Michael Jackson (1958-2009)

[KarsonWithaK]

We did? Sha-mon!

K!

 

[firepoint525]

If Boston radio is going to be wall to wall Jacko for a while, my radio's going to be off for a while. ;D

Radio got away with playing all-Elvis for nearly a week after the REAL king died, and all-Beatles for several days after John Lennon's murder, but I don't think they can get away with that this time. Michael Jackson, while legendary, was just simply too polarizing of a figure, with strong opinions on either side, and most stations just cannot risk going overboard with the jacko coverage and music, and risk losing listeners! I would tune out, too, if a station went wall-to-wall jacko! :

OK, what would you rather have, wall-to-wall rock (which is the Boston norm) or wall-to-wall MJ? Definitely the latter, especially if you sprinkle in songs like the following:
Cuba - Gibson Brothers
Rumors - Timex Social Club (middle lyric was about Tina Turner, Michael Jackson and Susan Anton in that order)
Candy Girl - New Edition
Born To Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez
Fascinated - Company B
Atomic Dog - George Clinton

Stations should have mixed in MJ tracks along with the ones you mentioned above, NOT the other way around! :

By contrast, this is what I heard on WROR on my way to and from my second job. I was half expecting some Michael Jackson tribute, but instead I heard:
Who Are You - The Who
Sweet Emotion - Aerosmith
Livin' On A Prayer - Bon Jovi
Turn The Page - Bob Seger
Green-Eyed Lady - Sugarloaf
All classic hard rock songs, and furthermore, all WZLX and Mike territory (not to mention WBCN when it gets on a classic kick).

These are all ROCK songs, although four out of the five you mentioned were also top 40 hits. If I had heard this lineup, especially in context with all the others, I wouldn't have expected to hear a Michael Jackson song, either, with the possible exception of "Beat It," which got some AOR airplay back in 1983-84. It just simply doesn't fit the AOR (or classic rock) format now.

 

[firepoint525]

Friday 96.5 Kiss FM during their "5:00 Hit Mix" ran a 20:00 mixed medley of MJ tunes during the last half hour, then instead of the regular Hot 7 at 7 they counted down the top 7 most requested MJ tunes of the day.
Also some of you still calling him "Wacko Jacko"(which sounds stupid to begin with) -c'mon, he's dead. Even with my own tasteless sense of humor it's just not too cool, and spewed from the usual biased rock lovers. Give him a few days of airplay(38 solo hits ain't too shabby)- I'm sure if internet were around when Elvis died & if I got on here calling him the "old porky washed up womanizing drug addict" someone would be complaining.

Take that up with the British press. They were the ones who came up with that name! :

 

[MassMusicMan]

We did? Sha-mon!

K!

Mediabase is a powerful tool, my friend.

 

[BoscoGoldBear]

including 2 (Mix and Oldies) which did the MJ tribute, and they played the same 16 tracks over and over

Mix played 31 different MJ titles in the past 7 days, and I'm not even including Jackson 5/Jacksons tracks. Get a clue.

Will,

The 16 tracks "over and over" that I was referring to was Boston (Brad Delp tribute), specifically their first 2 LPs. (BCN, AAF, ZLX, ROR, Mike, Mix and Oldies were all guilty of overdoing it with Boston that whole weekend, as I mentioned.) I also wrote in the same post that Michael Jackson had almost twice as many songs as Boston did (I had been combining MJ w/ J5), and you confirmed my MJ/J5 undercount. In short, Oldies, Mix, Kiss and even Jam'n had better MJ coverage than the 7 combined all-Boston-all-the-time stations did (the same 16 songs over and over ain't cutting it IMHO - I'm sorry Brad Delp passed 2 years ago, but the limited material of "Boston" and "Don't Look Back" LPs is overkill!

 

[MassMusicMan]

(BCN, AAF, ZLX, ROR, Mike, Mix and Oldies were all guilty of overdoing it with Boston that whole weekend, as I mentioned.)

I checked Mix's 2007 (the year Delp died) gold report on Mediabase. I checked the entire list of gold titles that they played that year. Big surprise - Boston wasn't listed even once. But why let facts get in the way of statements?

Don't ever post about music again.

 

[KB1OKL]

Radio has been guilty of overdoing two or three of Boston's tunes for about 30 years now.
But this Jacko thing is nonstop on both radio and TV, it's gotten way past the point of ridiculousness, you might think he was John Lennon, Elvis Presley or someone of that stature which he will never be. The guy's dead, why don't they let him (and us) rest?

 

[nightfly61]

Radio has been guilty of overdoing two or three of Boston's tunes for about 30 years now.
But this Jacko thing is nonstop on both radio and TV, it's gotten way past the point of ridiculousness, you might think he was John Lennon, Elvis Presley or someone of that stature which he will never be. The guy's dead, why don't they let him (and us) rest?

He had 62 charting hits total, 38 solo. Lennon had 65 total & 13 solo. Just because it's R&B pop the rockheads think it's "less than good" : & therefore he's not worthy. Grow up & look at the charts.

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

John Lennon was MURDERED. Jackson was not... Lennon wrote the music to his own songs,
and played musical instruments. Jackson did not. When Lennon was killed, he was approximately 10
years younger than Jackson. Oh yea - who would YOU rather look after YOUR kids, eh?
Grow up & look at the FACTS.

 

[radiorama1]

Radio has been guilty of overdoing two or three of Boston's tunes for about 30 years now.
But this Jacko thing is nonstop on both radio and TV, it's gotten way past the point of ridiculousness, you might think he was John Lennon, Elvis Presley or someone of that stature which he will never be. The guy's dead, why don't they let him (and us) rest?

