I'm seriously debating whether I should neg you
Go ahead...IDC...that criticism of Michael Jackson was around even when he was alive and in his prime...
LOL
I don't know, man. This reads like you're really selling Michael short. Guy had almost inhuman talent and he was capable of making music that spoke to people of various generations. He made songs like "Thriller" and "Beat It" because he wanted something that would appeal to the younger crowd, but he also had jams like "Billie Jean" and "Human Nature" that were more mature and showcased his evolution as an adult singer. Michael was always evolving, constantly morphing his image to his liking and experimenting with different sounds.
Off the Wall was his first journey into being a serious solo artist. Thriller was his attempt to create the greatest album of all-time, an album that nobody on the planet could fukk with or deny. Bad was more mechanical and industrial than his previous work, but he was going for an edgier image and sounding more paranoid and aggressive than ever before. Once he saw that he wouldn't be the man for too long, he updated his own sound with Dangerous and hooked up with contemporary producers to sustain his run on top. Many artists would have crumbled by doing this and seen as riding the wave, but all it did was give Michael an opportunity to make songs like "Jam" and "Remember the Time," songs he couldn't have made on his previous records.
As Michael's career progressed, his songwriting became darker and more frustrated, and the line between him as an entertainer and him as a man became more blurred, to the point where he took the lead single of his ninth album and told all the people dogging him to fukk off. Michael Jackson was a universal artist. Shouldn't he be celebrated instead of vilified for being so versatile, and being able to resonate with people from various generations because of all the different types of songs he made?
I can't really say that Michael made music that was bland or soulless. His songs always sounded unique to him. I don't know many other singers that could take songs like "Thriller," "Beat It," and "Bad" and make them work like he did. Was he way more concerned than he should have with selling records? Yes. But when you make the highest-selling album of all-time, and you go from a rising star to the biggest entertainer in the world in less than five years, your expectations and mindset have no choice but to change.
TL;DR - Michael Jackson was a gifted performer that made different songs for different audiences, and it was because of his ability to strike a chord with people from various generations, backgrounds, and sensibilities that made him so respected and beloved to this day.
See...and this is the problem with artists who traffick on commercial success and mass appeal instead of actually making good songs that ain't out of a cookie cutter formula - of what the format is...
Michael Jackson had a formula to sell records and he stuck with that formula throughout his career because it made him chart.
Thriller and Bad are almost the same album. Dirty Diana = Billie Jean. Just Good Friends = Girl Is Mine. Bad = Wanna Be Starting Something. Smooth Criminal = Thriller.
The song about a woman trying to manipulate him...check. The theme driven song - check. The duet about a girl - check. The upbeat intro song - check. The adult contemporary song about the human condition - check.
Then make dope music videos...
He isn't a Prince or a Marvin Gaye or like a Miles Davis or a Jimi Hendrix...there is no musical exploration. It's just music to chart.
His genius is in selling his music. It's not the music itself. The music itself was never on the cutting edge of music. He always came in and just did it marketed it and sold it better than anyone else in the pop lane. When disco wasn't cool, he bailed and made Thriller, which has disco elements but it's not disco which everybody in the pop lane did in the early 80s. When everybody was using loud ass drum machines making this bass heavy groove, he made Bad. When New Jack Swing was in, he did that...and he did it really late.
Prince crafting his own genre and sound in the 80s. Bobby Brown was one of the originators of the New Jack Swing lane in the late 80s. BBD completely up ended Hip Hop/RnB/Pop in one album.
Let's not even talk about what Rick James did, another genre bender in the 80s that was on the cutting edge of RnB and Pop. Or how about Cameo?
Michael Jackson wasn't doing any of these things. His whole gimmick was the music video. It wasn't even the music. He wasn't making better music than Prince. He wasn't making better music than Rick James. shyt Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel is a better album than Bad. BBD 1st album was better than Dangerous.
He made better marketing and videos and had a better tour....and his shyt was kid friendly.
Pop music is the Superhero/Action Blockbuster movie of the music business...it's meant to sell and sell a lot...
Most pop albums are shytty in the overall grand scheme of music. Just like most superhero/action movies are shytty when you compare it to the overall movie business.
It's the most rudimentary, formulaic, unengaging and unchallenging form of entertainment you can be entertained by...(it's nothing wrong with being entertained by it...but I am just saying...there's better stuff out there)...
And there's great skill in making art that is meant to be consumed and accepted by the masses but...it doesn't mean it's good.
There's a McDonalds on every corner...all over the world, it's still shytty food.
Michael Jackson is the McDonalds, the Michael Bay, Dragon Ball Z, the Superhero/Action movie of music. He reinvented what it means to be a pop artist.
That's what he set out to be...and he achieved that and I ain't taking away from that....but his music ain't all that...outside of like..one album.
I am saying...there are countless artists that are better than him, that made better music than him, that got better albums than him, that were better at making music than him and if you are a serious music lover, he shouldn't even be like in the Top 10 of artists in terms of music...
Just like you should put McDonalds as one of the best restaurants you ever been to.
Not saying MJ was bad...he just isn't that good as his die-hard fans make him sound.
