He never learns...

[T-Dogg]

I think he could be a really dope rapper

funny













Funny

Funny it is. MJ Rapping... Honestly, I think the music he's done is great, but him rapping? Come on...

[Shallow]

^ I don't hand out opinions on people based on whether we agree or not, I just gave you my honest opinion of your posts, I didn't say you were disagreeing with me or anything. 

Yes, but your remark to my post could have just easily been in respond to yours. Your post was just as if not more pretentious than mine.

[Trauma-san]

Well, that's your opinion, and I told you mine.  Merry Christmas!

[KURUPTION-81]

doesn'tsnt sell because of his image. To sell  huge amounts in todays word its all down to image. Youngsters who buy albums and push them to multi platinum sales see Michael as a strange guy who is accused of molesting children. That don't sell records. Todays music buying public don't see him as a guy who changed music and is basically a living legend. 

I personally thought invincible was a great album but it wasn't promoted correctly, compare it to say Alicia keys album with similar ballads and slow songs. That album was met by the media as a great album and sold well, MJ releases an album just as good, even better but is slated in the press. Basically because the press hate him.People read these reviews and wont buy the album.

I would love to see MJ sell huge amounts again but sadly i cant see it happening.

[Shallow]

Well, that's your opinion, and I told you mine.  Merry Christmas!

and Happy New Year!"

[Trauma-san]

doesn'tsnt sell because of his image. To sell  huge amounts in todays word its all down to image. Youngsters who buy albums and push them to multi platinum sales see Michael as a strange guy who is accused of molesting children. That don't sell records. Todays music buying public don't see him as a guy who changed music and is basically a living legend. 

I personally thought invincible was a great album but it wasn't promoted correctly, compare it to say Alicia keys album with similar ballads and slow songs. That album was met by the media as a great album and sold well, MJ releases an album just as good, even better but is slated in the press. Basically because the press hate him.People read these reviews and wont buy the album.

I would love to see MJ sell huge amounts again but sadly i cant see it happening.

I dunno what people are expecting, he sold 2 mill in a couple months, that's good by anybody's standards.  I think the album did like 8 mill around the world last I heard, it's impossible to sell 50 million like Thriller did with illegal downloads now.  I think it was a successful album. 

[Shallow]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It also doesn't help that albums cost between two and three times more than they did in the early 80s. I had bought my first Thriller for 5.99 Canadian in '87. It as billed at around 4.99 in the states. I bough Born in The USA for 5 bucks in Buffalo. If either were 15 dollars I would not have bought them. And it's not like the economy has skyrocketed since then. In the Reagan years everything was booming until the crash and even then it was like it never happened.

Jackson will always do a few platinum world wide because of his fan base. Same goes for Em or Madonna if she took a long hiatus. The problem with the MJ Cd is that it cost so much to make and promote. I don't think it broke even, and that was the problem. I mean look at the first video. Brando, Tucker and Madsen don't come cheap. Then after bad initial sales he wanted Mel Gibson to star in a video and bring in some more big name directors. I do not blame Sony for cancelling promotion. It would have been very stupid to spend more money.

[bLaDe]

Well, 'we' haven't heard Britney rapping, lol... I wouldn't even attempt to listen to anything like that.  A lot of Michael's music is similar to rap, just a little slower.  I think he could do it, the guys more talented then probably any musician alive. 

Am I the only one who heard Britney "bust" a freestyle with Busta Rhymes on MTV like... almost a year ago? The wackiest freestyle ever heard lol, her flow is bollox but it was a good laugh 

And about Michael... I wonder where's it going wrong with his career at the moment because it's true that he's probably the most talented out there. He needs to stay somehow keep track of the evolutions in music and do his own thing, 2004/2005 style. I could just see him doing a song with Jadakiss, and it wouldn't be bad.

Michaels problem, in my opinion, is that he doesn't have the right people around him. He's out of touch with the real world. He keeps hiring the wrong people, from management all the way down to producers. He's extremely talented, but he needs someone to tell him "no, Michael, we don't need a children's choir and a 190 piece orchestra on this song, it's overproduced"... or "Michael, you've cried in 20 records already, just sing this one straight", or "Michael, if you called Beyonce I'm sure she'd be glad to have you sing a duet with her on her new album, it would be great for your career". He needs someone around him that isn't just a yes man.

Thats very true, I recently read an article in the Vancouver Sun about this Canadian person who used to work for Michael Jackson, I believe he was hired right before the Bashir documentry.  He basically said that Mike is a nice guy but he surrounds him self with the wrong people and is out of touch with reality.  People around him are just yes-men and do whatever he wants.  He also said that Michael would always tell everyone to bring him "good news" and he never wanted to hear the bad news.  He seriously thought that Michael Jackson actually has little or no idea about how the world and the media really view him, because he simply doesn't want to hear it, he just wants to hear good news.  Oh and he quit his job, the main reason was that after the N.O.I got involved Michael went a little weird and beleived everything they said.  They had basically convinced him that his room was bugged and would tell him to get these "jews" out of the room and they can't be trusted (some of his employees) and some white devil crap.  This is what he said, not me by the way, and I think he's going to write a book about it or something.  So yeah, although I personally think that hes should keep doing many of the same things (like invite kids over to neverland etc), he should also accept reality instead of running away from it.  Hire some real honest unbiased people, find out what's really going on and try to embrace this whole thing with a more mature and clear perspective. 

