I had to be very gentle with one of my friend-enemies at school
\nwhen I found out that he still thought Jacko … err, Jackson was
\nthe King of Pop. So I empathically counted off the reasons why I
\nhated
\nHIStory<\/i> off on my fingers and found myself thinking, infront
\nof my speechless friend, this would make a review decent enough for
\nMr. Thelen. So Jong-Hak-ah, I hope you’re reading this.<\/p>\n
The twenty-something dollars are not a total loss; I do like
\nDisc One, which is a greatest hits package. And we all know that
\nJackson does have oodles of great hits. I’ve always thought of
\n“Billie Jean” as a potential “Papa Don’t Preach” and admired his
\ncomputer tailoring in “The Way You Make Me Feel” plus others.
\nJackson is a very rare artist who can actually make computer music
\nsound like, um, computer music, and we will be forever grateful for
\nhis role in bringing multi-texturing to a new overproduced
\nlevel.<\/p>\n
And it’s undeniable that Jackson goes all the way (strange way
\nof putting that; the world has turned into a mob of would-be
\nMichael-haters). He doesn’t have an energetic voice but “Wanna Be
\nStarting Something” and “Beat It” (of course) have a strong edge to
\nthem. His vocal technique sickens me in “Heal The World” and “Rock
\nWith You” but it’s thrilling in “Black Or White” and “Man In The
\nMirror”. His ballads range from the horrific (“She’s Out Of My
\nLife”, and DO I blame you MJ) to the passable (“I Just Can’t Stop
\nLoving You”). Oh yeah, and the laughable stupidheaded-ness of “The
\nGirl Is Mine”.<\/p>\n
Ah, Disc Two. (JB rubs his hands; sparks fly)<\/p>\n
So, Michael; WHAT HAPPENED??? I mean, is it Lisa Marie (“Your
\nbeing provides the star that brightens my galaxy and the force that
\nstrengthens me. Love, Michael” – liner notes; I’m not kidding!) or
\nsomething? This new-found depression is scarier than
\n“Thriller”.<\/p>\n
Now that I got the snide remarks out of the way, allow me to be
\nmore specific. One: “Scream”. Two people with the wimpiest voices
\nin pop tackle a heavy scream fight with a
\npseudo-political-awareness theme and the result is a track that
\n“really … makes me … want t-” (sorry)<\/p>\n
Two: “They Don’t Really Care About Us”. I still can’t believe
\nthey blotted out “Jew” and “kike”. This song is SUPPOSED to be
\nrace-conscious. Sure I winced when I heard the word “inkhead”, but
\nit’s a necessesary evil; certain people may have done more damage
\nthan they think. It’s typical of Jackson’s style (his better style)
\nand it would’ve been even better if they had edited out that
\nannoying series of hooting he does along with the “anti-semitic”
\nlyrics.<\/p>\n
Three: “This Time Around”, “D.S.”, “Money”, “Come Together” and
\n“2 Bad”. Five songs to portray Jackson’s new outlook on Real Life.
\nComplete with the word “shit”, gunshots, and pro-materialism; it’s
\nalways sad to see innocence lost (or so I gather).<\/p>\n
Four: “Childhood” and “Tabloid Junkie”. First, an appealing
\napproach. Then a dissing approach. They both don’t work; tabloids
\nwill forever love Jackson (the higher you are, the more fun it is
\nfor other people to watch you fall). “Childhood” is way too
\nsaccharine for me to believe it (and I’m a Mariah Carey fan, too)
\nand “Tabloid Junkie” is too obvious.<\/p>\n
Five: “HIStory”, “Little Susie” and “Smile”. The three are
\npathetic attempts at, respectively, sampling, awareness, and
\nremaking.<\/p>\n
But Michael Jackson is an artist in the end. “Stranger In
\nMoscow” is an honest account from within laid over a beautifully
\nvisual setting. “Earth Song” is what “Heal The World” should’ve
\nbeen; less naive and more epic (it’s a huge planet). For once even
\nthe hooting seems to be in place.<\/p>\n
It’s fashionable to bash Michael Jackson these days (number
\nthree under Mark Fhurman and the Spice Girls) and Jong-Hak did
\nplayfully bash Carey sometime back (I NEVER forget, nor
\nforgive<\/i>, these instances; just so you’d know). And I admit
\nthat it looks very immature and unprofessional, how I laid out
\nthese “One, Two, Three” reasons. But this album has had its share
\nof hype (there’s a commentary by Jackie O herself in the booklet,
\nfor pete’s sake) and I see no serious hurt in flaunting my
\nno-wisdom youth once in a while (I ask you: how long would I get to
\ndo it?).<\/p>\n
If you feel nauseated, I’m sure that Mr. Thelen, who’s
\nslightly<\/i> more mature than I am, will be back tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":24494,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5802],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-35697","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-michael-jackson","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35697"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35697"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}