our thoughts on michael jackson
Just yesterday afternoon, all of us here in the editorial department were talking about Michael Jackson’s upcoming shows at the O2 Arena in London. The tone of the conversation skewed exactly as you may have guessed — rife with skepticism that the shows would actually come off, or wondering what they might look like if they did.
Just a few short hours later came the news from LA that Jackson — undeniably one of the only pop stars of the last 20 years as big, if not bigger, than the Beatles — had died. It’s weird, head-splitting news, and every media outlet in the world is scrambling to come up with a different spin on Jackson’s life and legacy.
While we don’t want to add to the torrent, we do want to take a minute to give you an advance look at something we had assigned as part of our upcoming Sony coverage: NY Daily News pop critic Jim Farber’s guide to the music of Michael Jackson — both the successes and the missteps. Bear in mind that he wrote this before Michael’s passing, so some of the language will be changed before it appears next week. But it seemed appropriate to post it now, and to take a look back on Jackson’s music and legacy.
Also, on a personal note, I’ve been kind of marveling all over again at the pop majesty of songs like “Billie Jean” or the lovely, haunting “Human Nature.” I’ve listened to both over the last 24 hours, and both still stand to me as masterpieces of pop construction, every tiny piece perfectly in-place.
Hope you enjoy Jim’s piece.
The Music of Michael Jackson
Before the trials and the tabloids, Michael Jackson made music more worthy of chatter and awe than all of his scandals put combined. The music Jackson recorded as an adult – starting with his first, grown-up solo effort on 1979’s “Off The Wall” – made him the most beloved, visionary and musically comprehensive African-American pop idol of the last half-century. At his peak – during the 1982-4 juggernaut of Thriller – he enjoyed a popularity, and cultural impact, exceeded only by Elvis and The Beatles.
Unlike The Beatles, however, Jackson didn’t sustain an untarnished record of musical excellence. More like Elvis, he has swung wildly from genius to punchline and back again – sometimes over the course of the same CD. For that reason, it’s especially important to rate Jackson’s solo output from “most essential” to “least.” But to do so, one has to navigating the swells and dips of his talent with a surfer’s care. Ultimately, following the story of Jackson’s musical works reads as a cautionary tale, with most of his greatest efforts arriving at the start.
“Off The Wall” (1979)
Jackson’s Off The Wall had the brashness of the truest debut. Released at the close of the ‘70s when he was just 21 years old, “Wall” not only established Jackson as a man – instead of the boy he’d been with his brothers – it set the bar high for all of his solo albums to come.
Though the album arrived at the pinnacle of disco — and so incorporated its swirling strings and club-driven beats — the sound Jackson and producer Quincy Jones devised seems in no way tied to its time. Opening cut, “Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough,” sets the tone, starting with Jackson lost to his passion in a half-stuttered speech that spews over a bass line punching with funk. From there, strings swing in, a guitar begins its sexy sway and the bass takes flight, Jackson topping them with an orgasmic cry.
There’s a low-down quality to the needs expressed here, tempered by an elegance in both Jones’ production and Jackson’s fleet falsetto. It’s forceful and beautiful at once, a balance that enlivened all ten tracks on “Wall.” Jones brought a jazz sophistication to the arrangements, especially in the liquid keyboards of “I Can’t Help It” and the sneaky tune of “Rock With You.”
Given the album’s rare unification of pop, jazz, funk and disco, it’s no wonder it sold over 5 million copies and nabbed an armload of Grammys. It also established the pattern and style most observers felt Jackson perfected on Thriller. To me, however, the freshness of the sound, and the surprise of its maturity, makes “Wall” even more cherishable than the deservedly worshipped work that followed.
“Thriller” (1982)
Buoyed by the mega-success of Off The Wall, Jackson and producer Jones sought to up the stakes in every way with “Thriller.” The songs stretched on longer, the beats hit harder, and the melodies swung for the rafters.
While all those elements may have aligned in perfect harmony, there’s no way Thriller would have had the history-altering impact it had without a host of other factors, chief among them Jackson’s groundbreaking videos for “Billie Jean” and “Beat It,” along with Jackson’s performance of the moonwalk on the Motown 25th Anniversary Special — a feat that made him seem not only to defy gravity but to transcend the bounds of humanity.
