Michael Jackson was/is Overrtaed

He was one of the creepiest people to ever live.

I don’t like anything by him post “Off the Wall”.

NOW a warning?

I don’t like anything by him post “Thriller”.

After "Thriller," his creative well ran dry and he kept doing the same shit over and over.

OP he was a FABULOUS WEIRDO and that is why he is a cultural touchstone.

I said this on another thread, not a huge fan after Off the Wall. Not just musically but (I know this is mean), but what he did to him asked physically was hard to look at. I found him uncomfortable to look at. Also, there’s the accusations of abuse by boys and also of animal abuse (him throwing rocks at his tigers, if true, is reprehensible).

But, you can’t deny the effect on popular culture of those three Thriller songs/videos, Beat It, Billie Jean and Thriller with that Vincent Price narration! Also, I enjoyed the two duets with Paul McCartney, The Girl is Mine and Say, Say, Say.

Of course, this is all tied into being 12 and just discovering music and this new MTV channel. But I think those 1983 videos hold up.

I can't recall anything after "Dangerous".

I think his music was generally good pop music and genuinely unique (until Janet Jackson started making similar sounding rock-R&B). I like many of his songs but I don't really love and am not really moved by any of them. In the soundtrack of my young life (I was born in 1978.), he is pretty much a lesser Madonna.

He always scared the shit out of me, though. I was in kindergarten when Thriller came out and it terrified me. And I always was creeped out by him. I had nightmares throughout my childhood of my sister's Michael Jackson wall poster.

Most of the magic happened in the studio. Thriller is an amazing album but Quincy Jones deserves 99% of the credit for it.

He could dance, he had an interesting voice and finely honed vocal trademarks that were perfect for the era, he had a long career before he even turned 20; MJ wasn't totally talentless or unremarkable, but his enduring influence had little to do with him personally. A lot of it was timing and having the right team around him. There's a reason he didn't stay very relevant past 1989. He wasn't the hot young thing anymore and he never evolved; the people who made his success moved on to other artists or retired, while he kept fucking with his face and diddling little boys. In the end he was a complete fucking mess.

[quote] His so called moonwalk wasn't his, he stole it from non famous artists before him. He only grabbed his crotch.

The backslide, a well-known staple of the club repertoire, is said to originate from Bill Bailey, older brother to singer Pearl Bailey and in his own right a professional actor as well as nightclub singer & tap dancer (allegedly a student of the legendary 'Bojangles'). Out of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, Bailey brought the move to clubs across America. You can see Judy Garland perform a modified version of the move in MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS.

The backslide remained a staple of dance in African American music, and by the '80s had been perfected and popularised with a pop-lock style by Jeffrey Daniels of the R&B dance-group Shalamar. He was the one who showed the taught the move to MJ,

^^that should be Jeffrey DanieL, no 's'. My bad.

Most of his lyrics were really childish and they got more so as he got older.

I loved "Of The Wall" and "Billie Jean"

His life and performances now just seem like the consequences of horrific child abuse at the hands of his monstrous father and permissive mother. Carving up his face (especially his once-beautiful full nose), the fixation on amusement parks, surrounding himself with children, song lyrics that betray no direct knowledge of adult sexual relationships, the joyless dance routines that are all mechanics and please don’t beat me I’ll get it right this time. Truly sad.

I hate “Thriller”. I associate it with the Reagan Era like no other album.

I'm with R6 and R8. His abuses and self loathing were very creepy. His dad must've really done a job on him to damage Michael's self worth as a black man. Aside from that, there were some real good songs mixed in with a lot of garbage. But as said, the magic of the Thriller album was off the charts. I was a kid when Thriller came out, but even at that age my brother and I and our friends loved it and tried doing the dance moves from the video.

When I now hear the songs on the radio while I'm driving, I can really enjoy the songs more just because he's gone, and with it a lot of the creepiness that was attached to them before he died.

R13 nailed it—he was mechanical and one-note. Deeply damaged which showed in his music and performing.

Hee hee! Shamone! You know it!

^You forgot 1 “hee.”

[quote]Most of the magic happened in the studio. Thriller is an amazing album but Quincy Jones deserves 99% of the credit for it.

I always say this when people discuss Michael Jackson. His career was the result of many extremely talented people, the best in music and the entertainment business, working with him to create and package his art. Added to this was his natural talent and showmanship, and you have an explosive career. You can't talk about any of his work like he alone was responsible for it, because there were so many hands involved in making his music what it was.

Hee hee hee!

HEE hee! HEE HEE he! Who-tchika who-tchika who-tchika, OWWW!

SHAMON!

