Milli Vinilli getting caught seem so bad? I don't recall it being that the folk who were actually singing were back stage and we saw them? We just found out they weren't singing live. But in the press it was always connected to them not singing on the albums. How the fuck did that leap happen? Which makes me think, were they set up?

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

>It's funny how the whole notion of lip syncing changed over
>time though. At one point I thought, what made Milli Vinilli
>getting caught seem so bad? I don't recall it being that the
>folk who were actually singing were back stage and we saw
>them? We just found out they weren't singing live. But in
>the press it was always connected to them not singing on the
>albums. How the fuck did that leap happen? Which makes me
>think, were they set up?

What was so revealing of lip syncing a tv performance, that made knowing they weren't singing on record something that had to be revealed at that point. Maybe my timing is off, but I remember it just being an immediate connection when there isn't one naturally there on hindsight reflection.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

with their downfall.

I know a lot of people like to replay that clip of the DAT getting stuck on "Girl you know its-girl you know its-girl you know its-" and all that... but that was not their undoing. In fact, the tape was fixed, they came back out and finished their performance and the audience didn't give a shit.

It was later, when they were fighting with Farian over money and pressuring him to let them sing on the records that he just decided they were becoming more trouble than they were worth, so he pulled back the curtain and exposed them.

But really, it should not have been that big of a deal. In Europe (Germany in particular) they are very used to the idea of groups not singing on their records. Farian's first splash as a producer came in the 70s with the disco supergroup Boney M:

http://youtu.be/7peS5jw1nIU

Boney M had loads of hits worldwide for 5 or 6 years and it was fairly well known that apart from the vocals of lead singer Liz Mitchell, Farian himself sang all the vocal parts, including the female ones.

Silver Convention, Amanda Lear, etc... Europe was used to that shit and didn't care. The problem was that Milli Vanilli had gotten really big in America and had received an American Music Award and Americans are super-serious about shit like this (or at least, used to be) so everybody clutched their pearls and made a big scandal over it (and Black Box and C + C Music Factory too)

They had some model who apparently didn't even know english pretending to do the rap in "Pump up the jam" when in reality it was some little tomboy looking chick doing the rap. C+C music factory and Black Box were more understandable to me because they used old, sampled Loleatta Holloway vocals for those hits.

But no, "noone" in europe cared, maybe they did ib england but the more "trashy" countries like Germany or Netherlands or Sweden (before we became hip) or Spain, people almost took it for granted that dance-pop songs were not REALLY sung by the artists on the covers/vdeos/etc.; I could never really understand the outrage.

Don't get me wrong, it was a *little* controversial. Here in sweden for example, the girl who did all the female singing on the Dr. Alban-hits as well as tons of other euro-dance songs was this overweight, white background-singer but she was never in the videos; I remember her coming out and crying about it and people thinking it was unfair but it sure as hell never ended any careers the way it did Milli anilli (or Technotronic or Black Box) in the US.

>They had some model who apparently didn't even know english
>pretending to do the rap in "Pump up the jam" when in reality
>it was some little tomboy looking chick doing the rap. C+C
>music factory and Black Box were more understandable to me
>because they used old, sampled Loleatta Holloway vocals for
>those hits.

http://youtu.be/vUc2Sbt3QpE

Your'e right about C+C music factory though. Apprently the other Black Box hits had Martha Walsh. Ride on time is the only one I still remember though...

About to look it up...

EDIT: Oh yes... Of course I remember this. But the one that stick in my memory more are "everybody Everybody" and "Strike It Up'

>About to look it up...
>
>EDIT: Oh yes... Of course I remember this. But the one that
>stick in my memory more are "everybody Everybody" and "Strike
>It Up'

Ride on time was MASSIVE in europe, their other songs were not on that level really, at least not in sweden. Funny that ride on time apprently didn't even chart in USA. That song was alongside the Technotronic song played like 7-8 times/night at the school-discos at the time...

>Ride on time was MASSIVE in europe, their other songs were
>not on that level really, at least not in sweden. Funny that
>ride on time apprently didn't even chart in USA. That song was
>alongside the Technotronic song played like 7-8 times/night at
>the school-discos at the time...

......On Time", in the clubs constantly. We use to call it handbag house lol !!!

silk.later Reunion radio with Old P. & Silk http://reunionradio.blogspot.com/

"i'm talking about *Balls Deep*....In Love (c)Cleveland Jr.

He was cultivating a fine nigga farm (c)Goldmind.

R.I.P Jamie Hubley

any controversy stateside on Technotronic because by the time it was here Ya Kid K was all over the place rapping that song (SNL, Arsenio, etc).