Just as “Don’t Stop” did for “Off The Wall,” the new disc’s “Wanna Be Starting Something” kicked things off decisively, declaring its fortitude and durability right in its title. The bass line’s rhythm had both dance-floor resonance and pop panache. But for an album with just ten tracks, there’s a bit of filler here as well. “The Girl Is Mine” repeats the trick on “Wall” of bringing Paul McCartney in to contribute to a track (as well as to bolster Jackson’s attempt to equate himself with a Beatle). And while the title track may be propulsive, the use of Vincent Price as a narrator smacks of kitsch.
Still, not since the Stones scored a one/two punch with the singles “Bitch” and “Brown Sugar” in 1971 has a pop act had the back-to-back brilliance of “Billie Jean” and “Beat It.” The former boasted rhythms and hooks like nothing else, while “Beat It” brought rock ‘n roll into Jackson’s realm with an organic power he has never equaled. Popularity isn’t necessarily a measure of excellence (I call to the stand “Frampton Comes Alive”), but in the case of Thriller, the disc’s commercial dominance equals its role as peerless pop.
“Bad” (1987)
Michael Jackson had already started to look strikingly different in a video for the song “Bad” that preceded the album’s release. His nose had been thinned to achieve a regal refinement, his chin seemed more chiseled and his eyes widened into a scared, doe-in-the-headlights stare. But if all those alterations signaled the start of a long, and increasingly alarming, series of self-mutilations, those acts had yet to seriously mar his art. Perhaps hobbled by the impossibility of following up Thriller, Jackson and producer Jones did choke on the opening of Bad. It begins awkwardly, with the repetitive title track. But the quality of the melodies ticks up sharply from there; Jackson stressed melodic pop this time over the more daring dance rhythms or jazzier twists of the disc’s predecessors. There’s a lighter sound to songs like “The Way You Make Me Feel,” “Liberian Girl,” or the sweet ballad “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.”
On the other hand, “Another Part of Me” hits the dance floor hard and recalls the more undulating parts of Off The Wall, while “Smooth Criminal” expands on the dynamics and tension of “Billie Jean” with a riffing texture all its own.
Still, one song (“Man in the Mirror”) indicates the megalomania to come. Like many compositions that aim to shed light on the travails of the world, the song in fact amounts to an overheated reach for “importance,” a needy bid for the star to be seen as both a “serious artist” and a “good person.” The lyrics also seem ironic in the extreme, given Jackson’s new look: at this point, the star wasn’t trying to spiritually elevate what he saw in the mirror, but to physically erase it. But, at least for now, he still had a hold on his creative soul.
“Dangerous” (1991)
Jackson made one truly dangerous move on this album: He broke with collaborator Quincy Jones to hook up with “new jack swing” producer-of-that moment Teddy Riley. No wonder many sounds on the CD seem stuck in their time – especially those on the percussive end, including the ‘90s slapping rhythm of “Why You Wanna Trip On Me,” or the hollow, popping beat of “In The Closet.” What saves the albums are the melodic hooks in its more fluid tracks. “Remember The Time” has the swank of the hits off Wall, along with a bass line that demands movement.
Unfortunately, by this time in Jackson’s career we have to deal with too many songs about saving humanity (“Jam,” “Planet Earth” or “Heal The World”), not to mention a racial harmony number (“Black And White”) so over-stated, even the subtext of Jackson’s own crossover career can’t lend it nuance. Worse still is the tear-jerker “Gone Too Soon” which, if played at a funeral, would more likely inspire eye-rolls than tears.
Even with some of the album being unlistenable, Dangerous shows Jackson’s continued brio as a singer, not to mention his power as a rhythmic force – one that deserves better than Riley’s gimmicky beats.
“Blood on the Dance Floor” (1997)
Michael Jackson made an interesting move one year after looking back on his HIStory hits-and-more-set: He decided to let a group of star DJs have their way with six of his less celebrated songs, lending them each a trace of hip. Deconstruction specialists like Tony Moran, David Morales, Todd Terry and Wyclef Jean fiddled with with fairly recent Jackson tracks like “This Time Around,” “Stranger In Moscow” and “Earth Song.” It wasn’t his best material, but the added rhythms gave them at least a bit more verve. “Money” gets a spacey new sheen from Farley and Heller. Terry goosed “Stranger In Moscow” with a deep house beat. And even the icky “Earth Song” gained something from Hani’s trance-like new beat. To this, Jackson added five fresh songs, all of which only show a further ebbing of his originality.
“HIStory: Past Present & Future” (1995)
Michael Jackson didn’t do himself any favors by configuring HIStory as a double CD. Its first disc unfurls a hugely impressive collection of greatest hits. The second offers 15 new songs that don’t fare at all well by comparison. Jackson produced a lot of the new work himself, and since self-awareness and self-criticism have never been his strong points, it’s small wonder many tracks stumble into self-indulgence.
