Michael Jackson is "evil"

Thriller was the first album I really listened to.my brother got my parents to buy the lp when he was 4 and I was 2.circa 1986.my parents had stopped bothering listening to records at that stage,they kept theirs from the 70s in the attic.i loved it and in a way it really informed a lot of my musical taste (post-disco is still one of my favourite eras of music). was a fan of Jackson's music until dangerous came out - I eagerly watched the UK tv debut of the black or white video - and I found it a bit disappointing. The paedophile accusations fully put me off him completely and when I was old enough to think about it seriously I assumed his guilt.

Bad sucks, he needed Quincy

― valet doberman (Jon not Jon), Sunday, January 27, 2019

Jones produced it too.

Bad is great

https://media.giphy.com/media/k0dx6E0VoQZdC/giphy.gif

Jeez I’m embarrassed now. I got it into my head bad was the first w/o Quincy. Still sucks.

ahahahaha velko

lol

I know this is pretty controversial, but I have to say despite what unperson etc say, imho Michael Jackson was a pretty big deal in the 1980s

Michael Jackson was probably the biggest celebrity of our lifetime!

My being just a few years younger than MJ, he'll always be that kid who was on all those early '70s variety shows with his brothers ("You 40-year-old midget," as Sammy Davis Jr called him in the J5 TV debut).

No way you're younger than MJ

MJ was a boomer.

Born in 1985, the only MJ joke I remember from high school is: 'What did the woman say to Michael Jackson at the beach? "Excuse me sir, you're in my son".'

bad is great

shit man even earth song is a tune

MJ was a boomer.

― nickn, Monday, 28 January 2019 06:04 (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol btw

There is mnemonic device for remembering all the sizes of wine bottles that is this same type of Michael Jackson joke. This is my only contribution to this thread.

Michael Jackson Really Makes Small Boys Nervous
Magnum
Jeroboam
Rehoboam
Methuselah
Salmanazar
Balthazar
Nebuchadnezzar

https://pitchfork.com/news/michael-jackson-estate-denounces-new-sundance-documentary-on-alleged-child-sex-abuse/

but if they’re perjurers then when they stated under oath that nothing happened...

anyhoo yeah, cui bono etc etc

the one I remember is "What's the difference between Michael Jackson and a plastic bag? One is white and harmful to children, and the other holds groceries"

I loved Thriller as a kid (I was in 4th grade when it came out), all the kids in the schoolyard had vinyl Beat It jackets — I had the red one, others had the black one. But I started to sour on him with Bad — he looked different, the songs were colder, there was just something off. There's a joy and excitement still to Off the Wall/Thriller, while everything that followed seems calculated and creepy.

Dangerous is the album I listen to most, but what do I know

The plastic surgery was disturbing, it’s true. Around Bad seems to be when he lost any resemblance to his actual appearance—before he had a nose job and stuff but it wasn’t transformative

And for me, there was a plausible deniability (maybe not so plausible in retrospect) that the abuse allegations were unfounded, that he was a weird man-child but that it hadn't necessarily been sexual. That maybe he was asexual, which of course seems naive now.

All his attempts to be sexy or provocative felt like they came from a place of insecurity - the crotch grabbing, that weird kiss w/ Lisa Maria Presley at the VMAs, even stuff like "Billie Jean", kinda...I would've totally believed he was asexual

It seems like a lot of people were willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt despite his eccentricity/creepiness, and that this seemingly came from a compassionate place. It sucks fhat this generosity was misguided.

There *was* a kind of gentleness about him that doesn’t square with the image of a predator. However the evidence is what it is—it mostly points to his guilt

It's disturbing to consider this "compassionate place" was actually a well-funded PR campaign to burnish his image and discredit his accusers.

It seems like a lot of people were willing to extend him the benefit of the doubt despite his eccentricity/creepiness...

Yeah, or the PR campign exploited people’s desire to not think the worst of someone who was obviously suffering himself

idk it didn't seem like any of his celebrity friends were willing to say a single negative word about him either

eccentricity and asexuality was also jimmy savile's cover btw

There *was* a kind of gentleness about him that doesn’t square with the image of a predator. However the evidence is what it is—it mostly points to his guilt

― Trϵϵship, Monday, 28 January 2019 15:45 (eleven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

pls dont have an image of a predator

https://www.sideshowtoy.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/predator-jungle-hunter-maquette-sideshow-thumb-300158-2.jpg

Yeah, you can see where the nose job caved in there.

Definitely asexual though.

Michael Jackson was probably the biggest celebrity of our lifetime!

can't really argue with this. he was like the Beatles if they fucked little kids and only had about one album's worth of classic material

My experiences were similar to others here born in the early '70s, though I never heard of that pledge of allegiance variant until just now. I also didn't know about the "Mony Mony" chant until maybe 4-5 years ago.

I didn't seriously get into MJ's work until my late teens. I heard Thriller in full for the first time the same week I first heard John Coltrane's "Live" At The Village Vanguard and Cheap Trick's debut. That was a good week (though I was already intimately familiar with 7 of the album's 9 songs, inescapable as they were in '82-'84). I never liked Bad much, and Quincy needed MJ far more than MJ needed Quincy, as Destiny, Triumph, and MJ's home demos make abundantly clear.

I went back and forth on his innocence/guilt at the time, probably steered too much by an Ishmael Reed column which seemed to lay out a convincing case for his innocence...but then, Reed also repeatedly called Anita Hill a liar, so I should've known better than to take him seriously on MJ.

Reed has some p odd opinions (altho I love a bunch of his books)

Mumbo Jumbo and The Last Days of Louisiana Red are absolutely all-time for me, but...yeah, he's fucked up on some things.

yeah those two are incredible

Reed is both a crank and a treasure it’s true

the one I remember is "What's the difference between Michael Jackson and a plastic bag? One is white and harmful to children, and the other holds groceries"

― frogbs, Monday, January 28, 2019 6:55 AM (two hours ago)

ooh damn! that's a good one!

Another one I remember: "Why did Michael Jackson get a speeding ticket on the way to Sears? Because there was a huge sale: boys pants, half off"

Michael Jackson was probably the biggest celebrity of our lifetime!
can't really argue with this. he was like the Beatles if they fucked little kids and only had about one album's worth of classic material
― Οὖτις, Monday, 28 January 2019 16:13 (one hour ago) Permalink

off the wall and thriller, my dude.

the common thread might be that reed is kind of an old-school misogynist, no? or at least sexist.

how do we know the Beatles didn't fuck little kids -- i mean, there were 4 of them, coulda done more damage

this is a weird line of discussion i have to say.

first song on the first Beatles album is about that, iirc

xp - i applaud this exciting new line of discussion

one thing that is interesting is how people reluctant to give Michael his due (often for very meritorious reasons) are quick to credit quincy jones w/ the sleek power of his best records. but for all QJ's talents, if you look at what he was working on in the late 1970s and through the 1980s, pretty much none of it is anywhere near as memorable as his work w/ MJ. a late period Lena Horne record? Patti Austin? some of the more mediocre Rufus and Donna Summer LPs? the only classic among QJ's productions of that era, other than MJ, is George Benson's "Give Me the Night" (single, not full LP). so whatever MJ brought to the table and/or brought out in QJ is immense. it doesn't hurt that they probably had songwriters lining up to place their best songs w/ MJ.

anyway.