It was on MTv news that the girl in the video was not singing and some controversy. I guess it didn't end their career though...

news cycle was infinitely slower back then , but i still want to remember it as being all within the same chain.

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

...on behalf all Milli Vanilli fans against the group, their agents, and Arista Records. I went to elementary school with him, and his mother was a lawyer. I think it made national news at the time; they held a press conference and everything. I was like, um, why would you want to put yourself in the spotlight over that?

Because Mike already had capital built up...We knew he could sing his ass off live even beyond all the lipsynching he started doing especially during parts of the Bad tour and beyond...

With Milli Vanilli there was NO good will or a track record of singing live...In fact, that wasn't even them on their own records...lol...

Yet we know that's ALL MJ on Off The Wall, ect....

Which is why MJ got a major pass....And it's why he continued to get a pass even as the lipsynching became more frequent in the '90s and 00's....

Others who engaged in lipsynching didn't have the otherworldly talent of MJ...


And yet, I never gave MJ a pass for lipsynching ON TOUR....I understand the music specials...but in a concert setting? Nah...I always thought Mike was too good to go that Britney Spears route...

MY MAJOR beef with him as a performer is that he wouldnt rerecord his vocals like janet did.

AT LEAST give us some new vocals as opposed to just playing a cd essentially.

he lost cool points with me. but I know he had serious vocal chord damage in 1992 and had to have surgery on it.

the concept of the voices matching the faces was ground breaking and also represented a certain point of time where that was in swing.

Clive Davis knew all about it and signed those checks.

it's not so much a matter of thinking
>he couldn't sing them songs, but the idea that he was actually
>singing them songs while moving around the stage like that was
>part of the super humanness of him.

a particular artist moved around or danced on stage was always a phoney argument to me.... an argument that became easier over time because people became further removed from a time when lip syncing was limited to appearances on weekly tv shows like soul train or bandstand....

I mean James Brown probably performed in a more strenuously physical manner than anyone ever....and would do it 2 or 3 shows in a day some times.... and would do it all the way live...

and that was pretty much the norm..

when the music became more sanitized...packaged.... lip syncing became more of a fall back viewed by some as a necessity....but really only because the bar was being lowered as to what the expectations and standards were for an artist to be considered great...

I agree with this.

James Brown did his shit all the way live and he danced his ass off.

I believe....for the more modern era....they dance to hide the fact that they can't sing or play.

If the production is big enough, no one will expect you to actually sing or play live.

No one wants to acknowledge it.....but Michael lip synched a lot.

not because he actually couldn't sing..but because of the limitations with the nose prostetic.... if you remember the jackson family honors tv special Mike cupped his hand over his nose and mouth while holding the microphone when he sang.... the prosthetic he was using then may have moved or distorted while he sang and he didn't seem confident in it...

but later on...around the time of the This is it tour rehersals...whatever he was using was a better fit and he wasn't cupping his nose area at all while he sang live...

well, i get it...
but at the same time i don't.

back in the day, if you didn't sing live, there was no performance.
period.

ppl would lip sync for award shows and television performances
because it was cheaper and easier than putting mics on the instruments... but for the most part, ppl sung live out of necessity.


they asked diana ross how she felt about lip syncing,
because she doesn't do it.
she said that she doesn't begrudge the kids for doing it
because the technology is there, so why not use it?

ppl in her day used whatever technology was there to give the
best performance they could.




if somebody wanted to be really snobbish about it,
they would say that the great soul singers really ain't shit
because they are using microphones instead of singing over top of
the band like an opera singer would.


i mean...
it's whatever.



and for the record, i generally prefer it when artists sing live
instead of lip syncing.


>it's not so much a matter of thinking
>>he couldn't sing them songs, but the idea that he was
>actually
>>singing them songs while moving around the stage like that
>was
>>part of the super humanness of him.
>
>a particular artist moved around or danced on stage was always
>a phoney argument to me.... an argument that became easier
>over time because people became further removed from a time
>when lip syncing was limited to appearances on weekly tv shows
>like soul train or bandstand....
>
>I mean James Brown probably performed in a more strenuously
>physical manner than anyone ever....and would do it 2 or 3
>shows in a day some times.... and would do it all the way
>live...
>
>and that was pretty much the norm..
>
>when the music became more sanitized...packaged.... lip
>syncing became more of a fall back viewed by some as a
>necessity....but really only because the bar was being lowered
>as to what the expectations and standards were for an artist
>to be considered great...