The new music’s main draw came in “Scream,” a tete-a-tete between Michael and sister Janet (then a bigger, and far hipper, star). Unfortunately, their union sounded shrill and overblown, even as produced by Janet’s normally on-point sonic sculptors, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. From there, things go downhill fast. Much of the music plays either to Jackson’s cornier or more self-righteous sides. For the former, we have “Earth Song” (a condescending environmentalist tome). For the latter, there’s “Tabloid Junkie” (about his problems, not ours), plus a swipe at an old business manager who allegedly did him wrong: “D.S.”
The cover of “Come Together” once again represents a strained attempt for Jackson to sell himself as a one man Fab Four, while “You Are Not Alone” (penned by R. Kelly) and “Childhood” (from the movie “Free Willie”) break the bank on kitsch. It all skids to a sad close in “Smile,” a cover of the song associated with Charlie Chaplin. Jackson cries through the piece in a way so self-pitying and solipsistic he seems almost entirely lost to us by now.
“Invincible” (2001)
Quick: name one song from this album. Even the most ardent pop fans would have trouble – and for good reason. Nothing on Invincible sticks. One sign of trouble from the start: You’ll find the most crowded songwriting credits on any Jackson disc of his adult career, indicating its over-thought, over-worked nature. The beats on the disc – many of which were created by Rodney Jerkins – seem even more mechanical than the ones Teddy Riley devised for Dangerous. On top of that, the songs that Jerkins and so many others penned seem like flat re-workings of pieces we’ve heard from the star before. At one point, (the finale, “Threatened”) Jackson drags in an old Rod Serling voice-over to try and revive the commercial ka-ching of Vincent Price’s turn on “Thriller.”
Even Jackson’s voice seems to have diminished. He sounds uncomfortably pinched, perhaps as a result of his apparent nose and facial work. The result brings to mind an actress who has pulled her face so tight she’s incapable of her greatest and most necessary asset: expression.
hmmph…what a long piece…never really liked the guy or his music. a freak show at best , child molester at worst. and the new pricing policy at emusic…that sucks too..
I think I can honestly say that Michael Jackson has zero effect on my life. And I’m not even saying that to be mean or insensitive.
another great example of Sony using eMusic’s editorial team as their new advertising space.
You guys are bitter and show little to no knowledge of music if you think Michael Jackson had no effect on your life or music habits.
Take your indie elitist attitudes elsewhere, like back to the 80’s and 90’s from whence it came. I know I was sick of it then and have no tolerance for it now.
I liked the feature a lot. And this — “another great example of Sony using eMusic’s editorial team as their new advertising space” — is absurdly off the mark. If anything, I’m very encouraged by this piece, precisely because Farber didn’t pull any punches, and criticized, sometimes harshly, about 50% of Jackson’s catalogue. If you needed him to say Billie Jean, Beat It, Off The Wall, or Don’t Stop ‘Till You Get Enough were BAD songs, just to reaffirm eMusic’s independent spirit, then you can have that spirit (and I’m someone who LOVES eMusic’s independent focus). If this is a representative example of the way eMusic’s editorial staff is going to cover Sony’s titles, I’ll be happy.
BTW, this line — “At his peak . . . he enjoyed a popularity, and cultural impact, exceeded only by Elvis and The Beatles.” — is 100% OTM, as is Farber drawing the sharper comparison between Jackson and Elvis in terms of the uneven nature of the quality of their work.
Double BTW: Triller and Off The Wall are among the very best pop masterpieces of all time, and the songs from Thriller I mention above — especially Billie Jean — detonated over the culture like an atom bomb. Aside from When Doves Cry and Smells Like Teen Spirit (and, I suppose for a select few, Welcome To The Jungle), I can’t think of a song in my lifetime that had anything close to the cultural impact of Billie Jean.
I’m surprised there isn’t a mention of his videos. For me, his music and the art of his music videos are inseparable. In many ways, this cinematic presentation that married performance and narrative – if not shock – made him distinctly different from elvis, or the beatles.
Zak:
And what precisely are you going to do, now that you’ve decided you aren’t going to tolerate it? How self-important can you possibly be?
Considering indies are the elite, I’d say elitism is justified.
Bingo. If you are too young or dumb to not realize what a gigantic influence MJ had on popular music, it’s time to check in your music lover card.
Similarly, if you can listen to Billie Jean or PYT and not get up and dance, there is something wrong with you.
