MICHAEL JACKSON: Are we sticking by the man or is he seriously not all there?!

oh wow some of those unreleased tracks are truly spectacular in all the wrong ways, esp. "There Must Be More to Life Than This," which I defy anyone to sit through without cringing

I'm much more with Mike D than Maria and Anthony on this one (except I rather like The Rainbow Children, musically at least).

You know, I've always wanted to support Michael Jackson, though I don't much like his later music. There's just something about him that has made me protective.
Problem is that I can pretty much understand and agree to every argument I hear against him, as he DOES seem like he's a bit of a sordid lobster nowadays.

I dunno, maybe he's sort of like a nestling that has fallen out of the nest,a nd is hopping around pathetically, filling my eyes with.. uhh.. whisky (phew, for a sec I almost lost my totally masculine badass image!)

But the world is a much cooler place now than it would've been without Michael Jackson about.

Okay...okay...I'm going to say it, because it needs to be said.
I've reached a point where I don't care if Michael Jackson ever gets his shit together. But I would really, really, reaaaallllly like Prince to stop screwing around, hire someone with taste to EDIT his releases down to something managable and release a single disc album as good as "1999" or even the friggin "Batman Soundtrack"
...
There...now that I've got that off my chest...I feel better.

I'm sick of defending American Life, but I wonder if half the people who slam The Rainbow Children have even heard the record. Or if they heard that weird-sounding voice murmuring something religious and immediately shut it off. Custos is right about it being on the long side, though.

Hasn't the last 3 Prince "albums" been box sets that are roughly 70-80% filler? Or am I hallucinating?

the Rainbow Children has some good stuff on it, as did Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic. They are both too long, and they aren't even close to being on a par with his 80s stuff, true, but imagine dealing with that kind of artistic albatross around your neck... crikey... at the very least they are INTERESTING, in that Prince still has the capacity to induce "what the fuck is he on about?" headscratching, which I think is a very good thing.

Michael Jackson, on the other hand, just induces painful head shaking and a sort of morbid curiosity/disgust. And to equate him with Prince is just shameful, I think - MJ can't write or play jack fucking shit. He's only written, what, 4 or 5 great songs in his ENTIRE CAREER?!? I mean, who cares about this loser? His personal artistic output is pathetic - we're talking maybe three or four album's worth of good material TOPS, and on more than half of it all he did was sing/squeal.

haha u guys fukin crak me up. thanks for the posts n welcomes. im thinkin im gunna stick by wacko jacko... hes made an incredible contrib. to the music industry and has some of the best lyrics i've ever heard. gotta respect that ;)