>well, i get it...
>but at the same time i don't.
>
>back in the day, if you didn't sing live, there was no
>performance.
>period.
>
>ppl would lip sync for award shows and television performances
>
>because it was cheaper and easier than putting mics on the
>instruments... but for the most part, ppl sung live out of
>necessity.
>
>
>they asked diana ross how she felt about lip syncing,
>because she doesn't do it.
>she said that she doesn't begrudge the kids for doing it
>because the technology is there, so why not use it?
>
>ppl in her day used whatever technology was there to give the
>
>best performance they could.
>
>
>
>
>if somebody wanted to be really snobbish about it,
>they would say that the great soul singers really ain't shit
>because they are using microphones instead of singing over top
>of
>the band like an opera singer would.
>
>
>i mean...
>it's whatever.
>
>
>
>and for the record, i generally prefer it when artists sing
>live
>instead of lip syncing.


the technology has existed for years for people to use pre-recorded vocals and music during their performances... The fact that it's used more exclusively now....more often..and in venues which it wasn't really used before isn't a matter of technology being available now that was not previously available at all....

it wouldn't have been accepted by the public or the industry itself if any big artist who lip synced on Soul Train taped during the week....went to the Forum or the Universal ampatheater and lip synced their concert. Nobody would have accepted that.

Marvin Gaye could have used pre-recorded music and background vocals in his shows just as much as R.Kelly uses today. The technology existed for Marvin to do that.

But the music world that Marvin was in at that time would not only not have accepted it...doing so was completely outside of the norm....

the fact that it is the norm today....and even though the technology existed previously to do it..yet it wasn't the norm back then.... I view that as a lowering of the bar....

although a lot of this crosses genres...particularly with your more pop solo artists...but it hasn't impacted pop or rock type of artists or groups in the same manner it's impacted Black groups. "White" bands of even minimal noteriety perform songs live on award shows and tv shows..while "so-called" kings (lower case k intended) in R&B or "Black" music performances are full of lip syncing and pre-recorded music and vocals..

it's a cheapening of the music...a lowering the bar....

and it's been detrimental to the music and genre's overall...




>
>>it's not so much a matter of thinking
>>>he couldn't sing them songs, but the idea that he was
>>actually
>>>singing them songs while moving around the stage like that
>>was
>>>part of the super humanness of him.
>>
>>a particular artist moved around or danced on stage was
>always
>>a phoney argument to me.... an argument that became easier
>>over time because people became further removed from a time
>>when lip syncing was limited to appearances on weekly tv
>shows
>>like soul train or bandstand....
>>
>>I mean James Brown probably performed in a more strenuously
>>physical manner than anyone ever....and would do it 2 or 3
>>shows in a day some times.... and would do it all the way
>>live...
>>
>>and that was pretty much the norm..
>>
>>when the music became more sanitized...packaged.... lip
>>syncing became more of a fall back viewed by some as a
>>necessity....but really only because the bar was being
>lowered
>>as to what the expectations and standards were for an artist
>>to be considered great...
>

it has a lot to do with the decline of black bands.
the music snobs talked about this. when kids go to hip hop/ r&b shows now...
they want a "spectacle," but they don't neccesarily expect a "show" the way we are.

who is to blame for this?
probably MJ. because MJ performances became very much about spectacle,
and the people that watched him forgot he was also a master of putting on a show.

live singing, and live playing just isn't valued the way it was
with black bands in the past... or with white bands now.

i guess it started when the black bands started disassembling in the 80s.


i can't just blame one thing.
people copying the wrong parts of MJ is part of it.
the fact that an artist can now have a career without having to hack it live is another part of it.
bands not having to test their chops on the chitlin circuit is a part of it.
the fact that a kid that wants to get into music now instinctively starts to write rhymes or make beats is another part of it.

and all of that lead to kids not expecting it when they go to a show.




still, folks that value live performance in black music can still find it...
even if it's not the norm anymore.

JT does it. the roots does it.
hell, pharell does it... for whatever that's worth.

all lip synched on shows in the 60's and 70's.

peep that old clip when Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson switch roles and perform. nothing new under the sun.

all major acts have done this, however MJ made it look like gold and was too cool for school after motown 25

>all lip synched on shows in the 60's and 70's.
>
>peep that old clip when Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson switch
>roles and perform. nothing new under the sun.
>
>all major acts have done this, however MJ made it look like
>gold and was too cool for school after motown 25

think about it....What did James Brown's manner of performance give to a young Michael Jackson?? It gave him something to grow his artistry from.

raising a lip syncing performance to an iconic level in terms of it being an acceptable "performance" for a musical artist demonstrating their mastery is not a good thing at all..

