"But the kid is not my son" indeed
 

The stream of "tell alls" is starting. I don't think anyone is surprised to hear that Michael Jackson's first 2 children were not conceived naturally, but I don't understand why he wouldn't have used his own sperm. It sounds like she's not going to press for custody of them.

http://www.theage.com.au/lifestyle/p...0629-d1r9.html

Re: Education fail
 

I whiffed, or sidd?

Re: Education fail
 

I think you mean "Atheletics."

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

So I listened to one of those "all Michael, all the time" stations for a while over the weekend and came away even more convinced of my thesis, namely that TM is an idiot.

Obviously MJ is incredibly talented. AI has shown that yes, it does take some amount of talent to make pointless pop songs. With the Jackson 5 stuff, yes MJ was a huge star, but he was not the pop phenomenon that he later came. He was great then but arguably constrained by the Motown system, much like Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye were for a time.

It was Quincy Jones who created Michael's signature sound and who was able to harness Michael's eccentricities into coherent, disciplined form. Listening to Michael's post-Quincy stuff (all of which is produced well, naturally, as he could afford the best), it just sounded like generic pop music. Sure, it sold well (though some of it lost money), but it wasn't iconic, and none of it is memorable.

Think Jackson is a genius in the studio? Listen to "State of Shock," a duet with Mick Jagger which he arranged and produced for the Jacksons's Victory album in 1984, the peak of his success. It's crap. Crap crap crap crap crap. Do you remember it? Didn't think so, even though it's a duet with Michael Fucking Jackson and Mick Fucking Jagger.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

P.S. I was on 125th St. yesterday and decided to check out the scene at The Apollo. I'm not sure I've ever seen so much genuinely licensed Michael Jackson merchandise in my life.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

I remember it and I liked it. And as far as Jagger duets go, it's decent. It's not half as good as Jagger's cover of "Use Me" with Lenny Kravitz or my personal favorite, his backing vocals on Carly Simon's "You're So Vain," but it's a hundred times better than Mick's version of "Dancing in the Streets" with Bowie.*

*"Salt of the Earth" off Beggar's Banquet is excluded from this analysis as that was Jagger and Richards in the same band. Hence, not a true duet for purposes of the discussion.

Re: Good Night, Michael
 

She's cute, but she's no Thriller. Not even Off the Wall. But yes, she's better than Bad.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

You're dead to me.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

I think you are undervaluing MJ's contribution to the collaboration to make your point.

My point (and I think TM's, but I won't speak for him) is that two very talented people came together at just the right time to make some great music. I don't think you can give either of them the majority of the credit. Without MJ's voice and performing talent and the writing of at least a number of the songs, you'd lose something. If Quincey had produced the same songs with a different singer, I don't think the result would have been the same. And without Quincey's production, you'd lose something for sure.

For the albums they did together, it was like 1+1=3.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

So why did all his post-Quincy stuff suck?

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Are you sure it wasn't just the Bubbles the Chimpanzee era that sucked?

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

His life & health were spiraling downward. Even with Quincey it probably wouldn't have been much better.

You can't just look at one factor (Quincey or no Quincey) and decide that is the whole deal. And Quincey certainly hasn't had anything like the success of the albums he produced with Michael so I stick with my point that it was the combination of the two of them at just the right time in both their lives.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Well, he arranged for Frank Sinatra, Lionel Hampton, and Dizzy Gillespie before Michael, so it's not like Quincy needed Michael for his legacy.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Word is that Bubbles did the arrangement for the MJ/Jagger duet, so you may have something there.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Now you're just being annoying. Your examples are as forgettable as Say Say Say and The Girl is Mine (produced by Jones). The reason why these collaborations are all forgettable is because two stars are meeting in the middle from two completely different genres, so don't get a good pop song and you don't get a good rock song.

But whatever. I'm no longer interested in having the argument since it seems pretty obvious Michael gave you some Jesus Juice and had you suck him off in front of MacCauley in the early 90s.

TM

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

You seem to think I am dismissing Quincey. I never said he needed Michael for his legacy. My point is that the two of them together achieved something together that was better than either one could have done apart. Is that so hard to agree with?

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Relistened to those songs over the weekend. The songs suck, but they're very well produced.

OUTABLE!!!

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Does anyone actually like the stuff on Bad?

I mean Thriller was an amusingly self-glorifying paeon to pop stuperstardom with a sort of cool and catchy beat, but with Bowie's "Scary Monsters" still in everyone's mind, the thing was more about parody than groundbreaking music. And, I mean, if you take a time capsule back to 1982, would you be listening to "Thriller" or "The Message"?