This is coming from somebody that loves Chocolate Synthesizer just as much as Thriller.
There’s something wrong with me.
Dave said so.
Am still a big fan of “Off the Wall” which in retrospect, from the standpoint of pure musicality, turns out to be the high point of his career. “Thriller” was a huge hit due to the accompanying videos, wherein he discovered that dance and pyrotechnics could multiply the entertainment value tremendously. His talents for dance and showmanship took over after which vocals took a back seat. Most of the work from there on was hollow self-indulgence, with only an occasional glimps of his true potential.
Unfortunately he could not handle the resultant fame and began an immediate descent into utter mental and physical degradation. He had more money and talent than he could manage and it consumed him. it’s a shame – MJ was a uniquely talented individual who loved to entertain and had much to offer.
Wow, glad I get to pay more to read editorials like these dealing with artists I’m already way too familiar with.
Wow. Awesome. I can’t wait until all the editorials at emusic are on artists I already know if I like or not.
first, never really liked/enjoyed jackson (solo, the 5 i kinda dug as a child)
second, did we really need a long article to tell us that off the wall, thriller & bad were his best efforts? didn’t we know that? and that he helped shape pop cultural — didn’t we know that too?
third, quincy jones was a major part of jacksons success, i think the post bears that out without saying it — but it should be said.
fourth, in h.s. michael jackson helped me appreciate the dead kennedys.
thanks,
discokvn
“Take your indie elitist attitudes elsewhere”
Like where? If there’s a place where indie snobbery belongs, this is it.
Personally, I don’t necessarily have anything against Michael Jackson or the fact that he’s discussed here. But I think this is an intriguing object lesson in the potential for the more massive elements of the Sony catalogue to come in and overwhelm, if not completely displace, the eMusic culture and business. Because he’s not just being discussed here, he’s doing business here now. I have to ask myself, do we really need this? Aren’t there already enough places where His Badness can be marketed?
I’m looking forward to having access to some parts of the Sony catalogue here, but this is clearly an example of the potential downside.
Some things that non-angry emusicers know about those who are angry at the changes that have been made and will be made:
1. They are mad. Really, unbelievably, undeniably MAD!!!!
2. They are punk as fuck, and want nothing to do with any note of music that has touched the Sony label. It’s all garbage. And for that which is not garbage, they’ve heard every bit of it and know every nook and cranny. They have actually ranked all of it from most worthy to least worthy, and have already purchased that which lies above the median of quality. So they can in no way benefit from what the Sony label might bring to emusic.
3. They think that $.18 is the only price point for digital music. Anything above that price point is an absolute rip-off.
4. They will urinate on anything that emusic creates, puts out to the public, or releases from the date of the changes forward. Everything must be brought down.
5. There is no topic that can’t be twisted to become a platform for them to continue to scream the things they’ve been screaming for the last month.
6. Even though they can simply opt out of the service, and move on, they much prefer to stick around and complain constantly.
You can continue to post all kinds of things all over the place that repeat the above points (and some others that I have probably left out), as it is a free country, and one can go about ranting and urinating for infinitude if one wishes. But seriously, you all cannot possibly be THIS angry about the changes that have been made at little ol’ emusic, can you?
I fully expect that those of you who continue to bluster away at such a trivial issue (in the grand scheme of things) show, at minimum, an equal amount of indignation at the very serious injustices that occur around this globe on a minute-by-minute basis. And don’t read this in such a way that you think I’m saying I don’t lose perspective way too regularly myself. However, after a week of acting like an asshole, I tend to pull myself together and realize that I’ve lost perspective (like maybe even now, for instance).
You all just keep going forever without any stopping, and I’m really beginning to wonder if you’ll ever quit. Will you?
By the way, I fucking love early Michael Jackson.
“They are punk as fuck, and want nothing to do with any note of music that has touched the Sony label. It’s all garbage. And for that which is not garbage, they’ve heard every bit of it and know every nook and cranny.”
You forgot a third attitude: For those of us who can’t abide the idea of our money going to an organization as corrupt as the RIAA, we can just load up p2p or torrent to download Sony material. Either way, it being on here is useless and space-consuming.
“an equal amount of indignation at the very serious injustices that occur around this globe on a minute-by-minute basis.”
Cop-out. You can instantly shoot down any concern at all with the same old tired attitude of “Well, more important things are happening elsewhere.” Get beaten up by a cop and denied legal council? Screw it, there are protests in Iran right now! Your wife is sleeping with your brother? To hell with that, there are people starving somewhere! Michael Jackson died? Big deal, millions of people die every day!