I was a child when Thriller came out and every kid was obsessed with that album. I cannot think of my 80s childhood without thinking of Michael Jackson, he was so intertwined with it.

That being said, I was never much of a fan but I did like the Off the Wall and Thriller albums. Quincy Jones deserves a lot of credit for that, though. His genius as a producer was just as important as Michael's talent. IMHO MJ lost the plot after Thriller. Bad was only a so-so album and of course that was when he started getting REALLY weird.

I watched the recent documentary and was absolutely disgusted, he was a monster.

What exactly did “Shamone” mean?

Bernard Sumner of New Order once observed that he and Jackson were the only singers who whooped!

R19 That’s the case with many artists in popular music. The reason why a lot of music from the 60s/70s sounds good, is because most of the writers, producers, session musicians and arrangers were professionals with backgrounds in classical music and jazz. Popular music has been taken over by amateurs who rely on a few chords and a lot of studio wizardry.

I'm surprised that in retrospect how very few of his songs I liked. Songs by the Jackson 5 remains some of my favorites from the 60s and 70s. "Got to Be There" has incredible vocals by MJ. For a 12 or 13 year old to be hitting those notes and using that phrasing is astounding.

R8 is delusional and also likely the vadge-bot. Michael Jackson is and was on a completely different level than Madonna. Sure, he was creepy, but he was a legitimate global superstar that changed music. If you want to compare Jackson’s impact to someone, try Elvis or the Beatles.

Didn't the moonwalk start with performers like Cab Calloway? They just didn't call it that.

I remember being a kid and all the girls loving him the way girls love BTS or Bieber, or used to love 1D, etc. My cousin made money painting pictures of MJ's face or full figure on the back of jean jackets. When I see videos of him with the Jackson 5 he's amazing. But the later Michael I'm not a fan. I wonder why all of older Hollywood seemed to be obsessed with being friends with him, or meeting him. I had a bf who loved his music, I had to listen to his music a lot. :/

MJ experts can feel free to correct me but, as a casual fan who was 16 when Thriller was released my impression is that he really only held it together in absolutely top form for Off the Wall (1979) and Thriller (1982). Those years/releases justifiably cemented his reputation as a worldwide superstar. But afterward? I know BAD and DANGEROUS were big sellers but isn't there a sense that his moment at the pinnacle passed fairly quickly and thereafter he was more known for his bizarre behavior than his music? I can't name one post-Thriller radio hit off the top of my head. Madonna, on the other hand, kept having hit after hit after hit until the early 2000's. She was more flexible in making it all work for much longer, whereas to my knowledge Michael never worked with someone on the level of Quincy Jones again and he wasn't capable of orchestrating it all himself.

R27 Ha. I assure you I am not a Madonna fanatic. Just as I wrote, I grew up with Madonna's music and Michael Jackson's music as part of the backdrop of my life. As a child, my friends and I "performed" both of their music in our neighborhood. I wasn't giving an artistic assessment of their creativity or musical ability when I said in my world MJ was a "lesser" pop star than Madonna, just an assessment of my person taste.

I did always find Michael Jackson creepy. I think the picture here might be the poster my sister had on her wall when I was in kindergarten. I found him menacing and I had a lot of nightmares about him. It probably was the Thriller video that made me feel afraid of him; as a young kid, I thought the video was a horror movie and not a music video. But the same year, I did like the Billie Jean outfit and the way the sidewalk lit up. I didn't hate MJ, but I was creeped out by him. Years later, my best friend, who was mixed race and who I assume looked up to MJ in part because of that, LOVED him, and by the time he was doing "Bad," I just found him totally repulsive because of a mix of the plastic surgery, the speaking voice that I thought was fake, and the weird hiccups he did while singing. He just seemed really twisted and dangerous to me. What can I say?

Meanwhile, what can I say? Madonna went through the opposite evolution. She was nothing special in the early stage of her career. I paid no attention to her at all during the Erotica stage because I was a kid and then adolescent and it was awkward to me that she was so sexual. But then she became more sophisticated over time, with the Babyface phase and then Ray of Light and then Evita. She was actually admirable and her transformation went from cartoonish and unimportant to something sophisticated that I unexpectedly appreciated. So to me, she was the more important of the two, with everyone calling him the King of Pop and her the Queen of Pop.

I never loved his music. It was the hiccups and the "hee! hee!!" people write about above. I liked Madonna's music. She has definitely lost my admiration as she continued to evolve. I like Confessions of a Dancefloor, but I did NOT need to see her geriatric pelvis thrusting all about. And then from that point on, it's been a gradual decline.

