Some time ago I was debating on buying the new digitized Beatles collection, some of my CD's are a bit old but the sound is still good, and actually the only one I was missing was the White album. while doing some "research" I stumbled upon the Rolling Stone magazine web site, and in their most influential 100 list, no surprise I found the Beatles in the No. 1 position. What was surprising was to read the outrage of some readers, who accused the magazine of racism for placing Michael Jackson in the 35th spot (although there are a number of black artist between the Beatles and the child molester in the list), citing several reasons as to why he should be placed in the first position. I must confese I was never a fan of the pedophile, mostly due to the fact that his music sounds like Disco to me, but even from my biased position I cannot understand why would somebody consider Jackson as an influence in music. I would give his some credit for "Billy Jean" but even that song cannot be compared to "starway to heaven", "instant karma", "knocking on heavens door" or one of my favorites "american pie" Have the minions of satan taken over popular culture or is still too soon after Jackson's death and people's judgement is clouded... or Im just old school. Your thoughts ?
I never liked MJ but for my wife and all of our friends who are of a certain age MJ and the Jackson Five were a huge influence. If you grew up in America the 1970's you would understand. I didn't, so to me he's not terribly interesting.
to say Michael Jackson wasn't one of the most influential artists of his era (or any era) is to speak nonsense.
1) The bolded... you CAN understand, but refuse to. Set aside the comments from folks who would suggest that MJ not being #1 is the result of racism, but The J5 and MJ are top 10 or 20 easily. 2) Disco is a genre. It gets a lot of flak from some very kewl people, but like any other genre, it has its good and bad. It's one thing to have preferences, but the sort of post you've made requires an impartial study of music, and if you're not willing to give disco its props the same way you would country or polka, you probably don't have any business making a judgement at all. 3) None of the songs you listed are Beatles songs. No, not even Instant Karma. 4) You don't really want to examine the viewpoints held by the some (most?) of the composers whose music gets taught in schools and conservatories all over the world. Pretty much. The Beatles deserve their #1 spot, but not because of the songs Pepe listed, because they didn't record any of them.
This has to be a troll. American Pie is an awful, awful song and a "tribute" that probably made Buddy Holly roll over in his grave. But on a more serious note, there are some truly insane MJ fans out there. I'm not talking about people who have all his albums, or people who thought Off The Wall and Thriller had some great jams, or even people who learned the moonwalk. I'm talking about the people you would see on news footage of his public appearances that were weeping and screaming with almost religious devotion, to whom he was effectively a god and could do no wrong. If you've ever seen footage of his court appearances on CNN or what have you, you know what I'm talking about. Most likely it was them that are responsible for the clamoring, as a lot of hardcore music fans would consider MJ a very influential artist, but certainly not more than, say, James Brown.
I kinda like it myself, just not as much as the OP does. I thought "troll" for a second, but there'd have been no point. The topic isn't worth trolling over. It shouldn't, IMO, but then Holly's music never did it for me. ^^This.
A qualified no - I think Gawker Media (Deadspin, Gawker et al) sites with their star commenter system makes for significantly less stupidity and trolling and some actual gems. Otherwise, comment sections exist only to pad pageviews and increase ad revenue.
I understand that is MJ had nice music, and that you could shake your booty to it, but it woud be a big stretch of the imagination to consider it "influential" in the big scheme modern music in general --same for disco or polka-- in the way that R&B, Jazz or the folksy stuff from Gutrie is influential I know very well that the songs I've listed are not Beatles songs, just that I consider them better than anything MJ sang., specially "American pie"... Funny about influential composers, Lennon call "Eleanor Rigby" as McCartney's "VIvaldi's period".
Sure, I found the same reactions from people at work, although seems to be circumscribed to certain gender and ethnic groups...
You could draw a direct line from disco to a very large chunk of modern hip-hop and dance music, stopping only briefly at house and Latin freestyle along the way.
What a strange thread... I like almost all good music. Of course, "good" is a relatively subjective construct, so I can dig it that not everyone thinks Michael Jackson is an outstanding artist. But to suggest that he isn't influential is very curious, indeed. Have we fallen down the rabbit hole? Let's see. "Stairway To Heaven", "Knocking On Heaven's Door", "American Pie"??? Is there a theme disguised here? Mebbe, mebbe not. When we start talking about "influence" we have to take into account the idea that there are lots of different ways to direct the flow of artistic expression. MJ didn't invent dance music, but he became a cultural icon by refining a musical genre, or a subset of one. An estimate of how many records -- LPs, 45s, CDs, etc, he has sold numbers in excess of 500M. Now, having said that, he does owe some debt to Rod Temperton and Quincy Jones.
The J5 stuff IS R&B, as is (IMO) everything up thru at least Thriller (I haven't studied any of it beyond that point. I don't know if the fact that MJ helped change R&B is the reason you don't recognize MJ as R&B, but it is.
It's funny you mention this now when 80's music and disco nostalgia is alive and kicking. Disco is found all over the place in cities like NYC and there are "dance" bands popping up everywhere with plenty of disco influences. Giorgio Moroder, one of disco's most famous producers, has been one of electronic music's most influential artists. I'd say that along with Kraftwerk his use of synthesizers and beats helped lay the foundation for new wave, house, techno and a bunch of other very popular genres. Even electro and hip hop as was mentioned above. But I still think this is a troll. How can you look at hugely popular artists like Beyonce, Justin Timberlake, Rhianna, Lady Gaga, ext.. and not see MJ's influence? And not only in the music, in the dancing and the stage presentation as well.
Troof. Like it or not, today's music (and that spans all genres, including rock and country) doesn't exist without disco or Michael Jackson or rap.
I think that people understating MJs influence have trouble separating the tabloid star from the musical artist. and we haven't even touched on his influence on music videos (or have we?), coreography, etc..
Sure there is a conection, and Im sure even mambo or ballroom dancing can be called an influence in modern dance music, I just dont see how MJ was influential in the way the Beatles were influential to modern music in general.
I dont think we can use sales as a point in comparison, the same way we cannot compare the media during the sixties to the media during the eighties, unless somehow we can extrapolate the Beatles sales during the sixties to the eighties
the CD didn't exist until after The Beatles broke up, but vinyl and cassette tape sales probably parallel CD sales. certainly world markets have expanded but MJ was selling vinyl, too. i have Off The Wall and Thriller in both vinyl and CD formats.
Our troll touched on that several times in his original post. Still an interesting discussion. Huh. That, too.