How come you took MJ off your avatar? What does the new one represent?
MJ will return as my avatar after the event that occurs that the avatar is referring to. I will be making a thread in 'Our Block' about it, but not for a few more days.
Until then.......210910.
Thanks for that post. It never occurred to me that they were already remixing his music. What do you think happens with his future releases? Will they be remixed or left as they were recorded? Will we have a swarm of guest artists starting to feature on his records? If they're remixed, you think some fans will have access to his originals like 'you know who' music?
LOL, they've already released....wait for it.... FIVE DISCS worth of MJ remixes by people like The Neptunes, Stargate, Dallas Austin, Frankie Knuckles, Akon, NO.ID, Sturken & Rogers, Blink 182, Salaam Remi, Polow The Don, and a fuckton of other big name producers. That's all Jackson 5/Motown era stuff though, stuff that's already been released.
It's called "Michael Jackson Remix Suite" if you want to look into it. I've only heard maybe 4-5 tracks from it so far. It doesn't interest me that much really, but I'll check it out at some stage.
Future releases, I would bet they'll release both original recorded versions and remixes too. I'd like to think that they'd only add featured artists to the remixes and not any original songs. But it seems likely that they'll reach out and get people involved.
As for bootlegging, well, Prince is the most bootlegged artist of all time, but Michael isn't that far behind. There is already a huge collectors/bootleg market for rare MJ material, and yes, there is a layer of elitism much like there is in the Tupac scene.
I have a bunch of rare and unreleased material of Michael's myself, but in the grand scheme it's not that rare. By that I mean, average MJ fan doesn't have access to this stuff, but super hardcore elitist collector wouldn't consider what I have to be ultra rare.
It's not an easy thing to assess, but some of the stuff I got recently was new to me, and I've been a big fan my whole life. Demo tapes, DAT tape rips from early sessions for various albums, alternative edits, etc.
The things in my MJ collection that I'm the most proud of though, are not so much bootleg material, but rare collectors items - my neon Moonwalker sign, my original paperback edition of Michael's autobiography, my Japanese CD single of "Smooth Criminal" with hard to find alternate mixes, my original 1969 7" vinyl of "I Want You Back", stuff like that.
By the way, I once heard a solo version of 'scream'. Was Janet added as an afterthought or was it a demo that Michael had recorded for her?
Neither. I've heard the version you talk about, and you can actually hear Janet in the background during the "make me wanna scream" line.
There is no real Michael solo version, but the version you are talking about has Michael singing some of the parts that Janet sings on the released version.
It's a misleading edit. Michael, Janet, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis all wrote and produced the song together, so it's never existed without Janet being involved. What happened was that, during the recording, many ideas were tried as far as how the vocals would be split up and who would sing what part. An engineer working on the session leaked some of these ideas and that fake "solo edit" was created.
When Michael was looking for producers to work with prior to the HIStory recording sessions beginning, Janet suggested that he work with Jam & Lewis, and so the 4 of them went into the studio together. Here's why he did this:
1. The PR buzz of a true Michael and Janet duet was too good to pass up.
Remember, by this point Michael's image had been tainted by the 1993 child abuse allegations, and Janet was a global superstar at the peak of her career, having signed a $50 million deal with Virgin Records in 1991, and selling 20 million copies of her 1993 album "janet" which had 4 top ten singles and won a grammy. Of course, in 1993 she also starred in "Poetic Justice" and did that iconic cover shoot for Rolling Stone magazine.
Janet had proven herself by this point to where a collaboration would be of mutual benefit, which is something that wouldn't be true of any other Jackson sibling. Michael was always very much aware of his family wanting to ride his coattails, but of course it was obvious that that was not the case with Janet.
2. Michael had wanted to work with Jam & Lewis for a while, but had some reservations (which I'll go into in a minute). If he had began to work with Jam & Lewis without Janet being involved, it would look like he was riding her
coattails given that she had been working exclusively with Jam & Lewis since 1986 and it was that musical partnership that made her a superstar. Michael was very impressed with the sound that Janet, Jam, and Lewis created on her albums "Control", "Rhythm Nation" and "janet.". In fact, I personally believe that Janet's song "State Of The World" from the Rhythm Nation album (1989) directly inspired Michael's "Why You Wanna Trip On Me?" from 1991's "Dangerous".