I never liked his persona. The soft voice, the hanging-out-with-children thing when I was a child and my mother told me to beware of creepy adult men who want to hang out with children, and then the whittling away at his face. Terrifying, actually. I really was afraid of his image throughout my life up until the point of his death.

I never liked Madonna's persona, either. I like a lot of her music. I always found her repulsive in interviews. She's entirely unlikable and has zero sense of humor. And now she is more than halfway to Michael Jackson disfigurement. I'm definitely not a "Madonnabot." But between the two, as the soundtrack to my life, she definitely is the superior pop star.

I agree!

- Quincy Jones

It's hilarious when DLers puff their chests out and claim definitively how someone's music is apparently "junk" yet the music is among the best selling in the world...ever.

It might be junk to you but billions love it...I guess they don't matter to DLers

R33 There is no accounting for taste, and that means album sales still is not a way to account for differences in taste. Some of us just don't love his music. Some of us like artists who don't sell fabulously well (Tori Amos) and admire their artistry, like some artists who do (Britney Spears) despite a lack of artistry, and dislike others who do (Ariana Grande) just because it ain't our taste. Why does that upset you?

Bad was a joke of an album. But Thriller had some good tunes and Off The Wall was great. I don't really think he's that great...I like Prince better.

Please define "Overrtaed", Thank you.

As in 21 Oscar nominations.

But, how do you really feel, OP/LaToya?

I don't like his singing manner. I do like his voice.

I also really don't love the Jacksons' way of dancing. It's visually interesting because it's so sharp and so dynamic, but it doesn't really convey any kind of meaning or emotion. It's always the same variations of military-robot jerkiness no matter the song,

Those criticisms out of the way, one thing I have always thought was interesting and liked about both Michael and Janet is their music production. A lot of their music really was pop rock, and it seems like most black artists, likely because of their labels, make R&B or rap or hip hop or soul, with occasional singer-songwriters like Tracy Chapman. But there's a distinctive Jackson sound that is essentially rock, and I have always wondered why more black artists don't make more music with that sort of sound. The only one that comes to mind right now is En Vogue's "Free Your Mind," which is a great song but it was a one off rock song for them.

He is not as talented as Prince for sure. He’s not as talented and inventive as Madonna BUT he did have the IT factor

[quote] was/is Overrtaed

He is, indeed, overrated, but he was spectacular for his time, you must admit. People in the 1980s had never seen anything like him. He helped spawn Lady Gaga, Beyonce, JT, and other dance-heavy extravagant pop stars of the 2000s. His influence will always be felt in popular culture and music.

^ R41, I meant to say, "Oh dear"

He was always too slick and repetitive, but he had some good moments, though I agree with others that everything after Thriller was hot garbage.

There was always something so creepy and weird about the Jackson’s that made me steer clear of their music. Can you imagine having dinner or Christmas morning with them?

No, R43, because the Jacksons are Jehovah's witnesses and they don't do any holidays or birthdays.

I knew JW growing up and his parents were crazy. I only recently learned that it's a cult almost as terrible as Scientology. The Jackson kids didn't stand a chance.

The first sexual abuse allegations came in 1993. His life and career after that were arguably a kind of afterlife. Apart from hardcore fans, who to this day believe he was an angel in human form, a lightbulb went off in the public mind. Finally the perversion that had been hinted at took on a contour - an ugly contour. He never fully regained his popularity - he transitioned from "popular" to notorious. Often in the news but for the wrong reasons. He was very lucky to have stayed out of jail.

Man In the Mirror and I Just Can't Stop Loving You were the only good songs on Bad. The rest were 'meh.' That was when MJ REALLY started getting weird. The extreme plastic surgery, the bizarre behavior, and of course spending all of his time with young boys. It was at that time that he went from being revered to turning into a joke.

[R46] By isn't Man in the Mirror deeply creepy in retrospect? Michael pretending to do a moral inventory, Michael pretending to be humble, Michael (increasingly deformed by plastic surgery) peering into the mirror and seeing his "true inner self?" He was already profoundly strange by this point. And his unchecked ego grew to frightening levels - depicting himself as a larger-than-life deity in garish backdrops while becoming increasingly paranoid and out-of-touch.

R47 I thought so. I remember when people loved that song. I was a child. I felt like the song should be likable but Jackson made it so creepy to me.

1. According to Datalounge, every black superstar is over rated and somehow unworthy of their success.

2. I love your delusional audacity OP. The music world certainly disagrees with you. Michael Jackson single handedly changed popular music. His influential is here to stay.

3. OP, I’m assuming that you are the MJ troll that has dedicated his life to started stupid repetitive threads about MJ and the Jackson Family.

