Michael Jackson full cover : albums, career and kids: During the summer of ’91, competition broke out within the two studios and three rooms dedicated to *Dangerous. At Record One, *Bill Bottrell and Bruce Swedien worked on the album’s softer more adult contemporary material (and “Black or White”). At Larrabee, Riley handled the New Jack Swing half. Even though engineers remember the sessions as “giggly, innocent, and so much fun,” Jackson did his part to foster a friendly rivalry—bouncing back and forth between studios and taunting his teams, “Oh boy, they got some smelly jelly going on in there.” As Sony’s deadlines kept getting blown, Riley’s beats began forming the spine of the record. After being initially awestruck, Riley asserted more and more control at Jackson’s behest. “It worked itself out when he shook me,” Riley told HipHopWired in 2009. “[He was like] listen, you’re going to have to really produce me like you’ve produced a new artist. I need you to talk to me, I need you to criticize me, I need you to comment, I need you to give me all of you. I want the Teddy Riley that got that record out of Guy and the records out of your previous artists.”
Now, admittedly, it’s child’s play to see the flaws and nitpick this release from here until the next one. (Oh, don’t deny it…you know it’s coming.) However, the real joy is hearing Michael Jackson on something that isn’t “Beat It” or “Heal the World” or something we’ve all spun thousands of times, especially over the past year. While nothing on this record comes close to rivaling any of his past material, you can’t deny the urge to indulge yourself in something labeled, “new Michael Jackson”, and that’s where Michael succeeds. In terms of lasting power, however, you’ll probably forget about it in a matter of weeks, but who knows? Maybe you’ll feel nostalgic again. After all, that’s what death does to the best of us. Still, as we learned with Invincible, it takes more than just a studio effort to conjure up the magic.
Bad (1987): And now, we get to the heavy hitters. Bad is one of the defining albums of my childhood – one of my earliest memories is “proving” to my parents that I knew every word of the title track by singing it at the dinner table. Equal parts rock, pop and soul, Bad may have suffered from the Thriller curse in the 80s – pundits recognized it was good, but not AS GOOD as one of the best albums ever made, always an unfair criticism – but the album’s cavalcade of hits, and its influence on pop and R&B at the time, cannot be denied. Bad may not have aged as well as some of MJ’s other top-shelf releases but that doesn’t make it any less groundbreaking. Forgotten Favorites: “Speed Demon,” “Just Good Friends,” “Another Part of Me”.
Michael Jackson family: Mocienne Petit Jackson’s (Michael Jackson’s daughter) books are now available in french! For our dutch readers: We komen meer te weten over de vele traumatische ervaringen van de hoofdpersoon, haar depressies en talrijke worstelingen om alle ellende te verwerken en achter zich te laten. De schrijfster geeft ons duidelijkheid door middel van verschillende flashbacks. Mocienne blijft het reilen en zeilen van Michael Jackson voortdurend volgen. Zo komt zijn – vermeende – kindermisbruik voorbij, komen de vele rechtszaken die er rondom zijn persoon hebben plaatsgehad aan bod, zijn twee mislukte huwelijken, zijn metamorfose, de geboorte van zijn drie kinderen en – last but not least – zijn voortijdige dood. Mocienne komt langzaam maar zeker tot de verbijsterende conclusie dat de maffia een grote en destructieve rol in zijn (én haar) leven heeft gespeeld, waarbij dient te worden aangetekend dat zijn familie, en in het bijzonder zijn moeder en vader, in dit opzicht veel te verwijten valt. Tot op heden heeft Mocienne geen enkele medewerking van de familie Jackson gekregen om een DNA-test te doen, teneinde te kunnen bewijzen dat zij wérkelijk Michaels dochter is. Lees het boek hier The dark side of the Netherlands (Dutch Edition).