Mike's motown 25 performance was iconic because of who Mike was...when it happened..and what it meant to popular culture.... It being looked at as an "excuse" for people like R.Kelly or Chris Brown to use so much pre-recorded music and vocals in their so-called live shows is misguided IMO...

they are lip syncing because the focus of the show has become "the spectacle,"
as opposed to just ripping it on stage with nothing but a band and a mic.


>>all lip synched on shows in the 60's and 70's.
>>
>>peep that old clip when Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson switch
>>roles and perform. nothing new under the sun.
>>
>>all major acts have done this, however MJ made it look like
>>gold and was too cool for school after motown 25
>
>think about it....What did James Brown's manner of performance
>give to a young Michael Jackson?? It gave him something to
>grow his artistry from.
>
>raising a lip syncing performance to an iconic level in terms
>of it being an acceptable "performance" for a musical artist
>demonstrating their mastery is not a good thing at all..
>
>Mike's motown 25 performance was iconic because of who Mike
>was...when it happened..and what it meant to popular
>culture.... It being looked at as an "excuse" for people like
>R.Kelly or Chris Brown to use so much pre-recorded music and
>vocals in their so-called live shows is misguided IMO...
>
>
>

live performances with live singing and playing??

I would argue that a more "in the moment" "LIVE" performance lends itself to a more impactful spectacle than a lip sync performance..

it invovles MORE elements interplaying with each other..involves MORE individuals participating and contributing to a common action....

it's BIGGER...

also what makes something a spectacle is the artist themselves being involved....How iconic the particular artist is....

an artist who is either a musician or who plays with musicians and sings live is a BIGGER more accomplished artist than someone who depends more on pre-recorded stuff....

Michael Jackson kept trying to top himself with special effects in stage shows.
at his prime, they were over the top to a point that bordered on self parody.

but Mike was a genius performer, so the over the top special effects weren't distracting.
and kids looked up to that.


so what did they copy?


the special effects.
just the special effects.
that's why ppl think kanye is great live b/c he has a shitload of lights behind him.

everybody copied the wrong thing.

>Michael Jackson kept trying to top himself with special
>effects in stage shows.
>at his prime, they were over the top to a point that bordered
>on self parody.
>
>but Mike was a genius performer, so the over the top special
>effects weren't distracting.
>and kids looked up to that.
>
>
>so what did they copy?
>
>
>the special effects.
>just the special effects.
>that's why ppl think kanye is great live b/c he has a shitload
>of lights behind him.
>
>everybody copied the wrong thing.


and I agree with you on that...

I don't really have much to criticize Mike about...but the one thing I wish he had done different...was the bigger he got..I just wish he would have kept that connection with being a group/band leader....and the importance of the music and musicians itself and themselves...rather than the spectacle..

I mean you can have both...bands and artists...both black and white had huge over the top shows that were often able to keep some grit..without sacrificing the live elements... Had he done that...those who view themselves as his heirs would be doing more of that.

>I don't really have much to criticize Mike about...but the one
>thing I wish he had done different...was the bigger he got..I
>just wish he would have kept that connection with being a
>group/band leader....and the importance of the music and
>musicians itself and themselves...rather than the spectacle..
>

I also think hip hop had an impact as well.
the music snobs did an entire show about the demise of black bands.


even though this post is about lip syncing, it really comes down to young artists
having a different idea of what constitutes a great show.

a lot of the stuff i said here is taken from their podcast.
you should check it out.



>I mean you can have both...bands and artists...both black and
>white had huge over the top shows that were often able to keep
>some grit..without sacrificing the live elements... Had he
>done that...those who view themselves as his heirs would be
>doing more of that.
>

he went toward the technilogy and the latest changes and he didn't want to be that cat having the KFC bucket band on stage.

he more than handled his business on stage and knows all the cues and licks, its just that he became a larger than life artist and he was never going to be that Hungry struggling MJ again period.

you had folks paying big money for him to do certain things and perform a certain way and big money was always their and he was not going to be the cat you saw pre thriller era and that is a fact.

which he did on Motown 25 was ground breaking and yet on the victory tour MJ did it all the way live and tore it up both ways so MJ showed he could do it both ways period.

bottom line MJ was Magic that night. the way he performed on that stage the world could have ended and alot of folks would have been moon walking in there graves behind that performance period/


R.kelly does perform live and hold his his own. Chris Brown is a better dancer than singer, however his fan base is cool with his choices period.

fans will roll with you regardless as long as you bring what they want period.

Ray charles with the choir. he tore it up.