The Jackson Family has 3 entries on the best selling artists of all time, J5, Michael and Janet. Their legacy is undeniable.

Tommy Mattolla is Devil-ish!

I love(d) the Bad album. All the hits. Dirty Diana. Smooth Criminal. The Way You Make Me Feel. Bad. Man in the Mirror. Another Part of Me. I Just Can't Stop Loving You. But...after that...meh.

I thought he was incredibly talented. As time went on, I couldn't deal with the weirdness and pedophilia so I stopped listening to his music. When he died my first thought was relief for his three kids. As sad as it was for them that he died, it was probably for the best.

I'm not sure how long after his death it was but I eventually could tolerate his music again. I don't mind it now. For pop music, he's fantastic.

STFU r49, AKA Janbot!

On one side, yes he is overrated.

On the other side, he was electric during my childhood and had "it" since he was a little boy.

[R49] Attempting to pivot the discussion to racism is especially perverse in this context - especially when Michael’s young victims were largely white male children. But I guess in that case they must pay.

Off The Wall and Thriller were fantastic, I agree. He really started to lose it with Bad. After that, it was over for him.

"Human Nature" is probably my favorite song of his, it's just gorgeous. It was written by John Bettis, who wrote a number of the Carpenters' songs.

BTW, "Rock With You" was originally offered to Karen Carpenter, of all people, for her ill-fated solo album that wasn't released. She turned it down.

He music is still fresh decades later never sounds dated

This track from his (otherwise lacklustre) 1972 debut is the only MJ song I ever listen to

[quote] Added to this was his natural talent and showmanship, and you have an explosive career.

A retired stage hand told me that decades ago he and his crew were setting up a stage for performances that night. An unknown band named the Jackson 5 was the opening act. This was shortly before their first hit single hit the pop charts ( "ABC" or "I Want You Back").

He told me this kid started rehearsing. Usually while they're readying the stage and band is rehearsing they don't stop work. Not that time. He said all of the crew stopped to watch a young, unknown Michael Jackson. He danced, sang and pretended to interact with the audience, even though the seats were empty. He said they were all stunned watching that kid.

"I'd never seen talent like that before and I haven't since, and I've seen all the greats, up close."

The evidence that Jackson had criminal sexual contact with teenagers has too much weight to ignore. He did.

Human beings aren't "either" or "or". We're complicated beings that can encompass the myriad of behaviors, impulses, some criminal, some benevolent.

Jackson was an ephebophile, if not a pedophile AND was an enormously musically and physically talented human being. The two co-existed in him.

"The evidence that Jackson had criminal sexual contact with teenagers has too much weight to ignore. He did."

Meant to write teenagers and children.

R15, I read that an important reason why he started transforming his face as he got older was that it began reminding him of his father's, and that was horrific to him. I've always been convinced he was horribly sexually abused as well as physically abused and commercially exploited. People who refuse to grow up are usually fixated on a horrible childhood and trying somehow to correct it. He may even have thought that by being what he saw as gentle and caring with his victims, he WAS correcting it. It's totally fucked up, but so was he.

As for his talents, he was a sensational dancer, loose yet with perfect precision. He certainly ripped off a lot of ideas, but he could have been one of the great Fosse dancers, had his career gone that way.

Thank you, r31: That's a very astute and fair analysis of both MJ and Madonna. A few songs on BAD are quite good ("The Way You Make Me Feel") but everything afterwards is instantly forgettable.

But for my taste, this remix of "Forever Came Today" by the Jackson 5 is better than anything on any subsequent Jacksons album...or anything solo MJ.

Had MJ left his face alone he would been a beautiful mature black man.

"It's Your Thing" : The Jackson 5 and ten-year old Michael at their funkiest in 1969. Pre-Motown.

I was in high school when Bad came out, and liked it. But it hasn’t aged well. Strangely, I like Smooth Criminal best.

Off the Wall and Thriller were great. Dangerous and invincible aren’t even worth listening too.

I am not trying to invalidate the prevailing consensus that MJ was a pedophile. But I am seeking more insight. What was the most concrete evidence to back up the claims? Obviously where there is smoke there is fire. But that's not "proof." That's folk wisdom. Beyond hearsay, was there any concrete evidence?

Because there was a lot of hearsay. But hearsay, in and of itself, can't compel a conviction, right? I know there was a housekeeper who SAID that she saw some shady things when tidying up MJ's room -- boys' underwear discarded outside a jacuzzi next to Michael's, underwear with stains on it, and books on masturbation. But SAYING you saw these things is not the same thing as "Your Honor, I present you Exhibit A" and there is the crusty jizz underwear in a Ziploc. And SAYING you saw MJ sucking off little Jimmy in the showers, isn't the same as having actual evidence.