Oh wait, that last one I actually agree with….
To Birty: You have brilliantly defined and dissected the juvenile caterwauling that has characterized most of the negative reaction to the changes at emusic.
To RadialSkid: Why are indies the elite? Considering the populist tendencies of a lot of indie music (the K records crew, to name just one example that can still be found on Emusic despite the supposed new corporate hegemony), isn’t the idea of indie elitism silly? Also, if you think major labels are so corrupt, why would you want to own the products of their diseased corporate philosophy, even if you obtained them via your shiny new file sharing applications? Aren’t you somehow implicated by enjoying a product that was created using funds from an organization you consider illegitimate? Finally, why will the addition of major-label content be any more “useless and space consuming” than the thousands of self-released records that are posted on the website every year and then ignored by the majority of emusic subscribers?
Growing up in the 60s, my musical life was all about The Beatles — trading cards, Yellow Submarine lunchbox, singles, albums, all of it.
I listened to pretty much everything BUT Motown (other than Stevie, to this day, Mtown = yawwwwn for me), but this suburban white kid wanted to BE Michael Jackson. We were the same age, yet he was so icy cool and self-possessed when talking on camera, until he turned hot and just plain possessed when he sang. He sang with as much conviction as anyone at the time, and that bit of shouting at the end of ABC exerted a sexual authority that far exceeded virtually anything of the time.
I was amazed that he could stand toe to toe with any adult, smart and together beyond his years, without being an overly precocious brat (cough*Donny*cough). I was amazed at how comfortable he seemed (irony alert) in his own skin, and how connected he was to (irony alert) his own body.
Appearances, deception, etc. I think his disconnection with the truth about himself and his body undid him, almost identically to the way it did another prodigy, Billy Preston…another story for another day….but God DAMN! It was so incredibly overwhelming to see what was possible for an 11 year-old to be.
Speaking of which, I’ve seen barely a word about how big a deal it was that ANY black boy was on TV at all. It was a remarkably obvious part of “the Black Experience” — ahem — BEING FUCKING ELEVEN IN 1969 — that simply hadn’t been seen before in any big way. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to be Michael, but there were millions of black kids who’d never seen themselves on TV in any form. I can’t even imagine how powerful this must have been for them,
Not that I paid much attention to his music again until Off The Wall…and I was completely pulled in. Same deal. I was 21, and even though I was working in vaguely creative directions, I couldn’t imagine what put him so much further ahead of anything I’d ever seen in a 21 year old. I’m right about that, right? Has any 21 year old ever put together his current musical scene in a way that so sharpened and deepened it? I don’t have anything to add to what Jim said about it, except an “Amen” that this is a *better* record than Thriller, if admittedly a less *important* one.
Like Jim, I also remember thinking at the time that fully half of Thriller was useless…but what was good was shockingly good.
Looking back, Elvis did something that nobody else will again: top the country, rock and roll and R&B charts simultaneously. Yet one of the limits of Elvis’s accomplishments is that the door closed quite quickly after that. Not even Motown could keep the door between “race” music and “pop” music more than ajar. Michael kicked it down.
Agreed with Sarah that the videos, especially Beat It (with that searing Slash solo) and Billie Jean, were even more important for breaking down these barriers. Those two clips remade MTV which, for all the caricature it was to come, had a huge role in erasing the line between “race” music and “pop” music more completely than we could imagine, even while it was happening.
Although we sure all got sick of that Thriller video, didn’t we? That had no business being so popular for so long. Yet it remained there for us to compare and contrast with what he was becoming. It came to seem that the Thriller video marked the beginning of the end.
I still can’t quite figure out how this is related to what happened later, but I was teaching 4 year olds the year that Thriller landed, and it was eerie to me the power that Michael had over them. Sure, I wanted to BE Michael Jackson, but I didn’t do anything about it. These kids were moonwalking before they could tie their own shoes, and they MEANT it. They were in his thrall.
And seriously, if you watched the Motown 25 special with a loved one, or even a LIKED one, within arm’s reach, that memories of the short-term, uhm, “cultural” influence of that moonwalk thing will still bring a smile to your face.
As for Michael’s indieness, he became most interesting when he broke away from the machine, writing his own best work, working with one of the most independent-minded producers of the past 3 generations. (Just ask the independent-minded Ray Charles.) Things got weird and ugly way too fast, but he was at the wheel for it. He started working for the machine, but he eventually made the machine work for HIM.