He had 62 charting hits total, 38 solo. Lennon had 65 total & 13 solo. Just because it's R&B pop the rockheads think it's "less than good" : & therefore he's not worthy. Grow up & look at the charts.

Yes, we should base greatness STRICTLY on chart position. That would justify the "greatness" of Britney, Backstreet Boys, and Lil Wayne *sarcasm* :

Not saying that Michael wasn't great... he was clearly a phenomenon back in the 80's and early 90's, but to base greatness based strictly on chart position is, in my opinion, a bit short-sighted.

 

[KB1OKL]

Radio has been guilty of overdoing two or three of Boston's tunes for about 30 years now.
But this Jacko thing is nonstop on both radio and TV, it's gotten way past the point of ridiculousness, you might think he was John Lennon, Elvis Presley or someone of that stature which he will never be. The guy's dead, why don't they let him (and us) rest?

He had 62 charting hits total, 38 solo. Lennon had 65 total & 13 solo. Just because it's R&B pop the rockheads think it's "less than good" : & therefore he's not worthy. Grow up & look at the charts.

Who cares about the charts? The majority of the stuff that is on the charts is absolute junk and chart success has little or no bearing on how talented the artist is or was especially during the hey day of MTV. In fact MTV and videos killed off a lot of talented bands who were not "pretty" enough for TV, remember MJ and his bleached skin, bobbed little nose and choreographed dancing boy videos helped launch MTV.
The Beatles totally changed music and gave new meaning to life for an entire generation, what did MJ change, besides making crotch grabbing and dancing like a puppet a fad in videos?

 

[RadioNut]

Wow, KB...talk about not being in tune...perhaps you should listen to artists of the past 20 years who have all been influenced by MJ's showmanship and talent. Clearly you haven't seen the global impact he has made huh.

 

[nightfly61]

Who cares about the charts? The majority of the stuff that is on the charts is absolute junk and chart success has little or no bearing on how talented the artist is or was especially during the hey day of MTV.

No one needs to CARE about the charts- sales say it all. If it weren't for Billboard there wouldn't be uh, POPULAR MUSIC? It's your own opinion which is "junk" because it's making money & getting airplay. It apparently isn't THAT bad since people are obveously buying it & Jackson's music sold more than Zeppelin. Stick in your little one dimensional AC/DC-Metallica world listening to the same 100 AOR mainstream crap every station including satellite will still be scorching into people's brains 30 years from now. Like Whitburn says..."It ain't #1 'til it's #1 in Billboard".

 

[nightfly61]

Oh yea - who would YOU rather look after YOUR kids, eh?

Ask Julian & Cyn how great a dad John was.

 

[KB1OKL]

Wow, KB...talk about not being in tune...perhaps you should listen to artists of the past 20 years who have all been influenced by MJ's showmanship and talent. Clearly you haven't seen the global impact he has made huh.

Yeah, you're right there are a lot of crotch grabbers nowadays including another multi talented superstar: Britney Spears. ;D

 

[KB1OKL]

Anyway guys I am dropping out of this argument after all we are arguing apples and oranges: I never said he was not talented just that he was not as talented of the top tier musicians. And THAT is something that could go on and on and there is no tangible way to measure talent. But I do know one thing, sales figures are in no way a measure of musical talent, how many LP's and CD's did Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis and Charles Mingus sell?

 

[WLYNWAZNgm]

As far as I am concerned, most of the music that has come out for the last
20 years has been a steaming pile of crap. Influencing that mess is a dubious
distinction, at best. No wonder the music business is on the ropes...

... and, if I had any kids of my own, I would much rather John Lennon look after
them than Jackson. A no-brainer...

I am now done with this stupid thread....

 

[radiorama1]

No one needs to CARE about the charts- sales say it all. If it weren't for Billboard there wouldn't be uh, POPULAR MUSIC? It's your own opinion which is "junk" because it's making money & getting airplay. It apparently isn't THAT bad since people are obveously buying it & Jackson's music sold more than Zeppelin.

Yes, you are correct. People are buying it. They buy it because they are part of the MTV machine. MTV, along with CHR's all across the country ram the same 20-30 "artists" down the people's throats. There are HUNDREDS of musical acts out there--- and I'm not just talking about Rock groups, I'm talking about R & B singers, Rappers, etc. --- that will never get an honest shot because they don't play "The Game" (and you know what I'm talking about).

 

[BRNout]

No one needs to CARE about the charts- sales say it all. If it weren't for Billboard there wouldn't be uh, POPULAR MUSIC? It's your own opinion which is "junk" because it's making money & getting airplay. It apparently isn't THAT bad since people are obveously buying it & Jackson's music sold more than Zeppelin.

Yes, you are correct. People are buying it. They buy it because they are part of the MTV machine. MTV, along with CHR's all across the country ram the same 20-30 "artists" down the people's throats. There are HUNDREDS of musical acts out there--- and I'm not just talking about Rock groups, I'm talking about R & B singers, Rappers, etc. --- that will never get an honest shot because they don't play "The Game" (and you know what I'm talking about).

Soul/R&B music was RUINED by rap. Let me repeat that: RUINED. Go back to the 70s and 80s and you had tons of black artists (including Jackson) cranking out amazing music. With the advent of rap (which wasn't that bad at first) you got a whole new crop of artists who took it in an entirely different direction and took the oxygen out of the room for mainstream R&B/soul.

Yeah, there is still some great R&B out there - but not much of it ever hits the top 10 anymore. Rap changed the landscape and is a big reason why pop music isn't as appealing to us "old guys" as it once was.

 

[KB1OKL]

Yup, give me some good ol' James Brown, Wilson Picket, or Sam and Dave.