MJ understood the moment and presentation. he could stand behind a curtain and have you going crazy, nobody else had that stage power imo

i got it on dvd, i kept playing it trying to convince myself that it wasn't lip synced.. but i didn't even know there was a J5 set before this until a couple years back and watching that made me feel a lot better about things... great shit either way..

not to say that that the motown 25 performance wasn't Iconic..it was huge for music....popular culture....television...everything...

but just by it's nature....if we are talking about a musical artist...I have no problem putting Mike's performance at the top of a list based upon it's popular culture impact ...television performance and the like...


but if we are talking music...musical artists...at the end of the day Mike basiclly lip synced a hit song.... something that lots of people have done over the years....and the impact of MIke's performance is based more on the time and place it occurred..its' moment in history..as opposed to the actual act of lip syncing his hit song....

something performed live....at least with the vocals happening live just has more impact from a musical perspective to me...

it's almost like the greatness of Mike's performance put performing live and lip syncing on the same level moving foward...which isn't Mike's fault...but to me it's not a good thing that those things are looked at as being the same...

I don't have a disdain for lip syncing per se...as much as I have a disdain for the idea that it's an acceptable practice at times and in venues when traditionally it was not used as such...and becomes a cheap and inauthentic way to pass off a performance as being "live"...

>it's almost like the greatness of Mike's performance put
>performing live and lip syncing on the same level moving
>foward...which isn't Mike's fault...but to me it's not a good
>thing that those things are looked at as being the same...

Now I will agree with this^^^^^

Some entertainers get a pass for lip syncing an entire concert.

The mic is used when they're talking and for some ad-lib

But everyone else...they suck if they lip sync.

Some people lip sync because THEY CAN'T SING.

American Idol contestants blow a lot of these recorded artists out of the water, by far.

Yet, we make fun of American Idol. Why? They blow LIVE.

Some recorded platinum sellers lip sync their entire performance in paid concert.

For me....if you lip sync on free tv, I don't really care. If i drop loot to come to a concert, and you lip sync, we got problems.

made the Man a Legend period. classic Song and Classic performance period and folks were Moonwalk all on my block and talking about it all over town period/

i was blown away because the truth is that night I was looking forward to seeing RIck James first and foremost that night, however he refused to perform so when Marvin gaye did his thing on the piano which was smoking i was hyped, however the jacksons tore it up and MJ had that look that night and it was Magical and everything you want in a Pop Music Iconic moment.


i was eating some Chicken wings and Bones in the dark with my Granny and after MJ tore that stage up i had to put the bird down and start dancing.

his artistry and talent was already established..

I mean him doing cold sweat in their motown audition tape when he was a little boy is beyond what half of the rock and roll hall of famers ever did...

he'd previously been a legendary kid act.

Actually, Off The Wall already did that...

Motown 25 helped do something entirely different....

It made MJ the biggest recording artist on the planet....

OTW sold millions and made MJ a big time adult act. but i don't agree it made him a legend. selling millions alone doesn't make an act a legend. i mean, Peter Frampton sold millions - is he a legend?

>OTW sold millions and made MJ a big time adult act. but i
>don't agree it made him a legend. selling millions alone
>doesn't make an act a legend. i mean, Peter Frampton sold
>millions - is he a legend?


Nah...that combo of his J5 days and Off The Wall made him a legend...At least to US...

"thriller" overshadowed OTW because it became a phenomenon.
but OTW was the biggest selling black album of all time when it came out.


but you can't sell THAT many copies to just black folks, i don't think.
i imagine that OTW must have had a lot of crossover success, too.

but i don't know many white people who's favorite MJ album is OTW.
meanwhile, most of the black folks that are my parents' age seem to think OTW is better than "thriller." (they are totally correct about this, btw.)


so maybe he was a legend for black folks,
but not the public at large (read as: white folks)?






but even with that being said,
OTW doesn't have any "moments."
there is no "beatles on ed sullivan show" moment for OTW.


"thriller" had that, though, with motown 25.
and i think to be a legend, there has to be something iconic
about what you did. something in the collective memory.

i don't think OTW has a moment like that, even among black folks.
so i don't know if he was a legend as an adult act, yet.
a star, but not a legend.



>Nah...that combo of his J5 days and Off The Wall made him a
>legend...At least to US...
>
>

i agree that OTW was a cross-over success in the late 70s.

and i've read that for a time it was the biggest selling R&B album ever.

which means that it had outsold R&B albums like Songs in the Key of Life and Gratitude. but by how much?

http://voices.yahoo.com/best-rb-albums-all-time-certified-sales-8905976.html?cat=33

OTW = 8x platinum per RIAA.