As for the self-absorbed cartoon raging pseudo-cred stupidity being spewed here and the message boards, I can only hope that those morons stop posting when their accounts expire. My celebration of Indepents Day will be the day that we’re free of their inanity. Happy July, everyone!
@ RadialSkid:
mhulot beat me to it, so I’ll let him/her say it for me: “Also, if you think major labels are so corrupt, why would you want to own the products of their diseased corporate philosophy, even if you obtained them via your shiny new file sharing applications? Aren’t you somehow implicated by enjoying a product that was created using funds from an organization you consider illegitimate?”
:: RadialSkid said, “Cop-out. You can instantly shoot down any concern at all with the same old tired attitude of ‘Well, more important things are happening elsewhere.’ ::
Fair enough. I don’t like it when people use that argument on me, so I shouldn’t have used it, perhaps. However, what I was trying to imply is that some sort of anger seems wholly justified, but to raise the level of anger to the sustained screeching that’s been a part of the emusic community for the last month seems a little out of balance. I get pissed off some when someone cuts me off in traffic, but I don’t go home and write letters to the editor of my local newspaper for the next two weeks about the injustice of it all. I mumble under my breath, and move on. It just seems like you all have made your point. We get it.
@ mhulot:
Thanks.
“Considering indies are the elite . . . ”
My favorite genre has been “college/underground/indie” rock since at least my freshman year of college, and I far prefer the indie/DIY aesthetic than I do the aesthetic of major-label produced music, but this notion of “indie = elite/majors = subpar” is absurd.
For many reasons that can’t be imprinted by hand or thought – History remains his greatest album – for me. Coming in the period of the murder of Izhak Rabin – and speaking about world peace in such humble way. Also talking about homosexuals oppression. A very stong and political effort. Mostly thanks to the Suzy impressive last song (for those of you who listen to the album in full).
I truely love this album – as much as MJ himself loved it (and thought it was his greatest work – wich it was!). The failure of this work in the market is what really killed him. Even though it took 14 years of a waste of energy and time till the final collapse.
I would like now to listen to this album again. Impressive and unique. To celebrate the creation of Michael Jackson. Always dear and very well understood for us here in Israel (where he belong at first). Did a brilliant work here on many people while being on stage in tel aviv.
The job of a trubatour that’s something we should all honor and cherish forever and more.
TROY
why do people always credit slash for beat it? credit eddie van halen for that one. slash did some work on the dangerous album, not thriller.
anywho, i liked birt’s post and agree that people can either have an open mind or they can be hardline against the sony addition, but if they’re just going to complain about it without bringing any constructive criticism to the table, i wish they would just move on.
Tim, I really liked your post. The kind of writing that keeps me coming back to 17dots. Troy, you also gave a very interesting and unique perspective. I’ve never really listened to much Michael Jackson, but I do recognize his importance, and am going to have to give it a shot.
Bizarre that anyone would credit Slash for Beat It. He was 17 when the album was coming out. I can see crediting Jackson’s live guitarist Jennifer Batten, but Slash?
Definitely bored of the self-righteous caterwauling. I don’t see how anyone could invest this much time into such empty vitriol. This place isn’t worth that kind of emotional investment. Perhaps I’m naive thinking this is about enjoying music.
to the “self-righteous caterwaulers” (do i smell a meme?) and the “equally self-righteous sick of the self-righteous caterwaulers caterwaulers” i got one thing to say:
don’t stop till you get enough.
Nice write up on Michael Jackson – American Icon. Wether you like him or not – his influence touched more artists in his lifetime than one might suspect. However, emusic dosn’t offer any of his music. The reason used to be that you could easily get the major label stuff elsewhere – emusic was a place for the explorer who could find tens of thousands of indie and underground artists of all genres. NOT ANY MORE. The big guns are moving in to raise the subscription rates so we can have all the Michael Jackson we want. emusic – us explorers don’t want SONY/BMG moving in. We don’t care about Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Journey, Kansas, Chicago or Boston. emusic was really a wonderful thing while it lasted. Goodbye.
mhulot and birdy:
“Also, if you think major labels are so corrupt, why would you want to own the products of their diseased corporate philosophy, even if you obtained them via your shiny new file sharing applications?”
Generally I don’t. I most frequently ignore major-label music altogether. However, to immediately discount legitimate music just because of who publishes it, although tempting, deprives one of much of the decent music from the era before the RIAA went batshit insane (roughly the late 1990s). For this, I use my “shiny new file sharing applications.” Mind you, again, this is rare. I haven’t downloaded any major-label music in about a year, at least.