MJ's longterm bodyguard Matt Fiddes said in an interview that “this whole paedophile thing is complete nonsense… the guy had girlfriends and had a legitimate marriage to Lisa Marie [Presley], that was the way he lived his life.” He asserted that it would have been “impossible” for Jackson to have abused children at his Neverland ranch because he was “hardly” there. “They say there were boys around, that was not the case at all,” he said.

Again, this is hearsay. Anyone can say anything. We know that MJ was certainly around at Neverland when he wasn't touring. It was his house. We also know there was a series of locks and alarms to make it impossible to surprise MJ from the exterior of his bedroom suite.

There's no question the guy was totally damaged and warped inside from profound childhood neglect and abuse. I guess I'm just wanting to hear more about the actual proof, and less about the speculations and the "he said, he said."

His victims came forward and told the truth.

MJ never had a sexual relationship with a woman in his entire life.

He clearly treated his children as his lovers, in hindsight it's so clear. They went everywhere with him and he was always holding their hands and having them sit on his lap and other things like that. An adult man does not do that with a young boy who is not his own son. Most adult men aren't really interested in hanging around kids that they are not related to.

Michael Jackson was a filthy child raping pedophile who fucked little boys and destroyed their lives.

How could you tell when Michael Jackson had company over? There was BIG WHEELS in the driveway.

What did Michael Jackson and pimples have in common?

They both came all over your face at age twelve.

R67 That's what I think as well. But why would the bodyguard (and other loyalists) say this? Did he pay them to? Even in death you have these people swearing up and down that Michael was a smooth ladies' man. It's such BS. If he had a girlfriend he would have been parading her around like he did with Lisa Marie for a second. And he would have had real babies, by putting his pee pee into a real vagina, and not relying on some bizarre arrangement with his plastic surgeon's husky tomboy office assistant. That shit with Debbie Rowe made him The True King of Bizarro Land, if he wasn't already.

A smooth ladies man? Are you fucking insane?

Are you familiar with Michael Jackson at all? Even slightly? "Smooth ladies man" was never on the menu.

Witnesses are witnesses, they are not hearsay. Victims are victims, they are not hearsay. He raped young boys, he was a disgusting monster who happened to be musically talented.

Chris Watts was a charming, attractive guy who killed his wife and little kids.

You need MJ's cum on some kid's underpants before you'll believe what he did? Fuck off. Even if you had it you'd find some excuse why it wasn't his or the underwear was the wrong kind or blah blah blah.

Jesus fucking christ.

I grew up listening to the Jackson 5. I went to high school with Off The Wall...and couldn't get into the rest. The two exceptions being Human Nature - loved that one. And Man in the Mirror - very inspirational.

I hated his hiccups when he sang...he became overly stylized and proceeded to become beyond parody.

Don't forget his nose which fell off. Here it is:

R73 Whoa whoa whoa there, tiger. You got me all wrong. I'm honestly just confused about the legal system. For instance, take Casey Anthony. There was so much real evidence that she had at least covered up an accidental death, but more probably directly killed her daughter. And that she disposed of Caylee's body, which was kept in her trunk.

Casey did not report her daughter missing for 31 days!!! The remains were found wrapped in a Winnie-The-Pooh blanket. They had a little heart sticker over the mouth which matched heart stickers in Casey's possession. Multiple people, including (but not limited to) Casey's own parents, testified that the trunk smelled distinctly like a decomposing corpse. There were traces of chloroform in the trunk. And she had a search for "chloroform" on her computer. Casey was known to have partied for days after Caylee's disappearance. Casey's testimony changed and morphed repeatedly i.e. she lied her ass off. She refused to even go on the stand. No loving mother acts like this. Only batshit crazy/totally guilty ones do. And yet Casey Anthony was acquitted.

OJ was acquitted even though his behavior (White Bronco) was shady as ALL HELL. There were diary entry's in Nicoles journal discussing the beatings she endured at his hand during their marriage. There were witnesses attesting to OJ's temper. And Nicole had broken up with him and moved on, so there was clear motive.

My point here is, I'm wondering more about the quirks of the legal justice system, than whether or not Jacko was guilty of sexing boys. There seems to be no standardized measure of what is considered "proof" or "evidence." And it's weird that someone like Casey Anthony is walking around scott-free, when there is so much actual concrete evidence that she is guilty. But again, this is not about debating MJ's guilt. Rather, I suppose I'm instead debating the flaw in Anthony's and OJ's acquittals.

