Was it the increasingly overproduced/safe music? The controversies about his appearance and personal life? The growing outmodedness with the teen crowd? The inability to follow up Thriller? What do you think?

I think it was a combonation of a overbearing father, too much fame too fast, and alot of Jesus Juice...lol ;D

Michael Jackson fell because he couldn't keep his hands off little boys.  He could release albums as big as Thriller each time out, but the more perverse his private life became, the less people here wanted to do with him.  I mean, any man who says that he's only had 1 surgery on his nose........if he's lying about that, what else is he lying about? 

His talent was never the issue.  It was everything else.

Michael Jackson fell because he couldn't keep his hands off little boys.  He could release albums as big as Thriller each time out, but the more perverse his private life became, the less people here wanted to do with him.  I mean, any man who says that he's only had 1 surgery on his nose........if he's lying about that, what else is he lying about? 

His talent was never the issue.  It was everything else.
Please remember he was aqitted of these charges and it has never been proven.

Please remember he was aqitted of these charges and it has never been proven.



Just because he was acquitted didn't mean he didn't do it.  It means that once again, a celeb in California got away with breaking the law.  They acquitted O.J. Simpson, didn't they?

He fell because he became a meglomaniac, oh and his music got sh*t. For the record I think he is as guilty as hell too. 

Just because he was acquitted didn't mean he didn't do it.  It means that once again, a celeb in California got away with breaking the law.  They acquitted O.J. Simpson, didn't they?
There was no substantial evidence to prove anything in this case.

There was no substantial evidence to prove anything in this case.



At that time.  Didn't mean he didn't do it.  If the man is willing to lie on TV and say he had only one surgery on his nose, when it's plainly obvious that he did not, it's perfectly reasonable to think that he lies about other things that are plainly obvious. 

No one is ever going to convince me this man is innocent.  Sleeping in a bed with little boys is disgusting, perverted and criminal.

At that time.  Didn't mean he didn't do it.  If the man is willing to lie on TV and say he had only one surgery on his nose, when it's plainly obvious that he did not, it's perfectly reasonable to think that he lies about other things that are plainly obvious. 

No one is ever going to convince me this man is innocent.  Sleeping in a bed with little boys is disgusting, perverted and criminal.


right on! he's a freak.  still love his old stuff.  but yeah, he is a damn freak.

I knew if I did a Michael Jackson thread, it would turn into the child molestation thing...the point was to discuss the reasons in his creative/musical career why he floundered.

I knew if I did a Michael Jackson thread, it would turn into the child molestation thing...the point was to discuss the reasons in his creative/musical career why he floundered.



I think it was a combination between not being able to compare to his older stuff...along with the fact that each year he was appearing to become stranger and stranger....and then allegations began surfacing about him....thus, diminishing his support/fans.

I think it was a combination between not being able to compare to his older stuff...along with the fact that each year he was appearing to become stranger and stranger....and then allegations began surfacing about him....thus, diminishing his support/fans.


Also, his music lost its spontaneity and became increasingly forced and dated (like his image) as the '80s went on.

Was it the increasingly overproduced/safe music? The controversies about his appearance and personal life? The growing outmodedness with the teen crowd? The inability to follow up Thriller? What do you think?


Because he ignored his managers' advice when he told Jacko not to moonwalk on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Jacko just didn't see where he was going... :-\\

He fell because he became a meglomaniac, oh and his music got sh*t. For the record I think he is as guilty as hell too.   


I agree with this.

He thought he could do nothing wrong and appeared to stop making an effort to release good music.

I don't know.  I think he just ran his course naturally...the 80's provided him with the right platform to showcase the best of his talents, and by the time of the 90's some of this stuff had really lost the catchy beat we call came to know and love.

Jacko was an 80's legend, but in the 90's and 00's he's just a very ordinary pop-star.

Because he ignored his managers' advice when he told Jacko not to moonwalk on the edge of the Grand Canyon. Jacko just didn't see where he was going... :-\\


;D

I think more than anything it was because of the disturbing changes in his image, rather than his music... By the early '90s he was whiter than I currently am. He just became way too strange for the public. Back in the days of Thriller or Bad, no one could foresee what craziness lay in the future.