“Finally, why will the addition of major-label content be any more “useless and space consuming” than the thousands of self-released records that are posted on the website every year and then ignored by the majority of emusic subscribers?”
The difference: I actually like discovering those self-released records and listening to the samples of them. Sony, on the other hand, is tainted by being from Sony. Downloading it here would mean my money going to them, which means wading through pages of music that is basically off-limits.
MAN muisci is what brings us all togather we still live in a place of hate muisc is life and peace and M J did it all he brought people togather and made u think about your self and life R I P MJ the world is about money and strif he brought peace and yes fun to listen to his muisc is a pleasure I am glad i saw him before he was big
Good posts Birdy. And folks, remember the prices aren’t just going up for Sony, they’re also going up to help the sneering, dull indie-rockers you all love so much.
I like a lot of later Michael Jackson tunes as well and am hoping all his albums will be available next month. I’m sure emusic wishes they had them right now.
oh, emusic. lovely is the feeling now, but soon things will change around here. there’s a fever, temperature’s rising now. but emusic signed a contract: it’s the vow that makes it happen, ask no questions why. we feel heartbreak: the enemy despise. but we still have a few days left. emusic brought me great joy in the past and which i will remember eternal (ah, eternal!) so for now: love shines in my eyes. so, let the love take us through the hours. i won’t be complaining. (no? no.) ’cause their love is alright. as far as my membership… i won’t stop. well, at least not until…
Nothing against MJ, but I never got him and I grew up in the 80s. Sure, his stuff with the Jackson Five and ‘Off the Wall’ was cool, but it went in the closet with the Grease Soundtrack when I discovered the Clash. He seemed juvenile to me at best. I’ve already quit eMu, but I checked back to see what was going on, and this is precisely what I was afraid of. eMu (and 17 Dots) are just another couple of pimps of the mass culture pap.
You want to read capsules of MJ’s albums? Go to iTunes, or Wal-Mart, or Rhapsody, or any of the big corporate sites that exist to feed the masses their unchallenging pap. Nothing said above about MJ hasn’t been said about 1000 times before.
Sigh.
I perceived eMu as a refuge from that stuff. It’s just sad now.
Somebody give Martin a hand-job. He was too cool for Micheal Jackson in the 80s and that’s real special.
I can see that you are a man of sophistication and grace Telewiper.
1) The start of Sony’s takeover. Like any music lover didn’t know or have opinions on MJ. This is now the editorial slant. And, of course, they’ll make it nicer before they post it.
2) The hatred and contempt by many posters of the “elite” indie labels and those who like that type of music. They backbone of this site since it’s foundation are now “sneering, dull indie-rockers”
—–
Both of these are what I feared from Sony’s addition, not the price hike. I expected it to take a while before seeing both so plainly.
I’ll stick it through the first month, but if this is the future…
I thought it was a very well written article as well. I had nevr thought much about the “Off the Wall” album and now I am curious about it. If other Sony artists are given this kind of coverage, I’m all for it. Regardless of what you think about him, he is one of the major artists of all time and this coverage was worthy of his legacy (musically of course)
Martin, nah I’m just getting really exhausted listening to people moan on and on and on and on about how eMusic isn’t fulfilling some fabled “indie” mission.
This is one article pertaining to one major event in music, and yet it’s somehow evidence that eMusic is no longer going to talk about independent music. We haven’t seen any drop in the amount of editorial content about real indie labels and other things that fascinate the editors (the reason I come to 17dots). But, one article about Micheal Jackson, on the week that he died, is a sign that eMusic is totally owned by Sony. Of course irony of all ironies there’s a thread on the message board criticizing eMusic about the lack of front-page recognition for Jackson’s death on their main page. There is even one comment saying that 17dots isn’t good enough recognition.
This is a well written article about a man who had a massive effect on pop music. So you don’t listen to pop music. I don’t listen to a lot of pop music either, but it’s still an interesting and informative read. It’s especially interesting to see it from this angle.
I perceived eMusic to be a community of music fans, and people fascinated by music. That’s what I seen in this editorial and what I’ve seen in every other editorial that’s been posted on 17dots and eMusic’s main site. I’ve never seen them as discriminating against major label content, but instead centered on eMusic content and what’s on their mind. At least give these guys some time to see where they are going before condemning them.
“We haven’t seen any drop in the amount of editorial content about real indie labels and other things that fascinate the editors”
6/7 of the Comming Soon announcements are Sony.
3 of the top 5 records on the charts have no reviews or coverage. This includes acts like Dinosaur Jr. and Sunsent Rubdown that it seems like would have been covered before.