So Thriller was already about an aging pop idol losing it, it just made money with that general theme, and you wonder why he went downhill?

He started the slide long before Quincy Jones, when he stopped feeling the blues and started counting the change, circa age 13 or 14. But he had enough talent to release some glitzy self-aggrandizing self-parody that sold a lot of records and riveted a lot of people to MTV.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

NFW.

You're in a cast of thousands, anonymity preserved.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

You're just trying to be provoking, aren't you? Tsk tsk

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

All this Quincy talk makes my mind wander to:

http://redriverautographs.files.word...pg?w=315&h=390

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

I like some of the Jackson 5 stuff but don't have much of an opinion on the laters stuff. And anyone who disagrees with me only does so because of past humiliating experiences involving fellatio with Michael Jackson and/or the mother(s) of one or more posters here.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

I didn't remember that Quincy M.D. had green hair (or is it just my monitor?).

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Fugee, I think you are forgetting "Quincy, M.E.: The Punk Years."

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Quincy had some real talent, but I credit the best of those years to his hairdresser.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

My boyfriend is DJing the wedding we're going to in NYC next weekend, and he started looking for Michael Jackson mashups to add to his sets. It seems like every dj in the world was busy taking apart Quincy Jones' masterpiece and putting it back together again. Some of them were pretty good (I really liked Franz Ferdinand vs. Beat It), and some of them were pretty crappy.

Mashuptown put together a whole two CD set of some of them, and the comment sections have more: http://www.mashuptown.com/2009/06/wi...-his.html#more

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Yes. Absolutely. Everyone hated Bad because (i) it came out after Thriller, which couldn't be topped and (ii) he thought that stupid fucking video was a good idea after Thriller. But Remember the Time, The Way You Make Me Feel (Latoya's appearance in the video notwithstanding), Man in the Mirror and Smooth Criminal are all good songs. The Way You Make Me Feel is one of my favorites.

I think you're misrembering 1982. As someone who was listening to both, not many people even knew about The Message back then.

?

TM

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

when i think about alternative careers and think about acting, I don't fantasize about being Tom Cruise, I see Jack Klugman as my "reach" dream. He had a journeyman's career, but still pretty enviable:

Took over Oscar from Walter M. and had several good years there- and of course Quincy- both of those making him wealthy but he also has the honor of being in 12 Angry Men and Days of Wine and Roses, plus banging Brett Somers is pretty cool.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

And he testified before Congress about medical issues. Has Tom Cruise ever testified about fighter jets, prostitutes, or bizarre orgies?

Nobody home
 

Excuse me, but I think I'm going to dance with PLF.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Not a mashup but Weird Al's "Eat It" has always cracked me up. In the mashup realm, I like Nirvana v. MJ "Smells Like Teen Billie Jean.".

Re: Nobody home
 

I'm going to think about why I thought responding to you was a good idea.

TM

Re: Nobody home
 

Which one of you does it backwards and in heels?

Re: Nobody home
 

Does what?

Re: Nobody home
 

I'm OK with backwards but he gets the heels.

Re: Nobody home
 

He said he's dancing with PLF. I just wanted to know which one was Ginger Rogers.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

You're here trying to argue Michael Jackson wasn't primarily responsible for his success? Have you lost your mind?

Was he the most important R&B artist (something I heard some clown from Rolling Stone say yesterday)? Fuck no - not by miles. Most influential? Hell no, but only because he was unique enough to pretty much be copy-proof. Second biggest artist behind the Beatles? Possibly, but if that's the case, he's so far behind it's a silly comparison. So yeah, we can criticize some of the excessive praise lumped on the guy, but come on... Who in the last 30 years has been more iconic? Madonna works her ass off at it and still can't compete. Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, the Eagles, AC/DC, Fleetwood Mac... lots of groups have sold as many if not more records than Jackson, but do any of them immediately come to mind so vividly? Few artists reach as many people as Jackson did, and have staying power through a pair of fucking pedophilia scandals. The guy was a monster, and I don't care how good Quincy was at the boards - that comes from the artist's charisma and talent, not his alleged Svengali.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Blah, blah, blah, blah. I was commenting on your admiration of State of Shock. Really now.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

Your opinion on this matter demonstrates that you have engaged in simultaneous fellatio of the mothers of Sebastian and Thurgreed, who at the time were both engaged in fellating Michael Jackson, while he was fellating Quincy Jones. I'm sorry this experience has caused you to be so misguided.

Ty, I don't want a venn diagram here.

Re: This is the thread where the fringster comes back with teeth
 

you're becoming the kind of sock coltrane will friend request on facebook. most of us he won't, so you got that.