My Amazon Reviews: Michael Jackson "Bad 25"

When he's Bad, he's very, very Bad
4 Out Of 5 Stars

Michael Jackson had the inevitable and unenviable task come 1987 of releasing a follow-up to not just one of the biggest selling albums of all time, but one of the most beloved, "Thriller." "Bad" is the result, and it couldn't help but pale in comparison. That's not to say the album lacks for terrific material, in fact, punch for punch, it is very nearly "Thriller's" equal, and it certainly is better than "Off The Wall." It once again racked up multiple chart hits, with five singles hitting number one from '87 to '89. Thanks to Quincy Jones, the production is immaculate, and between Jones and Jackson, the songs not written by Jackson were cherry picked to magnify Jackson's strengths.

"Bad" also was formulaic in its pursuit of Thrillermania. The big dance number is the title track. The bad girl of "Billie Jean" is replaced by "Dirty Diana." That's also where the star rock guitar solo comes from, with Billy Idol's Steve Stevens takes the place of Eddie VanHalen. The superstar duet came from Stevie Wonder instead of Paul McCartney, on "Just Good Friends." And the happy-time dance song was "The Way You Make Me Feel" in the same vein as "Pretty Young Thing." While Jackson hinted at his personal paranoia on "Billie Jean," this time it comes out fully formed as "Leave Me Alone" (which was not on the original album but basically is considered part of it after it was released as a video).

But everyone from the 80's already knows that. The man reason to bother picking up the 25th Anniversary of "Bad" is the second disc of bonus tracks. Three of them were on an earlier reissue, "Streetwalker," "Fly Away" and a Spanish version of "I Just Can't Stop Loving You." Now we get the later in French, plus six previously unreleased demos. I'm no fan of modernized remixes, so I'll refrain from commenting on the likes of Pitbull hanging out on "Bad." Of the new tracks, the Latin feel of "Don't Be Messing Around" is the most intriguing, and shows what a perfectionist Jackson was. It sounds like a finished song, yet Micheal gave it a pass and never went back to it for future CD's. "Song Groove (Abortion Papers)" would have been controversial on many levels, yet it has a wicked groove. "Price of Fame" is another complaint about fame and even references "Billie Jean," and "Al Capone" milks the "Wanna Be Something" groove needlessly. Both are no big deal.

Bottom line, if you bought the 2001 reissue, there's not much of a reason to go after "Bad25."

     

My Amazon Reviews: Janet Jackson "Icon: Number Ones"

An Abridged version of Janet's Number Ones double disc
4 Out Of 5 Stars
 
The Icon series has done a fair job of dropping quickie best of collections into the ever decreasing CD market place, keeping artists in the shops desptie any new material to offer. Janet Jackson's "Number Ones" is no exception, culling a tightly wound eleven hits in quick succession, ignoring albums prior to the blockbuster "Control" and including one lesser heard recent song, "Nothing," from Tyler Perry's "Why Did I get Married Too?" movie. But the concentration is on those big moments when Janet took "Control" over her music and images, along with producers of the moment, ex-Prince associates Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis.

They take up 10 of the twelve songs here, and it's easy to recognize why. The Minneapolis Sound, which combined equal parts industrial slam/pulverizing beat/Janet's commanding studio presence to work dance floor monsters, worked perfectly on those breakthrough hits like "Control," "What Have You Done For Me Lately" or "Miss You Much." Songs that were effectively without melody, but drove home completely on Janet's forceful personality and the Jam/Lewis conquering beats. It didn't take Janet long to diversify even more, as she began to pitch more socially active songs onto the charts, like her AIDS anthem "Together Again" and the lovely ballad "That's The Way Love Goes." She was also giving props to idols like Joni Mitchell (sampling "Big Yellow taxi" on "Got Till It's Gone" or more curiously, America's "Ventura Highway" on "Someone to call My Lover"; sadly these two tracks are not included).

But Jackson, like her brother Michael, decided at a certain stage to trust her own instincts and become her own artist. Even in this admittedly slight collection, she proves that her vision was the right one to peruse. More interested fans should probably bump up to the two disc "Number Ones," but for me, this Icon set fills my space just fine.

   

A King and an Angel are Gone

I am sitting here, stunned. Michael jackson, a mere year older than me, died this afternoon. While I would not count myself as a fanatic, I was always in awe at the man's immense talents. When I was a kid, one of my first 45's was "ABC." When I graduated from college, the first Top 40 stations I worked for was one of those "Hot Hits" stations that would repeat the top ten in about a three hour period. WQBQ started in 1982, and the Top Ten included "Billie Jean" and "Beat It," with the recurrents including "The Girl Is Mine" and others. It was likely that you'd hear 2 or more Michael Jackson songs an hour. Yet the public seemed to not tire of them, and "Thriller" remains one of the largest selling albums in history. I still have the CD in my collection, an album that has been in my music probably two or three times. And when I worked as a club DJ in Dover, Delaware, the albums "Thriller" and "Bad" still made people dance.

While his public antics, trials and health issues had long overshadowed his recorded work, I can't begin to estimate what Michael Jackson did to influence music and pop culture. I can still vividly remember watching an elementry school band slog their way through the usual marching band stuff and pop oldies that every young kid has to play, but then the band leader made an announcement that the kids had a special song that they wanted to play. A steady drumbeat began and dozens of little feet began to ecstatically tap and play "Billie Jean." Despite the somewhat studious nature of their playing prior to this, you could see their faces light up as they leaned into their instruments and put all their hearts into playing this, the coolest of songs for these kids to be playing. For these elementary school kids, Jackson was their gateway into loving music.

Michael Jackson may have been overwhlmed by the court cases and the plastic surgeries, but for me it is those kids in the school band that will be my measure of what Jackson accomplished. It will be the night I watched him doing the moonwalk on TV for the first time. It will be the fans who rallied to the Sunset Blvd Tower Records to see the "HisStory" statue when the box set was released. And even if he spoonfed and obligated newspapers to call him "The King Of Pop," he managed to make himself into the stuff of his dreams.

Had hers been the only celebrety passing today, Farrah Fawcett would still have been newsworthy, but add Michael Jackson's sudden death, and Farrah was almost overshadowed. Yet it is hard for me not to notice, because as a gay man not yet out of his teens, the infamous "Farrah" poster was one of only two women to be pinned on my teenaged wall. (The other was Linda Rondstat.) And while news reports had been making us aware that her battle with cancer was on the brink of taking her from us, the announcement of her passing still felt like a tug at the heart. I always have an issue with people who discribe a battle with Cancer as "Couragous," as cancer is an illness and not a challenge you choose. You would never consider describing anyone with cancer as "cowardly." Her fight with her Cancer was one she took on with dignity and determination. She looked at what she was doing as an opportunity to show women what dealing with cancer was, realistically. It was honest, it was heartbreaking. What she did in 1976 was charm us as a glamourius Charlie's Angel. What she did in 2009 was win us with her warmth and honesty, even if her 'glamour' had long passed, but her charm never went away.