SITKOL = 10x platinum. yes, double album and all of that but the official sales figure is north of 10 million, while OTW's official number is between 8 and 10 million. for the purpose of this discussion, SITKOL has sold 10 million, b/c i'm sure the articles saying OTW is/was the best selling R&B album of all time for a time don't place an asterisk on SITKOL's sales.

ANYWAY, what i'm trying to say here i think is that MJ hadn't done anything w/the OTW sales that had never been done. that album being the best selling R&B album ever for a brief period didn't make MJ a legend.

but i think MJ's case may have been different,
because he was a child start that black folks "grew up with"
that had morphed into a young star that was relevant.

he was a veteran and he was hot at the same time.
this isn't unprecedented, but i think one of the things that made
stevie such a legend was that he a child star that made that transition.


i think there may be an argument that MJ was a legend to black folks
with OTW, and the sales don't necessarily tell the full story.

but again, i wasn't there.
i'm just going off of the way i heard my parents friends talk about MJ when i was little. they all seemed to have a special fondness for OTW.

was that fondness enough to say that black folks thought he was a LEGEND as an adult? i dunno.


i can your point and murph's.
i dunno.



>ANYWAY, what i'm trying to say here i think is that MJ hadn't
>done anything w/the OTW sales that had never been done. that
>album being the best selling R&B album ever for a brief period
>didn't make MJ a legend.

>but i think MJ's case may have been different,
>because he was a child start that black folks "grew up with"
>that had morphed into a young star that was relevant.

...which may bias them.

>he was a veteran and he was hot at the same time.
>this isn't unprecedented

key point.

Thriller MJ accomplished unprecedented feats - that's part of what made him a legend.

>i think there may be an argument that MJ was a legend to black
>folks
>with OTW, and the sales don't necessarily tell the full story.
>
>
>but again, i wasn't there.
>i'm just going off of the way i heard my parents friends talk
>about MJ when i was little. they all seemed to have a special
>fondness for OTW.

all mine were dismissive of MJ's adult work until Thriller. and they weren't really into Thriller but did acknowledge it. 'they' = my mother and her siblings.

i hadn't heard of OTW until well after Thriller was out. i bought it myself b/c i wanted to hear 'Heartbreak Hotel' and didn't know the song wasn't on OTW (i thought it was 'Burn This Disco Out').

Off the wall was seen as a Black thing and he got called a very successful R&B artist, however thriller made it where he was acknowledged as a All Around Artist period and the border of segeration of music was broken down by him. he changed the game forever as to what and how far a Black Artist could go.

Billie Jean on Motown 25 made the whole world take notice and respect that kid into a Grown man and a Musical Legend period.


off the wall was loved and respected however in the pop world at large it was a Black thing and he didn't get the acknowledgement he wanted and he said as such.

without thriller and its success he would have had a Phil donahue career as to reaching those Oprah WInfrey's heights.

but to the world around you - MJ became a legendary adult w/Thriller. and that legend building w/that album started in earnest w/Motown 25.

i don't know that murph's opinion is really that much on the fringes.
he may have been a legend to a certain demographic.


but again, i don't know... because i wasn't there.
and i don't know that he was a legend as an adult yet because
as i said before, there was no "beatles on ed sullivan" moment
to make him an icon.

and i think you need a moment like that to make you a legend.


>but to the world around you - MJ became a legendary adult
>w/Thriller. and that legend building w/that album started in
>earnest w/Motown 25.
>

i don't think OTW made MJ a legend even w/Black folks. it made him very popular and pushed him into the adult entertainment arena and all of that, i'm sure. but if OTW made him a legend then i wonder who else was a legend back then. b/c i don't think that record put him in league w/acts like Ray Charles or Sam Cooke (i'm trying to think who was a legend back then).

^^^^gets it....

Too many to name....

You don't sell nearly 10 million copies of an Off The Wall and just be deemed as a successful black act....What MJ did with Off The Wall was almost unseen for music acts in any genre of music beyond say Stevie Wonder...And MJ sold more than Stevie....

Most black folks already viewed MJ as an American legend after Off The Wall...They were the same folks who watched the Jackson 5 cartoon...Now they were at the discos jamming to the hottest album on the planet....

What Thriller did was let Mars and the moon in on the MJ action....

>
>
>Too many to name....
>
>You don't sell nearly 10 million copies of an Off The Wall and
>just be deemed as a successful black act....

sure. MJ was a cross-over act. like Stevie Wonder and many others before him.