[quote] There is no accounting for taste, and that means album sales still is not a way to account for differences in taste. Some of us just don't love his music. Some of us like artists who don't sell fabulously well (Tori Amos) and admire their artistry, like some artists who do (Britney Spears) despite a lack of artistry, and dislike others who do (Ariana Grande) just because it ain't our taste. Why does that upset you?

Funny how you think YOUR taste is apparently the one that counts.

MJs songs, for the most part, hold up even now. His videos are very 1980's, however.

He was a great performer--especially his singing and dancing.

Overrated? Not at all.

He was definitely sexually abused as a child. Old Joe probably did pimp him out to creepy record executives. If you look at his eyes in very early Jackson 5 performances, he seems like a lovely, normal boy. By the time they'd been famous a couple of years, his eyes are totally dead. Go to YouTube and look at the Ed Sullivan performance from 1969 and compare it to performances from around 1971 on. Look at the eyes. The difference is obvious.

He sure was

[quote]Please define "Overrtaed", Thank you.

As in: Go away, spelling/typing police, you have overrtaed your welcome .

[R66] Michael Jackson paid out $23 million to settle sexual abuse charges relating to his molestation of then 13 year old Jordy Chandler. An innocent party would never do this. The law was changed after the settlement as MJ somehow escaped a criminal indictment. He should have been charged.

R80 I agree 100% Definitely, MJ was sexually abused. There is no question. The assumption is that he was offered up to club promoters or execs. Sexual abusive victims often can't resist the urge to reenact the abuse. I think man/boy sexuality is all Michael ever knew. First as a child being exploited, and then as an adult. The eroticism of a grown man getting off with an innocent child became the hard-wired default pattern for his sexuality. As another poster upthread mentioned, perhaps in his own way, but making the sex loving and gentle, and having real "relationships" with the boys full of togetherness and fun...maybe he thought he was doing it the right way.

I think Jackson would have kept his wits about him if it was only the physical abuse. All the Jackson boys were physically abused by Joe, and they all kept their faces, race and their essential ego-identities intact within a normal range. I'm sure they are fucked up in their own ways, but it all pales (no pun intended) in comparison to Michael's observable insanity.

I also think La Toya was hardcore molested by Joe, and by who knows what else. La Toya subsequently endured terrible abusive relationships as an adult, which is indicative of childhood abuse. And notice, it's her and Michael who look have had the most surgical work and skin bleaching. It's like they were both bleaching away, carving away at the shame.

[R84] PhD in Pop Psychology with a minor in Speculation.

You're right, R85. NO ONE has ever speculated on Datalounge before now. It's unprecedented madness!

Notice I say "I think...." before every assertion. These are my working theories. What are yours, asshole?

I only take issue with making statements like “there is no question” while at the same time there is no evidence.

MJ was a magical performer. Not overrated, but like Madonna, benefitted by the rise of MTV, which melded songs with visuals.

R88 Since we are all sitting in our mothers' basements wiping cheeto dust onto our sweatpants while we type, maybe you could cut me some slack and just let a queen pontificate.

Snark aside though, you are right. I should not present assumptions as assertions. It's not a good habit in general. There is no evidence that Michael was sexually abused by record execs and concert promoters. There is, however, a general consensus by child psychologists on what types of childhood experiences tend to stunt development to the extreme degree that Michael Jackson's development was objectively stunted. There is an understanding that often, but not always, abusers are recreating abuse they themselves suffered.

Any way that you slice it, Michael was, by his own account, abused at the very least physically and emotionally, but horrifically and regularly, by Joe. Beyond that, yeah, who the heck knows?

He was not overrated. He was one of the most innately talented people to walk the planet. (He was observably one of the most damaged people to ever be a celebrity, too. But his talent was real.)

You don't scale the heights he scaled, over and over again, on gimmickry. And contrary to the consensus on DL, Michael Jackson did keep evolving his sound and kept pushing the boundaries of his dance moves. For instance, through the decades, he regularly permutated and extended the original classic Billie Jean choreography from Motown 25, incorporating crazy new moves, always pushing the boundaries of that iconic choreography. He also had soooo many post-Thriller hits that dominated and defined their eras, that it's ridiculous to say he was washed up after Thriller.

I hated the "Bad" album, but damn every song on there was basically a worldwide hit song that you could not escape. There were EIGHT SINGLES from "Bad." FIVE of which (IJCSLY, Bad, Dirty Diana, MITM, and TWYMMF) all reached Number 1 on Billboard's Hot 100. "Smooth Criminal" peaked at Number 7.