-b[X]       

[Trauma-san]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It also doesn't help that albums cost between two and three times more than they did in the early 80s. I had bought my first Thriller for 5.99 Canadian in '87. It as billed at around 4.99 in the states. I bough Born in The USA for 5 bucks in Buffalo. If either were 15 dollars I would not have bought them. And it's not like the economy has skyrocketed since then. In the Reagan years everything was booming until the crash and even then it was like it never happened.

Jackson will always do a few platinum world wide because of his fan base. Same goes for Em or Madonna if she took a long hiatus. The problem with the MJ Cd is that it cost so much to make and promote. I don't think it broke even, and that was the problem. I mean look at the first video. Brando, Tucker and Madsen don't come cheap. Then after bad initial sales he wanted Mel Gibson to star in a video and bring in some more big name directors. I do not blame Sony for cancelling promotion. It would have been very stupid to spend more money.

Again, you're talking about something you dont' know about.  Michael footed the bill for the CD, Sony didn't pay 1 penny to produce it, Michael paid for all of it out of his own pocket.  He owns the masters to all his music, and as a stipulation of that agreement, pays to have the records recorded on his own.  Why else do you think it cost 50 million to record? Sony never would have spent that much. 

The real reason Sony isn't promoting Michael? So he'll default on his loan leveraged against the Beatles catalog, and the ATV catalog he owns half of.  It kills Sony that they were stupid enough to sign a deal, giving Michael ownership of half of their LIVING catalog! Something like 8 of the top 10 country songs this year were all  part of Sony/Atv publishing, which Michael owns half of.  In their greed to get a portion of his Beatles catalog, they signed away the farm, and now they're resorting to sabotaging his career, so he won't be able to pay them back a 200 mill. loan he took out a few years back, and they'll be able to reclaim their catalog as payment.  THAT'S why Sony isn't promoting anything he does.  They contractually were obligated to release a box set, and a greatest hits album, so they did both with little promotion.  Unfortunately for them, his greatest hits album has been a huge success around the world, and he'll likely be able to pay the loan off when it's due in 2005. 

[Shallow]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It also doesn't help that albums cost between two and three times more than they did in the early 80s. I had bought my first Thriller for 5.99 Canadian in '87. It as billed at around 4.99 in the states. I bough Born in The USA for 5 bucks in Buffalo. If either were 15 dollars I would not have bought them. And it's not like the economy has skyrocketed since then. In the Reagan years everything was booming until the crash and even then it was like it never happened.

Jackson will always do a few platinum world wide because of his fan base. Same goes for Em or Madonna if she took a long hiatus. The problem with the MJ Cd is that it cost so much to make and promote. I don't think it broke even, and that was the problem. I mean look at the first video. Brando, Tucker and Madsen don't come cheap. Then after bad initial sales he wanted Mel Gibson to star in a video and bring in some more big name directors. I do not blame Sony for cancelling promotion. It would have been very stupid to spend more money.

Again, you're talking about something you dont' know about.  Michael footed the bill for the CD, Sony didn't pay 1 penny to produce it, Michael paid for all of it out of his own pocket.  He owns the masters to all his music, and as a stipulation of that agreement, pays to have the records recorded on his own.  Why else do you think it cost 50 million to record? Sony never would have spent that much. 

The real reason Sony isn't promoting Michael? So he'll default on his loan leveraged against the Beatles catalog, and the ATV catalog he owns half of.  It kills Sony that they were stupid enough to sign a deal, giving Michael ownership of half of their LIVING catalog! Something like 8 of the top 10 country songs this year were all  part of Sony/Atv publishing, which Michael owns half of.  In their greed to get a portion of his Beatles catalog, they signed away the farm, and now they're resorting to sabotaging his career, so he won't be able to pay them back a 200 mill. loan he took out a few years back, and they'll be able to reclaim their catalog as payment.  THAT'S why Sony isn't promoting anything he does.  They contractually were obligated to release a box set, and a greatest hits album, so they did both with little promotion.  Unfortunately for them, his greatest hits album has been a huge success around the world, and he'll likely be able to pay the loan off when it's due in 2005. 

So was it Sony's money paying for promotion or was it Michael's? Since Michael complained Sony was sabotaging him I think it was Sony's. Videos are included in promotion and Mike always spends too much on that. Mike really spent 50 mil to erecord? What an idiot. Why would it posibly cost that much? Mike really goes insane with this shit. Jack White pulls out 5 star albums in a weekend using equipment from the 60s, I'd like to think Mike can tone it down at least a bit.

