A retrospective on the King of Pop - putting aside anything except his musically ability, where do you rate MJ? A great musician who will be remembered for generations? Overrated and nothing special? Somewhere in between?
A musical God. I remember when Jackson ruled the musical world. I remember a time when he wasn’t weird, then he was “celebrity weird” and finally when he was just so weird that it probably hurt his sales (and even then he sold quite a bit). If he had died in 1988 back when he was just celebrity weird I don’t think his musical legacy would have been questioned.
As a musician, there are/were lots of people better than he. As a performer, I’d rate him much higher: he was something special, though he never particularly appealed to me personally.
He was considerably better than “meh,” but not nearly as remarkable a singer as he was a dancer. I give him a seven.
Personally I gave him an 8. Most of his stuff wasn’t really my thing, but as Dave Chapelle said - the man made Thriller.
Meh. Some of his songs were OK, for the 80’s.
Meh.
Does nothing for me, but I recognise that he moved a lot of other people. So I went for down the middle.
I never understood his appeal. But I don’t generally see the appeal of most popular music and performers. And exactly why was *Thriller *considered to be such a big deal? I must have missed a nuance or two…
I think he was extremely gifted. I gave him a 9.
I personally could not watch him perform. I just felt so sorry for him. He was so tortured.
One notch above ‘meh,’ a 6.
He had several tracks I really like, a handful that kind of grate on me, and a whole lot that don’t really resonate one way or the other.
If his only legacy were his recorded music, I think he would generally be remembered favorably but not at the top of his genre. Like Thudlow said, it was his performance skills that elevated him to something special.
Vote 7 here…
At his best he was really quite good (8, or even 9, on a really good day), at his worst, he was hardly unlistenable (a solid 5, maybe a 4 if he was being really self-indulgent when he recorded something).
His videos were great, if you were in the mood for the long non-musical parts. And, if not…well, maybe they’d be playing a short version.
I may be cheating, but I’m counting his dancing as part of his musical ability. A great dancer and a great singer.
9/10
And I don’t even like his stuff much. I can recognize talent even when it isn’t my thing.
As a singer, he was a great writer. (Or more precisely, whoever wrote his backing music.) I get into his music until he opens his mouth.
He’s really really fucking good. I gave him a 9.
5 as a songwriter, 10 as a performer.
I remember this one bit from a sad Oprah interview, where Michael was illustrating a musical point and he started beatboxing. Jeez, what a talent.
I still get shivers up my spine when I hear his pre-teen delivery of Smokey’s Who’s Lovin’ You. In an American Idol-type competition, he would’ve stood out just as much.
I gave him a 9 simply because I wish he used his talent to experiment more vs. try to come up with the perfect, 100 million-selling smash; that is why, IMHO, I hold Prince higher. As for MJ’s personal issues, they are truly tragic but have nothing to do with his talent.
I can rate his music (really, really good) but I’m not sure how to rate him because I don’t know how responsible he was for creating the hits.
Yeah he sang them and maybe wrote some of the lyrics but who was really responsible for constructing these songs? I probably give more credit to some of the producers who engineered these hits from the ground up.
Over-rated hack. But then, I was hardly the targeted demographic.
He does nothing for me. My musical interests don’t include dancing. I gave him a 5.
I mean, how do you compare him with someone like Paul McCartney who also wrote his own songs, but also could play bass guitar, along with rhythm guitar, lead guitar, piano, drums and probably some other instruments I’m not aware of. If that can be considered a 10, then Michael Jackson has a long way to go.
MJ wrote many of his biggest hits and was obsessively involved in all aspects of the arranging and music production. I can’t speak to his specific talent on an instrument, but he could dance Macca off-stage ;).