I lost interest in Jacko after his 1991 Dangerous album.  "Black or White" was IMO his last decent song.  Lately, that album title is a good description of him ;D

I think more than anything it was because of the disturbing changes in his image, rather than his music... By the early '90s he was whiter than I currently am. He just became way too strange for the public. Back in the days of Thriller or Bad, no one could foresee what craziness lay in the future.


I would argue that's not the case, and I base this on the following.

For 1983's 'Thriller' album, Jacko had already undergone many changes, both physically and emotionally.  By the time of 1987's 'Bad' he was barely recognizable from the previous album, but it didn't stop the public from buying his records.

And in 1995, despite all the controversy over his private life and increasingly erratic behaviour, he still managed to hit the number 1 spot with 'Earth Song'. 

So I don't feel that his craziness has had as much of an impact as you might think.  OK, so it does play a part as he's perhaps worse now than ever - but musically that creative spark has disappeared in recent years.

I would argue that's not the case, and I base this on the following.

For 1983's 'Thriller' album, Jacko had already undergone many changes, both physically and emotionally.  By the time of 1987's 'Bad' he was barely recognizable from the previous album, but it didn't stop the public from buying his records.

And in 1995, despite all the controversy over his private life and increasingly erratic behaviour, he still managed to hit the number 1 spot with 'Earth Song'. 

So I don't feel that his craziness has had as much of an impact as you might think.  OK, so it does play a part as he's perhaps worse now than ever - but musically that creative spark has disappeared in recent years.


Well, he was coming down from the colossal success of albums like Thriller and Bad... so I think you're right that even the worst of his antics wouldn't have been able to completely destroy his career, as they likely would for most pop stars. (Just think what would happen to Britney's career if she became a black woman and started sleeping with little girls.  :o)

But Michael's strange behaviour and dubious activities in Neverland have seriously and irreparably damaged his credibility for a lot of people, myself included.

I would argue that's not the case, and I base this on the following.

For 1983's 'Thriller' album, Jacko had already undergone many changes, both physically and emotionally.  By the time of 1987's 'Bad' he was barely recognizable from the previous album, but it didn't stop the public from buying his records.

And in 1995, despite all the controversy over his private life and increasingly erratic behaviour, he still managed to hit the number 1 spot with 'Earth Song'. 

So I don't feel that his craziness has had as much of an impact as you might think.  OK, so it does play a part as he's perhaps worse now than ever - but musically that creative spark has disappeared in recent years.


In America, it was a slow fall from 1984-1993. The child molestation accusations in 1993 sealed his career doom for Americans, but it was also the increasingly mechanical/predictable/overproduced music, the strange images in videos like "Black or White", the really fake seeming heterosexual relationships, the inability to keep up with the times, the plastic surgery, AND the lifestyle rumors. He's maintained much more popularity in Europe than here, where "Black or White" and some of the other contemporaneous singles were his last big hits (though "Scream" with Janet was pretty big.)

I knew if I did a Michael Jackson thread, it would turn into the child molestation thing...the point was to discuss the reasons in his creative/musical career why he floundered.



That's the thing; the child molestation thing is one of the reasons his musical career foundered.  He was spending too much time in court and running from the police to spend any decent time in the studio making good music.  His "extracurriculars" were keeping him from doing anything productive.

That's the thing; the child molestation thing is one of the reasons his musical career foundered.  He was spending too much time in court and running from the police to spend any decent time in the studio making good music.  His "extracurriculars" were keeping him from doing anything productive.


Also, I think his paranoia and general weirdness kept him out of touch with what was going on in music starting in the late '80s.

I think it was a combination of things. I know once that kid-fondling scandel hit in 1993, that really warped my view of him ever since. I was really upset about that.

Well, he was coming down from the colossal success of albums like Thriller and Bad... so I think you're right that even the worst of his antics wouldn't have been able to completely destroy his career, as they likely would for most pop stars. (Just think what would happen to Britney's career if she became a black woman and started sleeping with little girls.  :o)

But Michael's strange behaviour and dubious activities in Neverland have seriously and irreparably damaged his credibility for a lot of people, myself included.


Totally understand. 

However, It still won't stop me playing 'Smooth Criminal' at my forthcoming 80's party.  For me, who Jacko was in the 80's and who is he now are two different things, and I'd like to keep it that way.

- plastic surgery

-  the allegations on child abuse

- letting success go to his head

-  less than stellar albums after Dangerous

Totally understand. 