What MJ did with
>Off The Wall was almost unseen for music acts in any genre of
>music beyond say Stevie Wonder...And MJ sold more than
>Stevie....

yeah, OTW outsold SITKOL to become the best selling R&B album of all time at the time. acts like Earth Wind & Fire had also crossed-over, of course. as had Donna Summer. and let's not forget Diana Ross. and Marvin Gaye. hell, Motown had created a roster of acts in the 60s largely designed to cross-over and many of them did successfully. OTW was released in the wake of all of that.

>Most black folks already viewed MJ as an American legend after
>Off The Wall...They were the same folks who watched the
>Jackson 5 cartoon...Now they were at the discos jamming to the
>hottest album on the planet....

'hottest album on the planet'...

was it?

i dunno about that.

it was a Disco record that was Pop too w/some R&B that was released at the tail end of the Disco craze. i've never heard anyone call it the hottest album on the planet at that time.

a look at the charts leads me to believe Pink Floyd's 'The Wall' was probably the hottest album on the planet back then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_200_number-one_albums_of_1979

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_200_number-one_albums_of_1980

...OTW didn't even top the Pop album chart. no way it was the hottest album on the planet.

was it the hottest R&B album on the planet? it may have been. though Donna Summers' 'Bad Girls' actually topped the Pop album chart. i dunno.

>What Thriller did was let Mars and the moon in on the MJ
>action....

i don't think so. i don't think OTW was the juggernaut you're trying to make it out to be. it was a big selling record, sure. very popular. about as popular as records before it like SITKOL and probably Gratitude. i've talked to older relatives about OTW and none of them talk about it the way you are now. i've read articles so i know the record sold more than any R&B album before it but none say it was received like it was the biggest Black record ever heard of in the history of ever or that it was received like Thriller w/in the Black community. hell, my mom who was a huge MJ fan didn't even own a copy of OTW. she stopped w/Destiny.

so, i don't think so.

James Brown and Stevie Wonder.

Diana Ross back then though was the biggest name in Black Pop

would "thriller" have been the biggest selling album of all time
without that moment?

this was a question posed by the music snobs.

i am sure it would have been successful, but the argument is that
mike wouldn't have gotten on MTV without motown 25.

is that true?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_200_number-one_albums_of_1983

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Billboard_Hot_100_number-one_singles_of_1983

the show aired May 16, 1983.

were Nostradamus level if their ever was one.

he needed that kind of performance to change the landscape and he had that "IT" and vibe along with Pepsi tie in commericals and cross over appeal that forever flipped the script.

he got branded and made it a statement before the likes of Michael Jordan, Lebron James, Shaq, Kobe, Tiger Woods, etc...

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

http://bit.ly/1fGyQIT

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

it ain't like folks are holding him in the same regard as Carlos Santana who matched him with his own Diamond album.

Framtpon been trying to recapture Frampton comes alive for almost 40 years.

the first time he did the impossible was with the Jackson 5 success.
i agree with SoWhat, that success made him a legendary kid act.

then when he did "off the wall," it was an kid star morphing into
an adult star, which never happens. that was the second time he
did the impossible.

he was definitely a star because of off the wall.
but i think the legend of michael jackson as we know it today
was born on motown 25, when the kid star who had somehow morphed into an adult star did a reunion with his brothers, and did a medley of their old hits...

only to watch his bothers leave the stage so that he could perform a NEW song on a motown reunion special,
that somehow was more trans formative than the adult songs that
had made him an adult start to begin with.



the legend of MJ came from the fact that
it was impossible to do what he did with the jackson 5,
it was impossible for the kid star to be an adult star,

and now.. he did the impossible a third time, in a way that
topped off the wall.

symbolically enough, he got a standing ovation from the
legends in the audience... so it was a symbolic coronation
of the once and future king of pop.

and really, that entire special was the curtain call for
r&b/ soul as we knew it, before the hip hop movement that was
brewing at the time took over everything. but that's another post entirely.


>
>
>Actually, Off The Wall already did that...
>
>Motown 25 helped do something entirely different....
>
>It made MJ the biggest recording artist on the planet....

go on youtube look up MJ and diana ross on the red carpet at the 1981 oscars and Regis Philbin was the outside announcer and anyway

He addressed Diana ROss who at the time was the biggest Black Artist in Black Pop and MJ was her date and Regis said oh, here is Michael Jackson from the Jackson 5 and you outta see the awkwardness reaction on MJ's face from that exchange. lets just say Diana Ross or no Diana Ross MJ would never again play second fiddle to nobody.


you gotta remember despite how big the J5 were, they did Vegas in a time when that wasn't the place to be and a sign you were on the decline.

and though Quincy Jones owns half of hollywood, him and MJ teaming up met with blank stares and Off the wall was loved and worshiped in our hood and other MJ fans, however the industry said he was too black.

so Motown 25 performance who Berry Gordy told him would be huge and important to his career, forever changed the MJ landscape.

you and I came along when there weren't many Black Acts getting that kind of shine and you know all to well how big thriller was and what it meant.

however us in my hood loved MJ regardless, however thriller let that magic fully out of the bottle for the whole world to embrace him even more

proud.

