Popdose: Jesus of Cool: Michael Jackson’s Crossover Nightmare
Oldetymer
· 3 months ago
Agree with almost everything you said,except one thing, MJ didn't invent the moonwalk. He may have done it better, but here is a video of Bill Bailey doing it a long time ago.
Nice! It's not like a hundred Soul Train dancers didn't do variations as well over the years. But I'm not sure it counts if you're not wearing sequined white socks with your black dancing shoes.
mary3
· 3 months ago
Bill Bailey only tapped backwards, any moron can do that. The black kids in the ghetto were doing the "backslide" but it still didn't have the illusion of going forward while actually going backwards. Michael actually did INVENT the moonwalk as we know it today. On the Oprah interview MJ said that he got the idea from the street kids but ENHANCED it. He was even humble back then. No one before did the moonwalk like MJ did on Motown 25.
JonCummings
· 3 months ago
If you actually watch the video, Bailey is doing nothing like "tapp(ing) backwards." He's doing exactly what Michael did. You gotta give credit where it's due.
BobCashill
· 3 months ago
Between Annie's piece last week and yours today, you have well and truly buried the King of Pop. Are you happy? :) It's like being reminded that there is no Wizard of Oz, and never was.
I think you should turn your thesis into a video essay. Seriously, I'd watch. It's the new form of critique/commentary.
Over the past few months, I've bought---err, downloaded--new albums by U2 and Green Day. I guess they were high up on the charts for a week or two--are they still? They seem to have sunk fast, but I admit I don't follow the charts that avidly. What constitutes "blockbuster sales" anymore in the record store-less present?
JonCummings
· 3 months ago
Well, I didn't exactly come to bury Caesar, but I didn't come to praise him either (at least not today). Anyone who doesn't have decidedly mixed feelings about Michael's many legacies just isn't thinking clearly.
My thesis, for better or worse, is ancient history now (1992). In order to turn it into anything more than a snapshot of a long-ago era, I'd have to watch a thousand interminable rap and Nickelback videos (for comparison's sake) from the intervening era ... and someone would have to care about the evolution of music video over the last 15 years. And since neither MTV nor VH1 can be bothered, why should anyone else?
Green Day is currently #20 on the album chart after 11 weeks, U2 #77 after 21 weeks. (Demi Lovato is #1, and may just stick there another week or two--her new single is, I'm sorry to say, kinda hot.) Each of your albums debuted at #1 but quickly dropped. "Blockbuster" status in the music biz clearly ain't what it used to be; these days 3-4 million albums is a real killing. But then, the competition for many acts & their labels isn't necessarily to sell that many copies; it's to get that #1 slot and meet sales projections for the first week out.
liarseverywhere
· 3 months ago
You must be on drugs yourself and under anesthesia; you should have keep your silents if you think you can get away with twisting the truth like this YOU ARE DEAD WRONG! Please stop trying to take away from MJJ's legacy with your jealousy and pettiness!
deltaslide
· 3 months ago
Yeah Jon-you should go easy on the anesthesia. We must learn from Michael's mistakes! Not to mention keeping those silents to yourselves...Actually a brilliant, very well-written article and I think you really nailed it. Excellent stuff.
Lance
· 3 months ago
@Liarseverywhere;
Jon makes several well-considered points in his article. While I don't agree with all of it--especially the perceived anti-melting pot sentiment, and in my opinion, if you're going to blame a single individual for bringing out the music industry's greedy nature to the forefront, why not just fall back on the default blaming of Spielberg and Lucas for the excesses of Hollywood's renewed search for the almighty blockbuster(the greed was always there, La-La Land just happened to let it show after these two proved what successes summer films could be)--I REALLY wish that anyone firing back would at least learn to SPELL CORRECTLY!!!("kept" instead of "keep" for the tense, and "silence" instead of "silents")
This would add something called VALIDITY to your point of view, even if your point of view("You must be on drugs yourself and under anesthesia"...what??! And how can you spell "anesthesia" right and get "silence" wrong, anyway? Are we on MySpace and I don't realize it?!) might make you seem like someone who didn't get their own proper dosage at Arkham Asylum.