Now lets do the math here and go back and figure it all out. Let's say you were correct in saying it sold 8 million world wide even though I think that's a bit high. 8 million times the overhead of artist and record company combined which goes about as hiogh as 4 dollars. So 8 times 4 equals 32 million. Already it's a 18 million dollar loss. Now when we add all the costs outside of recording, then who knows how much this thing really did lose. There was nothing Sony could do to make this a hit since it would have meant it would have to have gone 15 to 20 platinum just to turn a profit. Bad and Dangerous couldn't do that so how could Invincible? Jesus Christ himself couldn't have gotten that many people to buy Invincible. When the public rejects something you can't do much else. The MTV crowd didn't want to see the 10 minute video so MTV was forced to bump it off rotation. Michael has to realize he can't buy back hiss success. Will he ever be big time a gain? Who knows? but one thing is for sure, he isn't big time right now. He should learn to make money outside of record selling. Touring is always an option and it makes a lot more than record sales.

The bottom line is that Invincible was a failure.

[Trauma-san]

Michael spent 50 million of his own money to make the album.  It was a quality album, certainly (I think you'll even agree) much better quality than most R&B albums produced today, many songs had the potential to be a hit, and to be a single.  Michael's previous albums had had many singles released from them, pushing sales.  Dangerous alone had what, "Dangerous", "Black Or White", "Heal The World", "Remember the Time", "Jam", "Will you Be There", "Who is It?", and "Give Into Me" released as singles, with full videos.  This is how Michael Jackson is accustomed to working.

History was a DOUBLE album, and still sold very well.  It had videos for "Scream", "You Are Not Alone", "Earth Song", "Come Together" (an old video), "Stranger In Moscow", "They Don't Care About Us", and "Childhood".  That's 6 new videos and one old one released.

Along comes Invincible, Sony releases 1 video, and pulls the plug on the album. 

If you don't see that as innapropriate, I dunno what the fuck is wrong with you.  A significant part of Michael's gig is making expansive music videos, with famous directors and actors and such, like he's always done, and then mounting a huge world tour... this is how the Michael Jackson machine works.  Sony shut it down as soon as the album was released (the video was shot before the album launch date). 

[Trauma-san]

Oh, by the way, the same thing happened to Mariah Carey, after her divorce from Sony president Tommy Motolla.  After the same happened to Michael, Michael bitched so much, Sony's shareholders fired Motolla.  This is huge stuff, it's not just Michael got fucked, it's more like Michael owns half the company and got fucked, so now he's fucking back. 

[Shallow]

But Dangerous and and Bad were initial hits, and even I bet they didn't make much money thanks to super high production costs. Bad made a lot of money because of the tour but that had a lot to do with the tour and the fact that he never had a big tour for Thriller. Dangerous probably didn't make that much in the end due to how much it cost for videos and such. I never liked big budget shit in any form of media. Look at movies like Water World and Alexander. They spend all these hundreds of million and only make back a fraction of what it cost. Then you take movies like Passion of the Christ or Blair Witch and you break even in the first weekend. That's how you do business. The shit MJ and Sony were doing was basically getting a name out there for nothing. I wouldn't be surprised if Sony made more money from Born in the USA than they did from Thriller.

Sure one is 25 million copies and the other is 50 million, but the 50 million copy album cost millions to make and millions to promote. It also cost money to bring in an outside song writer, and outside big name producer. Let's not even get into the Thriller video and how much that must've cost. Bruce had his band, his manager and a no-name co producer. He had generic backing vocalists and videos that can be done on today's camcorders. That's good business.

As for Invincible; well compared to other recent RnB albums I guess it is pretty good, but that doesn't mean it good and certainly not great. I liked the first single and felt it stood up with his other singles. I only really like a handful of songs; Unbreakable, Invincible, Break Of Dawn (sort of), Speechless, The Lost Children, and the single. 2000 Watts I liked at first but grew tired of it quickly. I can't imagine Sony promoting more of it and turning a profit. At best this album could matched Dangerous sales. So at best we add what 7 to 8 million more records sold? That only leads to about 30 mil, which would be more than spent up on promoting the 5 or 6 more videos you'd want to see. I wouldn't have spent the money and neither would you, unless you wanted to lose your job. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. Sure you have to spend money to make money, but when you spend more than you make you're just plain stupid.

I'm sorry did you say Mike owns have the company and now he's fucking back? Give me a break. Michael could never even bruise Sony. Sony makes more in a fiscal quarter than Michael has made in his career. TV, DVDs, CDs (Sony owns the rights to every CD ever made). Mike owns part of a Beatles catalog, big deal. Sony Playstation made way more money than the Beatles. Sony is a conglomerate. Nothing Michael Jackson could ever do will change that.