However, It still won't stop me playing 'Smooth Criminal' at my forthcoming 80's party.  For me, who Jacko was in the 80's and who is he now are two different things, and I'd like to keep it that way.


Yeah, agreed. I still like alot of his stuff from the 1979-1991 period.

Totally understand. 

However, It still won't stop me playing 'Smooth Criminal' at my forthcoming 80's party.  For me, who Jacko was in the 80's and who is he now are two different things, and I'd like to keep it that way.


Oh, I agree... I think he's extremely talented, and his music in the '80s was his best.

It's definitely a combination of things that date back to when Thriller was still a big album. I think one big contributor was all those rumors flying around. Those who can remember back to the mid '80s might remember some of them, like sleeping in an oxygen chamber, wanting to buy the elephant man's bones, wanting to have plastic surgery to look like Diana Ross, having an affair with Diana Ross, being best friends with Elizabeth Taylor, being dangerously anorexic and having multiple plastic surgeries on his nose because he never seemed to like how it looked (this one lasted til the '90s). People couldn't tell what was fact or what was fiction, such as whether he really did burn his hair while filming a Pepsi commercial, and whether he really owned a pet chimp and a pet python or boa constrictor.

I think the way he dressed was weird! Look at his hair and the black outfit he wore on the cover of the Bad album. Are we expected to think this guy's a badass by looking like that? The same guy who sang Ben and One Day In Your Life? The title song was lame too, but it still went to number one. A big artist who has had a multi-million selling album always has the pressure of matching or exceeding this success with future albums, and Bad was not a bad effort, but I personally didn't like the Dangerous album. Again, he tried to look badass in the Black or White video clip, but had Macauley Culkin in it. Still, Dangerous was very successful.

It's definitely a combination of things that date back to when Thriller was still a big album. I think one big contributor was all those rumors flying around. Those who can remember back to the mid '80s might remember some of them, like sleeping in an oxygen chamber, wanting to buy the elephant man's bones, wanting to have plastic surgery to look like Diana Ross, having an affair with Diana Ross, being best friends with Elizabeth Taylor, being dangerously anorexic and having multiple plastic surgeries on his nose because he never seemed to like how it looked (this one lasted til the '90s). People couldn't tell what was fact or what was fiction, such as whether he really did burn his hair while filming a Pepsi commercial, and whether he really owned a pet chimp and a pet python or boa constrictor.

I think the way he dressed was weird! Look at his hair and the black outfit he wore on the cover of the Bad album. Are we expected to think this guy's a badass by looking like that? The same guy who sang Ben and One Day In Your Life? The title song was lame too, but it still went to number one. A big artist who has had a multi-million selling album always has the pressure of matching or exceeding this success with future albums, and Bad was not a bad effort, but I personally didn't like the Dangerous album. Again, he tried to look badass in the Black or White video clip, but had Macauley Culkin in it. Still, Dangerous was very successful.


Yeah, I think "Bad" was sort of a lame song, with how he expected us to think he was tough. Personally, I always thought his plastic surgery aimed to make him look like Diana Ross, who was his idol at Motown and discovered the Jackson Five back in the '60s at a nightclub in Gary, Indiana. Here's a photo comparison:

http://diana-ross.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/dianabwross.jpg

TO see attachment

Yeah, I think "Bad" was sort of a lame song, with how he expected us to think he was tough. Personally, I always thought his plastic surgery aimed to make him look like Diana Ross, who was his idol at Motown and discovered the Jackson Five back in the '60s at a nightclub in Gary, Indiana. Here's a photo comparison:

http://diana-ross.tripod.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/dianabwross.jpg

TO see attachment


Yeah, he was better at doing a "tough" song when he wasn't directly trying to be that way himself. "Bad" was that album's "Beat It" but that one worked 'cause it was an anti-gang violence song in general.

I think actually, it was a 1988-91esque pattern for mainstream pop stars to act or come off as tough/badass guys. A couple of the New Kids did it, and of course, there was Vanilla Ice. ;D

When Michael Jackson did the Bad video, I always got the feeling that he wasn't being serious about trying to be a "tough bad ass" kind a guy.  It seemed more jokey.

When some of those guys in New Kids tried to pass themselves off as hard, they were being serious and it came off as completely ridiculous.  The same thing happened with Vanilla Ice.

When Michael Jackson did the Bad video, I always got the feeling that he wasn't being serious about trying to be a "tough bad ass" kind a guy.  It seemed more jokey.

