Jump to content

Michael Jackson Bad 25 Trailer Preview


Recommended Posts

ABC's 60-second trailer previews the documentary film by award-winning director Spike Lee, celebrates the 25th anniversary of Michael Jackson's landmark "BAD" album and tour. "Michael Jackson: BAD25" will air Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 22 (

p.m., ET) on ABC.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember that "Tower Records" store... I brought the album and later the CD, but I was not really big fan of this album (sacrilege, I know) I was much more into rap at the time.

This album was so big because of the marketing, promotion and more. Sure the music was fine (personally I never go back and listen to "BAD") but there was a tremendous marketing machine behind the music -- nothing like it before. or since really.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Do you recall the rumor that was circulating about Quincy Jones supposedly suggesting that Prince play the role that Wesley Snipes later ended up with in the "Bad" video? It was also rumored that Prince turned the role down because he didn't want to be associated with the line Michael uttered in one verse of the song that went: "your ass is mine".

Prince was always such a twerp. I don't even know why I liked him, strutting around with all those tight, frilly constumes, wearing eyeliner and blush and Shirley Temple ringlets. Almost as bad as MIchael with his military styled uniforms and jeri curled hair and bleached skin. I guess it was because I was caught up in the frenzy of the times, brainwased by all of my post office co-workers and my kids. :wacko: Thank goodness, my jazz afficionado husband kept me from going completely overhboard. :o

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nah I was unaware of the rumors, or have forgotten them. I really did not follow Michael that closely. I just know Bad was not all that good.

Here is a song that has captured my attention lately. The music, arrangement, singing, lyrics ...just beautiful.

There's a saying old

Says that love is blind

Still we're often told

Seek and ye shall find

So I'm going to seek

A certain lad

I've had in mind

Looking everywhere

Haven't found him yet

He's the big affair

I cannot forget

Only man I ever think

Of with regret

I'd like

To add his initial

To my monogram

Tell me

Where is the shepherd

For this lost lamb?

There's a somebody

I'm longin' to see

I hope that he turns

Out to be

Someone to watch over me

I'm a little lamb

Who's lost in the wood

I know I could

Always be good

To one

Who'll watch over me

Although he may

Not be the man some

Girls think

Of as handsome

To my heart

He carries the key

Won't you tell him please

To put on some speed

Follow my lead

Oh, how I need

Someone to watch over me

Won't you tell him please

To put on some speed

Follow my lead

Oh, how I need

Someone to watch over me

Someone to watch over me

,"Someone to Watch Over Me," written in 1926 by George and Ira Gershwin was recorded by Ella Fitzgerald

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a beautiful song, Troy; deeply melodious with exquisite lyrics, a ballad from the great American songbook that I'm always blubbering about, as my praise falls on the deaf ears of this generation who think this kind of music is schmaltzy.

As slow as this song is I'm surprised you liked it. It's certainly one of my favorites, an old standby that back in the day any chanteuse worth her salt recorded a version of. Male vocalists did, too.

Romantic classics like this are mostly taken from the Broadway musicals of the 1920s and 30s and 40s and many were recorded and sampled by jazz instrumentalists. But, you knew that, didn't you. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

While looking for the video I see that Amy Winehouse did a version as well. Collectively her renditions have gotten FAR more views than Ella's. I prefer Ella's rendition much more -- it is just firing on all cylinders. I did know Jazz musicians played these melodies. Actually it was you mentioning your husband affinity for Jazz that prompted me to post Ella's song.

Winehouse's version is fine but it does not move me at all. I'm literally enthralled by Ella's version. I can't explain why perhaps someone who understand the mechanics of music more can explain why.

I heard a singer perform this song at the Apollo during a $10 variety show (Jazz Shrines tremendous entertainment value). It was perhaps the single best performance of anything I've seen at the Apollo. It blew away Winehouse version but not as good as Ella's.

The sing is still being performed and quite relevant. But Pop music appeals to the masses and will garner the lion's share of the marketing resources.

So I can't imagine Bad 25 being much more than an extended music video of one of Michael's weakest, albeit better selling, songs. I don't plan to tune in.

It is interesting to think how much stuff I share that I personally don't care very much about -- or dislike even.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The photo history of Lena Horne was beautiful. She aged so gracefully :wub:

Both versions of these versions were great. I'll have to listen a few more times to each to pick a favorite (not sure why I feel compelled to pick a favorite -- just the way my brain works I guess).

Still hard to believe this tune is almost 90 years old. When it debuted the only way you would likely here it is was when it was performed live or if you caught it on the radio.

The idea that we can call up so many different version of this song, play it on demand, share it with others, download to portable devices -- without paying for it is mind boggling.

Often people draw analogies between where music has gone with digital files and where books are going with eBooks as if they were analogous. Few have really considered a world where books are shared as freely as music files are today -- even if they talk about it as if it inevitable. But that is a different conversation.

Here is Frank

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

60 years ago, back in the days before "Take 5", when I was a student at the University of Illinois, music like this jazz version of the old standard "The Way You Look Tonight" rendered by the Dave Brubeck quartet, would be what me and my fellow black coeds would be listening to in a dorm room, smoking unfiltered Pall Malls, sitting cross-legged on the floor playing Bridge, rich Jewish girls from NY, kibitizing over our shoulders, there at the U. of I. because this great midwestern university was a haven for the bargain-hunting parents of Jewish kids looking for a quality education that cost half the price of the prestitgious private colleges back east.

'Spent many a night doing this, neglecting my studies, which is why I ended up getting my degree in the subject of everything at the U. S. Post office where I sat on my ass observing a broad cross section of people for 30 years before retiring.

Brubeck is now in his 90s and I'm on the brink of 80. Weren't those the days, Dave? A simpler time, before Charlie and Billie OD'd and Miles got petulant. Before Rosa got tired and Martin began to march and Malcolm began to preach, and America changed its tune...

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm glad you are on my wave length, writergirl! Finally a female poster with whom I have rapport. I find your comments so pithy and on point and inciteful.. ( Great minds run along the same path. Right? ;))

I know that Brubeck selection was probably tuned out by many people because it is "straight ahead jazz"; not the garden variety of smooth jazz fushion available on your FM radio dial. It's too bad that white musicians like Dave Brubeck gained so much prominence by becoming practioners of the music originated by Blacks who gradually abandoned this art form and gravitated to R&B and Rap. So it goes. :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yeah I could take or leave the Brubeck selection not so much because it is "straight ahead jazz", but because I don't particular care for it.

I don't dislike it, but I would not purchase it. I don't like all Funk and Rap music either. Jazz is no different.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, Troy, not all jazz purists are fans of Dave Brubeck's music. Their main problem with it being that it's too structured, and that he and saxophonist Paul Desmond engaged in too much classical baroque contra point and not enough improvising. But during the 50s which was when this group began its ascent to fame, this style was what appealed to jazz neophytes who were turned off by the be-bop which was also the rage during the early 50s, because to them be-bop was just a lot of frenetic noise. And on big 10 college campuses, Brubeck was the man. Doo-Wop was just as popular on black college campuses.

I always liked Brubeck and Paul Desmond because their renditions were melodious, starting out slow and then crescendoing into a climax. They didn't originate this appoach and Desmond's lyrical saxophone stylings harked back to black saxophonists like Lester "Prez" Young. Here's another jazz treatment of a classic old ballad.

http://youtu.be/hC2LL7aaYgY

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...