But anyway, I'm digressing a little.
So, the question that immediately springs to mind is, if Michael had been a fan of Jam & Lewis's production since 1986, why did it take him until 1995 to work with them? Well, the first reason is what I stated before - he didn't want to look like he was jumping on Janet's bandwagon. But there is a deeper reason, and it's down to a deep jealousy that was present within Michael from 1978 right up until his death just a few months ago.
So what was this jealousy about? Well, more accurately, the question is who. And the answer, is Prince. Allow me to explain.
There was barely a single artist or musician that was active in the 1980's that was not equally impressed and jealous of Prince. Prince was the single most creative force that drove the music of that decade and continues to dominate the landscape of pop music today (who do you think inspires The Neptunes, Timbaland, et al more than anyone?).
Everyone sang his praises, from the critics, to the public, to every artist you can think, black and white.
Prince's own music, the music he wrote for other artists, and the hundreds of artists attempting to emulate him dominated the charts for the entire decade. and even though Michael was the "Golden Child" so to speak, even he couldn't escape from it. Quincy Jones admitted the synth sounds on "Thriller" were inspired from the sound of Prince's "1999" album.
Even at the Jackson HQ, Prince was the most played artist. Latoya and Janet were in love with him and would listen to "Controversy" and "1999" every day. Latoya even covered Prince's "Private Joy" herself. Both black and white artists, new and established artists were covering Prince's songs and having hits with them, for example Chaka Khan's cover of "I Feel For You", Cyndi Lauper's cover of "When You Were Mine", there's plenty more. And of course, Prince dominated the charts with his own hits and songs he wrote specifically for other artists. There is not a single artist in history that has blitzed the music industry and changed it the way Prince did.
What's worth keeping in mind is that Prince's signing to Warner Brothers in 1978 was unprecedented. This guy played every instrument you can think of and produced his own material since day 1, which was literally unheard of at that time. What takes your average creative musician a few days plus added engineers and session musicians, Prince will do on his own in a few hours.
Of course, Michael always saw himself as the top dog. But although he was talented, the biggest selling artist and a commercial powerhouse the likes of which the world has never seen, it always ate him up inside that he was not the one pushing the boundaries musically. He was not the one defining the sound. He was not the one that every artist was trying to emulate, musically.
This jealousy and feeling of inadequacy led to Michael trying to get the upper hand on Prince in any way he could, but he very rarely succeeded. The reason for this is that Michael was the instigator of the rivalry, and Prince never cared one bit. He understood the situation and wasn't interested in the PR or Michael trying to "one-up" him all the time, so Michael's efforts on that front were fruitless.
Here's two examples of that:
1. We Are The World:
To me, this is one of the lamest, cheesiest things Michael ever did. I can't stand it. As much as I love MJ, I can't listen to the song. I think I've only ever listened to it a handful of times. Anyway, as you know, every major artist was invited to be a part of this project which was co-ordinated by Quincy, Michael, and Lionel. In my opinion, it was nothing more than an ego boost for Michael. All these legendary artists doing something, with him at the helm.
Prince saw through it and refused to be part of the project. The media began to attack him and call him selfish, so after the session he did offer to play a guitar part on the song but was told it wasn't necessary. Of course, calling him selfish was wrong. Prince had done, and continues to do charity work. Feeling that the cause did deserve his support - he composed and wrote a song "4 The Tears In Your Eyes" for the "USA for Africa" album itself, the album that "We Are The World" was part of. A much better song than "We Are The World", I might add.
To me, Michael used "We Are The World" as an opportunity to show off himself as being "on a higher level" to every other commercially successful artist, by being the one directing the session. Prince was not going to fall for this.
So, having failed to one-up Prince in 1985, he tries again in 1987:
2. Bad
Quincy and MJ wrote "Bad" specifically to try and get Prince to duet with Michael on it. Michael, Quincy and Michael's manager Frank Dileo kept feeding bullshit rivalry stories to the media in the hope that Prince would agree to the duet, and the PR buzz from this happening would just be intense. The two biggest stars of the decade, who people believed had an intense rivalry, working together, would have been the biggest event. But again, this was Michael trying to pull Prince into "his thing" to make him feel like he was the one in control. Again, Prince wouldn't fall for it. Prince has always been about the music, and not the PR. So, after declining the invitation of a duet, Prince (knowing that this really wasn't about music, although Michael and Quincy tried to claim it was), offered a song to Michael to record for the "Bad" album. This was a song that Prince had written called "Wouldn't You Love to Love Me". Of course, Michael's ego wouldn't allow him to sing a song that Prince had written.