Quincy Jones is a genius.

Rod Temperton is a genius as well.

I also had no idea Claudette Ortiz is credited with backing vocals on Human Nature.

MJ needed a Cat like Q mainly to put out the right type of songs and not just anything. a Cat like MJ is a Incredible talent, however with just anybody as a Producer you don't get all that out of him and what Q was able to do and challenge him.

Rod Temperton is a Badd Cat, however he needed an MJ to take his songs even further and it was accomplished ten fold.

you gotta have the songs to match the talent and everything else will fall into line

Which part does she claim she sang??

Lol!

>I also had no idea Claudette Ortiz is credited with backing
>vocals on Human Nature.

Yeah,

I thought the same exact thing.

Probably some Wikipedia BS, but it's on Wikipedia:

Personnel

Written and composed by Steve Porcaro and John Bettis
Produced by Quincy Jones
David Paich: Synthesizer
Steve Porcaro: Synthesizer, synthesizer programming
Steve Lukather: Guitar
Jeff Porcaro: Drums
Paulinho Da Costa: Percussion
Michael Boddicker: Emulator
Claudette Ortiz: Backing vocals
Arrangement by David Paich, Steve Porcaro and Steve Lukather

her name ain't on it.

She's on the Boys II Men remake.

Wtf?!

that makes sense.

LOL

the VICTORY TOUR....

which although tours since have grossed more..... The hype and energy leading up to the Victory tour was something that has not been seen....before or since...for a concert tour....

One day...some day they'll make a documentary about the victory tour...and include ..finally an official release of an entire show from the tour.....

MJ donated all his money to charity. however fast forward to today and it costs 30 dollars to go see Solange or Bobby Valentino not exactly household names. nowadays you can't even go See a 3rd or 4th tier act for anything less than 40 dollars in a regular size venue.

that tour had everybody and their momma catching it and MJ tore it up as did Jermaine and yet they were in seperate quarters because MJ never wanted any part of that tour.

he only did it for his parents and also because his brothers needed the money. that's why MJ made it clear that would the last tour he would do with them ever.

it was memorable for so many reasons. Don King being a part of it alone made it something to talk about.

i do not appreciate the laziness that is attached to most lip synching performances.

in concerts at times and on some tv performances she lip-synched to a vocal track that sounded like it was recorded while she danced. she didn't just lip synch to the vocals recorded for the single version or the album version of whatever song. when i 1st noticed this i thought it was genius! lol

>in concerts at times and on some tv performances she
>lip-synched to a vocal track that sounded like it was recorded
>while she danced. she didn't just lip synch to the vocals
>recorded for the single version or the album version of
>whatever song. when i 1st noticed this i thought it was
>genius! lol


Ha!

this event solidified mj as a dancer. not just a singer who could do coreography but a dancer in his own right. it exposed a personal flare about him which people could then also attribute to his music and combine them to define a true wunderkid which would be the boost needed to raise him to the king of pop status.

the unfortunate downside to this is that it helped push the music to the backseat. after this event everything that mj did had to be an event in which music while playing a major role was not the sum objective. specifically in the live arena he no longer made an effort to bring the realness of his musical performance to the forefront but wanted each performance to be has vivid as the videos.


█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." © Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."

>this event solidified mj as a dancer. not just a singer who
>could do coreography but a dancer in his own right. it
>exposed a personal flare about him which people could then
>also attribute to his music and combine them to define a true
>wunderkid which would be the boost needed to raise him to the
>king of pop status.
>
>the unfortunate downside to this is that it helped push the
>music to the backseat. after this event everything that mj
>did had to be an event in which music while playing a major
>role was not the sum objective. specifically in the live
>arena he no longer made an effort to bring the realness of his
>musical performance to the forefront but wanted each
>performance to be has vivid as the videos.

I can see this side of things....Very fair and even handed....

i mean he did it on a grand scale, had the old guard treating him like a "DON" and the new Guard felt he was a "DON" and he was a standard.

bottom line he had that "IT" voice, music, Moves and the goods.

you got watered down version of what he did, however it just goes to show how a Once in a Lifetime type of Musical Genius he truly was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jgfK_M-8_fw

Pretty clever.

************************