When some of those guys in New Kids tried to pass themselves off as hard, they were being serious and it came off as completely ridiculous.  The same thing happened with Vanilla Ice.


Hmm...I suppose the same thing happens with alot of boy bands, like how Backstreet Boys and N'Sync always had one neo-tough member. It's sort of a '90s thing, I suppose, the attempts at being tough. The '80s boy bands (and yes, they were a sort of boy band, with better production and songwriting), like Duran Duran, at least knew what they were.

BSB and NYSNC had such a massive mainstream following, that they were able to get away with things that New Kids on the Block simply could not.  The NKOTB fanbase consisted of children and young teenagers.  Few people over the age of 14 took them seriously, or at least wanted to publicly admit it.  BSB and NYSNC on the other hand had older teenagers and 20 something fans, their success was amazing.  So if they had a couple of guys that acted thugish, people seemed more willing to forgive it.

Back to Michael Jackson, he never seemed serious to me about acting "bad".  The Bad video and the Smooth Criminal video all seemed like a lampooning of tough guys, not actually trying to be hard. 

BSB and NYSNC had such a massive mainstream following, that they were able to get away with things that New Kids on the Block simply could not.  The NKOTB fanbase consisted of children and young teenagers.  Few people over the age of 14 took them seriously, or at least wanted to publicly admit it.  BSB and NYSNC on the other hand had older teenagers and 20 something fans, their success was amazing.  So if they had a couple of guys that acted thugish, people seemed more willing to forgive it.

Back to Michael Jackson, he never seemed serious to me about acting "bad".  The Bad video and the Smooth Criminal video all seemed like a lampooning of tough guys, not actually trying to be hard. 

Good point about MJ, you're probably right in retrospect. The only thing he did in the early days that made me ever think WTF? was the end of the "Black or White" video. Not that it wasn't comical in a way, but even when I was 9, I didn't get what was up with him getting p*ssed off randomly, smashing car windows and grabbing himself, lol.

About Backstreet and Nsync: It seemed they had mostly, like 8-14 year old fans too. I sort of liked "As Long as You Love Me" but more in that Oh my god, I'd never let anyone know about this, but it's sorta a guilty pleasure good song sense. That's the way it was for almost anyone over 15 too, as least for who I ran in circles with or what I saw on TV etc.

However, I know a few girls my age (one was an '82er I believe) that were into them, partially because they thought the guys were hot, but not strictly for the music. ;)

Good point about MJ, you're probably right in retrospect. The only thing he did in the early days that made me ever think WTF? was the end of the "Black or White" video. Not that it wasn't comical in a way, but even when I was 9, I didn't get what was up with him getting p*ssed off randomly, smashing car windows and grabbing himself, lol.

About Backstreet and Nsync: It seemed they had mostly, like 8-14 year old fans too. I sort of liked "As Long as You Love Me" but more in that Oh my god, I'd never let anyone know about this, but it's sorta a guilty pleasure good song sense. That's the way it was for almost anyone over 15 too, as least for who I ran in circles with or what I saw on TV etc.

However, I know a few girls my age (one was an '82er I believe) that were into them, partially because they thought the guys were hot, but not strictly for the music. ;)


Yeah, the main fanbase of those bands in 1999 or 2000 was born 1985-1992 or so...almost every girl in my  grade loved the boybands from 1998-2000. They had some general appeal in that people even older than my parent's age liked some of their music on the radio, but few people younger or older than the aforementioned age bracket got into them that much...

The massive appeal of those bands was limited to those couple of years around 1999. Today's equivalent is the Ashley Tisdale/HSM stuff, which nobody over the age of like, 13 likes or knows that well.

About Backstreet and Nsync: It seemed they had mostly, like 8-14 year old fans too. I sort of liked "As Long as You Love Me" but more in that Oh my god, I'd never let anyone know about this, but it's sorta a guilty pleasure good song


I thought it was their best song. I liked some of their songs, watching the videos, and listening to the radio, but never in a million years, would I have bought one of their CDs.

I thought it was their best song. I liked some of their songs, watching the videos, and listening to the radio, but never in a million years, would I have bought one of their CDs.


I did buy a Backstreet Boys CD in 1999, only because downloading stuff was a bit harder then than it is now. At least with downloading MP3's you don't feel half as guilty  ;D