From "Dangerous" (1991) there were four Top Ten hits. "Black or White," which was MASSIVE (#1); "Remember The Time (#3); "In The Closet" (#6); and "Will You Be There" (#7). Clearly the 1993 allegations derailed what until then a wildly successful streak from "Off The Wall" all the way through to "Dangerous." You may hate the music, but he was HUGE HUGE HUGE for years beyond Thriller, because he was a talented super star in every sense of the word.

The only album I would say where Jackson could be said to have been at a true lowpoint in his career and life, was "Invincible." And even then, "You Rock My World" was a Top Ten hit and the album sold 2 million copies, in spite of his by-then legendary creepiness. So you can't say he ever really stopped having hits.

He was hungry, wounded, and insatiably needy for validation, like Madonna. Those are the ones who never stop. One might imagine that MJ would have stayed at the tippy top if he hadn't been riddled with demons, self-harm, and so many credible allegations.

Why didn't he leave his face at R91...he looked pretty cute. He really hated himself.

He was a phenomenal performer and still influential till this day. Off The Wall was an excellent album but he peaked musically with Thriller and was never able to recapture that lightning in a bottle. His music afterward got repetitive and mechanical but he still had some good singles. I agree that he was more of a performer than a musician. Quincy Jones is a musical genius and really the mastermind behind Thriller's innovative sound.

MJ's singing became so soulless as he aged. He had more warmth and emotion in his singing as a kid. But his singing as an adult was so mechanical and he filled it with squeaks and hiccups and verbal tics. He became a fictional character. He had serious body dysmorphia and perfectionism. He was a control freak. He was obsessed with being a fair skinned white child. That's why he groomed young white boys and dressed them up as himself. He wanted to live vicariously through them. I think he was a narcissist (confirmed by the constant plastic surgeries, all the gaslight and deflecting any blame and weird paintings of himself he commissioned) and seemed asexual but I wouldn't be surprised if he did molest those kids, he did seem attracted to them. He did exhibit predatory behavior and definitely emotionally manipulative. If he was any other person and not Michael Jackson, he would have been arrested.

Anyway, I think Janet has a way better catalog of music than her brother. She experimented far more than him, even though her vocals are limited they convey far more nuance and emotion, she talks about adult subjects like depression, relationships, sex, addiction, etc and dabbled in multiple genres. As did Prince, Madonna and Mariah. Michael while influential as a performer and music video artist, played it way too safe and didn't push any musical boundaries after Thriller.

Fosse, Fosse, Fosse

MJ may be a lot of things, I personally don't believe the allegations about his abuse, but even if that's true, overrated he was not.

He was an extraordinary musician (I graduated from a music conservatory so spare me your snide) and a great showman. I'm not even a huge fan of his work, I can't remember the last time I listened to his music, maybe thriller when I was doing research on John Landis, but saying he was overrated shows you have no knowledge on the field in which he excelled.

Wow, that's a lame attempt at seeming like a non-stannish Michael fan, R95.

He wouldn't have existed without Fosse.

I'm an adult so being a stan would seem ridiculous. I don't care about this man's music, I'm a rock lover, that said he was a great musician and anyone with an once of knowledge in the field would agree with me.

So you can fuck off R96.

R95 "I personally don't believe the allegations about his abuse ........ I graduated from a music conservatory so spare me your snide"

Fuck Off, Jacko stan.

I loved Jackson 5 but Michael as an adult was too weird

R94 is curled up on its bed clutching a single sequined white glove and keening at the cruelty of Datalounge. A giant poster of the Thriller album cover leers overhead.

It never learned how mean folks could be at Music Conservatory.

Excuse me, R94. It's R95 that's the Jacko stan.

Michael Jackson was talented but a fucked up person. So was Elvis. So was Cosby. So was Rick James. So was Jerry Lee Lewis. So was James Brown. So was R. Kelly. The main reason they men got away with their actions is because they were put on a pedestal and enabled by people around them. Had they had been nobodies they most likely would have been put in jail ASAP. That's one reason the idolization of celebrities is dangerous.

His music doesn't age well. Also, this thread will disappear soon. Many of us think Muriel is a crazy MJ fan.

R104 Hahhaaa, Yes, I noticed that, Many anti-MJ threads either get deleted or closed.

[quote] Bernard Sumner of New Order once observed that he and Jackson were the only singers who whooped!

They should have done a duet. Can you imagine what that would have looked/sounded like?