Sorry, folks...that just drives me totally bat-shit up a wall.
Pete
· 3 months ago
A very well written post. It's nice to see some people swimming against the tide of willing forgetfulness that's swept the populace after his death. MJ was a complicated individual...so it only makes sense his legacy should be just as complex.
mary3
· 3 months ago
QUOTE: "The most bizarre such incident came, famously, at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards, when he mistook Britney Spears’ birthday-wish babbling for an “Artist of the Millennium” award."
Do your research! Michael never "mistook" anything. MTV played a cruel birthday joke on him. They told him he was getting the Artist of the Millennium award when he wasn't. MTV should be ashamed of themselves; they intentionally tried to humiliate MJ. MTV became so popular because of MJ and this is what they do to him! I don't understand why the American and British media were so jealous of MJ and felt a constant need to bring him down.
JohnHughes
· 3 months ago
Please provide links or supporting material for your research. Thanks, muffin!
JonCummings
· 3 months ago
I'm with John. That's a preposterous accusation. We'll need some concrete proof.
jgar
· 3 months ago
so if he thought it was a birthday, why did he have a list to say thanks to people? I certainly wouldn't. Obviously he was informed of an award. Kinda common sense, you get an award you get a list of people to thank. You get a birthday and you say thanks and not pull out a piece of paper. Before you ask for research use common sense.
JonCummings
· 3 months ago
So what we have here, if you're correct, is a conspiracy on the part of MTV -- with Britney Spears, of all people, enlisted to say something just leading enough (like "to me he's the artist of the millennium") to seal the deal -- all designed to make Michael Jackson look ridiculous. Really? Is that the "common sense" you're asking for?
jgar
· 3 months ago
this was silly. Destroyed it? When did the music industry concentrate on art more than sales? Just look at the sound alike bands of the 60's after the beatles. GOSH it is an industry, they focus more on money than art, understand that before you make a silly thesis.. Dwindling sales? Whose standards? Bad was supposedly a commercial flop because it didn't sell as much as thriller, but um it sold 30 million around the world. People celebrate if you sold 2 million lol. It was not an album for just musical artistry, it was an album meant to support visual artistry. NEVER was MJ lesser as a dancer, performer than in moonwalker/smooth criminal. Even this ridiculous account of saying Bad was just taken from Beat it etc. Michael was a sharper, more versatile and more polished dancer on Bad and smooth criminal than anything he did in Thriller. It was an evolution on an already great dance style. Did you see Kelly or Astaire evolve so greatly in such a short amount of time? Dangerous a flop? The biggest selling new jack swing record is a flop? Gosh this is silly.
Tweet
· 3 months ago
Jon...you really need to go back and do more research on what you have attempted to speak about. As a professional, writing an article..you should have stated the cited facts and left YOUR opinion out of it..leaving the final draw to the reader. It seems that your above article is laced with your opinionated poison. For example..Thriller was the largest and best selling album of all time, however Bad sold 30 million copies which is nothing to sneeze at. The music industry if they could sell 8 million copies for an album would consider themselves lucky. MJ had out did himself with Thriller..so quite naturally 30 million would seem like a slip..but in reality..Bad was the SECOND largest selling album in history..and Michael did it AGAIN.
JonCummings
· 3 months ago
Mr. or Ms. Tweet, why on earth would I leave my opinion out of an opinion piece? I'm pretty sure any reader could tell this wasn't a straight-up "objective" article or obituary as soon as they read the first word, which was "I."
Anyway, "Bad" is probably not the second-biggest-selling album of all time, though it's impossible to get any real idea how many copies it sold internationally...which, of course, didn't stop Michael and his PR specialists from making up their own numbers (which is a big part of what this column is about). In terms of U.S. sales, "Bad" pales in comparison even to the "Bodyguard" soundtrack from a few years later.