So how does this all relate to Jam, Lewis and Janet? Simple.
In 1980, Prince realised that he was simply writing and recording more music than it was possible to release. Also, he was cultivating a crossover image as an artist then blended r&b with pop and rock, but he still wanted to create harder funk music as well. To circumvent this, he began to cultivate "protege" acts, something that has has continued to do for his entire career.
The very first of these acts contained some of the most talented musicians from Prince's home of Minneapolis, people that he had grown up with. This band was called The Time.
Prince envisioned that Alexander O' Neal (who would go on to be a successful singer in his own right) would be the singer, but at the first meeting to discuss the project, it was evident that Alex and Prince would not get along. So, Morris Day, originally envisioned as the drummer of the band, became the lead vocalist.
It was highly ironic that the members of The Time were such incredible musicians - because on their albums, Prince more or less played and sang every note, then Morris copied his vocals to sing the leads.
Of course, they had to be great musicians to be able to play all the material live. The Time would go on to have a whole heap of hits (including Get It Up (later covered by TLC), Cool (later covered by Snoop), 777-9311 (heavily sampled and chorus used by Tupac), Jungle Love, and many more) without Prince being credited for any of it (he wanted to do it anonymously, and denied any involvement, despite his backing vocals being clearly evident lol, and the production style clearly being the "Minneapolis Sound" that Prince had created)
The albums were said to have been produced by "Jamie Starr", and despite media reporting that this was Prince, he went to great lengths to deny it.
Anyway, after the second album by The Time - (What Time Is It?) - the group's very talented keyboard player and bass guitarist were itching for some creative involvement.
They used their growing fame as members of The Time to score their own record deal as producers, and used Prince's "Minneapolis Sound", adding their own styles to produce other acts, the first being a band called The SOS Band, who's first hit with this duo producing them was a song you may know, called "Just Be Good To Me" (pretty sure 'Pac sampled this at some point as well).
On their way back to a Time gig after a recording session with the SOS Band, they were late for the gig due to a snowstorm, and Prince fired them. Guessed who these two are yet?
The keyboardist - James "Jimmy Jam" Harris III.
The bass player - Terry Lewis.
Two years later, their label introduced them to Janet Jackson, and the rest is history. For the record, the first two Janet/Jam&Lewis albums - "Control" and "Rhythm Nation" are PURE Minneapolis sound, so much so that Prince once jammed on the groove to Janet's "What Have Yo u Done For Me Lately" at a gig, then jokingly said to the crowd - "Who wrote that?"
So there you have it.
Michael was so jealous of Prince that he would not even work with Jam & Lewis for years because Prince had given them their shot and they'd shot to success by utilizing Prince's sound.
What I find the most unfortunate is that Michael was never able to let it go.
It's not coincidence that Michael wanted to do an O2 residency after Prince did 21 sold out shows at the O2 in 2007 (which I went to 5 of, and even met him briefly - best day ever)
Here's a story from Kenny Ortega, the director of the "This Is It" concerts.
Supposedly Michael showed up late for a rehearsal one day looking very tired. Kenny asked him what was up, and Michael explained that he was up till 5am working on new music because he had felt inspiration from a "higher power", and when you feel that inspiration you have to act on it.
Kenny then said something along the lines of "Michael, can you make a pact with your higher power to hold all these ideas until after we're done with the shows?"
Michael's reply? "No. Then he might give them to Prince."
I was shocked when I read this. I just can't believe that he was never able to let this go.
Supposedly, they actually got along in person though, somewhat. There's stories that have come out about MJ going to Paisley Park (Prince's home/recording complex in Minneapolis) and shooting hoops there with Prince.
Also word has it that Prince is going to start playing "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" in his live sets, which would be very cool. I don't have any way of verifying that rumor yet though.
Anyway, class of funk 101 is over! lol
Never knew about that. See? Thats why I'm asking you so many questions
Was that diss track released?
Yes, "Word To The Badd!" was released, although some of the more inflammatory lyrics from the original version were removed. Jermaine and Michael did not talk for a few years after this.