If not for the phrase “we had assigned as part of our upcoming Sony coverage” I might not worry. But I do feel there has been a significant drop off in reviews and other editorial contents since Sony was announced–and it looks like that when new content comes, it will all be Sony.
But, now that I’ve had time to think, I probably shouldn’t have posted complaints on this thread. Even though I wasn’t a fan, I understand MJs fans need to grieve. So I apologize if I seemed dismissive of the man.
Looks like emusic is positioning itself to take advantage of the Michael Jackson death windfall. Nice.
Yeah, this article has nothing at all to do with Sony infiltrating emusic…
Except for the blatant tags at the end of the article:
“Filed under: Sony, music, r&b”
Here I though an appropriate tag would be “Michael Jackson, music, r&b”
so, i’m sure if you’re clicking on this link you’re probably wanting to read about MJ… ha! just kidding. you came here for a fist fight, so let me point out that a great soundtrack for a fistfight is now on emusic. actually its more than that: it’s ONE OF THE BEST ALBUMS OF THE 90s.
i’m talkin about YANK CRIME:
http://www.emusic.com/album/Drive-Like-Jehu-Yank-Crime-MP3-Download/11496919.html
if you haven’t heard it you have exactly ONE FEW HOURS to download it before you cancel your accounts in disgust, and believe me this is one you’ll want to have to get you through those lonely cold turkey nights where you alllmmooossst sign back up but NO! you won’t stoop to that. crank the Jehu.
(i figured i should point this out as nobody seems to have noticed, no reviews or ratings, which is odd. also, the new arrivals roundup seems to have ceased…. YO 17DOTS, READ THIS AT LEAST: IF YOU WANT TO CONVINCE YOUR CUSTOMERS YOU’RE STILL GOING TO HAVE AN INDIE FOCUS YOU SHOULD CONTINUE SHOWCASING INDIE MUSIC, RATHER THAN LETTING SOME CLASSIC LIKE THIS^^^^^ OR FUTURE CLASSICS LIKE “FARM” GO UNREVIEWED. THIS DOES NOT BREED CONFIDENCE. just sayin. it’s all love though. see you tomorrow!)
Emu will soon be as dead as that sorry child molester.
Reading all posts on Michael Jakson is like looking “LOOKING TROUGH THE WINDOWS, LOOKING TROUGH YOUR HEARD … “
PEOPLE ARE LIKE APPLES … some people come sweet and beautiful, some people come sour and perished …
Michael Jakson was a GREAT ARTIST, BEAUTIFUL PERSON, someone, who does not come around so often … He will be remembered by those who knows …
Those people which do spell MJ in negative way, well what to say … I feel sorry for them! These kind of people will always spell bad everything which they can not surpass due to their own personal insufficiency they been born with …
hmmmm,
as i start this thinking of who michael really really really was to me.I to in the real world went very much of the same things as mike did i’m only 7yrs older then mike however i feel like i’m 90yr’s old,yes if it wasn’t for my faith as one jehovah’s witness’s i truley can say i would have dead long before mike.You can only hide pain for just so long then it starts to eat at your very being,mike was a people pleaser,i too am one and as life goes on when people no longer want you as a person or intertain you because have listen to the back stabbers then you look for ways to keep life together childhood was snatched from mike bing bang boom,so he needed to make him i stress him again him happy but the THE WHOLE WORLD AROUND HIM WOULD NOT LET HIM HAVE IT.The world broke his spirit they broke his will much like a cowboy breaks in a wild horse he rides that horse till he breaks his freedom.Well age and the fact of drugs finished off a great boy yes i say a boy in a mans body he did it well for many years,why so he could get what he thought was love.You are in peace now michael no one can judge you but jehovah so till that gets here michael sleep for a while just short one now.
we will all miss michal jackon. my faiamly and i love him so much!!!!:)
i thank michal jackon died because he had all of those face lifts and lost blood and midsan he has been takeing.
“invincible” is what is wrong w/ big-labelled music. a pithole of $$ wasted on 1-artist to backstop sony music that came crashing down on its employees, fellow musicians, and sony itself. multi-million dollar production costs that would need to sell millions @ the old $18/cd just to break even is not smart, is not art,…its bankruptcy.
if the doctor administered that drug to michael that killed him, he must have had something to gain or why would he have done it…
I learnt a lot of interesting things and educated my self.But I really hope people would stick to the topic and be helpful to others.Not trying to be smart or what so ever but it’s just a request from someone who wants to learn.Awesome stuff though.