You should absolutely feel free to disagree with anything I write. But note that I never, anywhere in the piece, suggested that "Bad" was a flop. What I suggested was that it was a coldly calculated piece of product, designed far more to sell another 40 million copies than it was to advance Michael's artistry. If you want to argue about that, go for it. But if your entire argument is "'Bad' sold umpteen million copies...look what a success it was!" then you're playing right into the same commerce-over-artistry trap that, in my opinion, made the latter stages of MJ's musical career very sad to watch.
doodiepants
· 2 months ago
No no, he is alive. They found him in the woods. Then the video taper got it!!!!
All Comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRByZlHS6GE&feat...
I think you should turn your thesis into a video essay. Seriously, I'd watch. It's the new form of critique/commentary.
Over the past few months, I've bought---err, downloaded--new albums by U2 and Green Day. I guess they were high up on the charts for a week or two--are they still? They seem to have sunk fast, but I admit I don't follow the charts that avidly. What constitutes "blockbuster sales" anymore in the record store-less present?
My thesis, for better or worse, is ancient history now (1992). In order to turn it into anything more than a snapshot of a long-ago era, I'd have to watch a thousand interminable rap and Nickelback videos (for comparison's sake) from the intervening era ... and someone would have to care about the evolution of music video over the last 15 years. And since neither MTV nor VH1 can be bothered, why should anyone else?
Green Day is currently #20 on the album chart after 11 weeks, U2 #77 after 21 weeks. (Demi Lovato is #1, and may just stick there another week or two--her new single is, I'm sorry to say, kinda hot.) Each of your albums debuted at #1 but quickly dropped. "Blockbuster" status in the music biz clearly ain't what it used to be; these days 3-4 million albums is a real killing. But then, the competition for many acts & their labels isn't necessarily to sell that many copies; it's to get that #1 slot and meet sales projections for the first week out.
Please stop trying to take away from MJJ's legacy with your jealousy and pettiness!
Jon makes several well-considered points in his article. While I don't agree with all of it--especially the perceived anti-melting pot sentiment, and in my opinion, if you're going to blame a single individual for bringing out the music industry's greedy nature to the forefront, why not just fall back on the default blaming of Spielberg and Lucas for the excesses of Hollywood's renewed search for the almighty blockbuster(the greed was always there, La-La Land just happened to let it show after these two proved what successes summer films could be)--I REALLY wish that anyone firing back would at least learn to SPELL CORRECTLY!!!("kept" instead of "keep" for the tense, and "silence" instead of "silents")
This would add something called VALIDITY to your point of view, even if your point of view("You must be on drugs yourself and under anesthesia"...what??! And how can you spell "anesthesia" right and get "silence" wrong, anyway? Are we on MySpace and I don't realize it?!) might make you seem like someone who didn't get their own proper dosage at Arkham Asylum.
Sorry, folks...that just drives me totally bat-shit up a wall.
Do your research! Michael never "mistook" anything. MTV played a cruel birthday joke on him. They told him he was getting the Artist of the Millennium award when he wasn't. MTV should be ashamed of themselves; they intentionally tried to humiliate MJ. MTV became so popular because of MJ and this is what they do to him! I don't understand why the American and British media were so jealous of MJ and felt a constant need to bring him down.
Anyway, "Bad" is probably not the second-biggest-selling album of all time, though it's impossible to get any real idea how many copies it sold internationally...which, of course, didn't stop Michael and his PR specialists from making up their own numbers (which is a big part of what this column is about). In terms of U.S. sales, "Bad" pales in comparison even to the "Bodyguard" soundtrack from a few years later.
You should absolutely feel free to disagree with anything I write. But note that I never, anywhere in the piece, suggested that "Bad" was a flop. What I suggested was that it was a coldly calculated piece of product, designed far more to sell another 40 million copies than it was to advance Michael's artistry. If you want to argue about that, go for it. But if your entire argument is "'Bad' sold umpteen million copies...look what a success it was!" then you're playing right into the same commerce-over-artistry trap that, in my opinion, made the latter stages of MJ's musical career very sad to watch.
http://doodiepants.com/2009/08/27/michael-jacks...