I find it interesting that despite being fair-skinned and hazel-eyed Prince was proud of blackness and was vocal for black causes. Even Prince's music was funky R&B and his singing style borrowed from gospel. Michael claimed to be pro-black but he clearly didn't want to be black given his multiple plastic surgeries and skin lightening (vitiligo creates patches, not turn your entire skin porcelain colored). That's why all his Afrocentric stuff like "Remember The Time" and "They Don't Care About Us" seemed pandering especially given he hanged around white boys, dated and married white women and chose to have white children. Michael also wanted his music and singing style to be "colorless". While Prince appeared at the BET and Soul Train Awards, released songs like "Baltimore" and funded various charities to help black youth. Also many of Prince's songs were rooted in blues, funk, jazz and later hip-hop and Prince also mentored many young black artists and named dropped many black artists he was listening to. But Michael Jackson is more idolized in black culture despite distancing himself from his black roots.

R107: I loved Prince with all my heart but he didn't get pro black until he got older and got the shit kicked out of him by the record industry. Remember in Purple Rain, which was suppose to be autobiographical, he had a white mother and a black father even though both of his parents were black. And all the women he dealt with passed the paper bag test.

R108 That's another thing to love about Prince. He grew as a person and an artist. Despite his mystical appearance, he still was a normal person who made mistakes and handled the consequences. His legal battle over his music, changing his name, many troubled relationships, issues with his family and finding new religious beliefs. His music evolved because he evolved as a person. Compared to Michael who's music never matured past the Thriller era and he in general refused to enter adulthood and gain a new perspective. His music got repetitive as a result because he could not grow up and reflect back on things.

For my money, in terms of raw talent as an entertainer, he might have been the most gifted performer of the 20th century. Certainly in the top 2 or 3.

I think it's ultimately sad what he decided to do with that talent, but it sure worked for him.

He decided that he wanted to be the biggest-selling artist in music history. He set out specifically to achieve that goal with "Thriller", and goddammit if he didn't achieve it. But a commercial vision is not the same as an artistic vision, and I think that in pursuit of the Sinatra-Elvis-Beatles level superstardom, he largely sacrificed his artistry.

For me, his most striking work was found in the bizarre, dark songs that displayed his strange sensibilities. There was an undercurrent of paranoia and/or dread that ran through some of his compositions, and this was unusual in R&B, which traditionally didn't explore too much more lyrically than love, sex, and dancing. Think of the Jacksons' "Heartbreak Hotel", the songs he gave to Diana Ross ("Muscles" and "Eaten Alive"), the truly bizarre "Centipede" that he wrote for his sister Rebbie. I wish he had explored more of this aspect of his art. I mean, "Billie Jean" has a bit of it, perhaps "Startin' Somethin'" and "Smooth Criminal" as well. But the really original, weird stuff mostly didn't sell well, and he correctly understood that it wasn't what the public wanted from him. It wasn't going to take him to the Elvis-level megastardom he envisioned, so he largely abandoned it. Instead, he concentrated on producing albums that were filled with commercial hit singles, often written by others, that would get played on the radio and sell tens of millions of albums.

When he first adopted that signature singing style, I liked it. Those hiccups and "hee-hee"s felt new, and they added a certain electricity to the songs. It felt like he just had so much pent-up energy, he couldn't help himself. It got real old real fast, though...to the point where his vocals were all affectation and no emotion.

In the end, I agree with those who are saying that he basically shot his wad with "Thriller". "Bad" was a repeat of the formula, albeit with some really good songs. By "Dangerous" he was following the trends instead of setting them. I was never interested enough to bother listening to "HIStory" or "Invincible". I kinda liked the song "Blood on the Dance Floor" though.

I wonder what the lesser Jacksons (Tito, Rebbie, etc.) do all day long. What have they been doing all day long for the past 30 years?!

Putting a pin in the pedo stuff, I think the reason he might feel overrated is because he never really evolved - especially as a performer. What was so fresh and electric in 82 was stale just a few years later. He had more innate talent than most, but he never pushed that talent into different directions. Even though he was certainly bigger than Madonna, had he taken her ability to shed her skin every other album as his own? He would be even bigger - if that's even possible.

Off topic, my older sister saw him at Disneyland (1984 or 1985) when he was peak MJ. She and her friend were able to say hello to him at one point. She would have been about 10. She was majorly freaked out by him. For no reason other than being that close to him just made her panic. To this day, she talks about how disconcerting it was.

On the other hand, my partner's brother was best friends with Sean Astin growing up. The two of them were at Neverland all the time in the 80s. Chris (my brother in law) swears up and down MJ was hardly there and when he was, never touched him. Though he is a 46 year old drug addict who's never been able to stay employed or sober for longer than three months.