Jackson, Michael

Subterms

    Latest story

    88 Shares149 Views

    1984: The Year Pop Stardom Got Supersized

    by

    Forty years ago, the chemistry of pop stardom was irrevocably changed. Nineteen eighty-four was an inflection point: a year of blockbuster albums, career quantum leaps, iconic poses and an enduring redefinition of what pop success could mean for performers — and would then demand from them — in the decades to come.The indelible albums of 1984 were turning-point releases: Prince’s “Purple Rain,” Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” among them. Tina Turner reintroduced herself as a bruised but resilient survivor on “Private Dancer.” And Van Halen proved that hard rock could mesh with pop — even synth-pop — on “Jump.” These were pivotal statements from established acts who were decisively multiplying their impact.Those blockbusters were propelled by an unlikely convergence of artistic impulses, advancing technology, commercial aspirations and popular taste, all shaped by the narrow portals of the pre-internet media landscape. The eye-popping novelty of music videos, the dominance of major record labels and the cautious formats of radio stations still made for a limited, recognizable mainstream rather than the infinitude of choices, niches, microgenres and personalized recommendation engines that the internet opened up. It was a peak moment of pop-music monoculture. Listeners in the 1980s absorbed hits that felt like ubiquitous earworms: the fanfare-like synthesizer riff of “Born in the U.S.A.,” the saxophone cushioned by synthesizers in George Michael’s “Careless Whisper,” the drone and percussion and bawled vocals of “Shout” by Tears for Fears. Younger generations have definitely heard and seen their repercussions, whether or not they’ve played back the originals. The sounds and lessons of 1984 have been durable and widely recycled by countless synthesizer-pumped 21st-century hitmakers, among them the Weeknd (“Blinding Lights”) and Sabrina Carpenter (“Please Please Please”). More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      Did Beyoncé’s Grammy Nominations Really Break Michael Jackson’s Record?

      by

      Not exactly. But in Grammyland, nothing is simple.On Friday, as the news emerged of Beyoncé’s 11 Grammy nominations for her country-Beyoncé-style album “Cowboy Carter,” some fan accounts on social media trumpeted that it had become “the most Grammy-nominated album of all time,” and claimed that Beyoncé had even topped a record set in 1984 by Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the mega-blockbuster against which all other hits have since been judged.Was that true? Not quite. But in some ways her accomplishment was equivalent to Jackson’s.In the sometimes confusing world of Grammy stats, nominations for an artist can be spread across multiple projects, and the performing artist on a song or an album is not necessarily an award’s nominee — prizes can (and often do) go to collaborators like songwriters, producers or engineers.And Beyoncé is not the only recent artist to receive 11 nominations in one year. Kendrick Lamar did so for the 2016 awards, as did Jon Batiste for 2022 — but in both cases, they were not all for work on a single album. (Lamar’s nods that year, for example, included his guest appearance on Taylor Swift’s song “Bad Blood.”)Officially, “Thriller” received a total of 13 nods when the 26th annual Grammy nominations were announced in early 1984. Jackson himself was cited in 11 of them. Of the two others, one was for Bruce Swedien, the album’s renowned engineer. The other cited Quincy Jones and James Ingram, the writers of the song “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” which was up for best rhythm & blues song. In a sign of Jackson’s thorough dominance that year, two other “Thriller” songs were nominated in that same category: “Billie Jean” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” (“Billie Jean,” credited to Jackson as the sole songwriter, won.)Ultimately, Jackson collected seven awards for “Thriller,” including album of the year and record of the year (for “Beat It”). Swedien won best engineered recording, non-classical. That night was one of Jackson’s most iconic moments. He attended the show with Brooke Shields and Emmanuel Lewis as guests, and wore a sparkling blue-and-gold military-style jacket, with a crystal glove over his right hand.But that was not all. Jackson narrated a soundtrack album for the film “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial,” with music by John Williams — which became a legal nightmare because MCA Records, which released the “E.T.” album, had not gotten the necessary clearance from Jackson’s label, Epic, for him to appear on it.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      When Quincy Jones Worked With Michael Jackson, ‘We Had No Limitations’

      by

      Their work on “Off the Wall,” “Thriller,” and “Bad” set records for commercial success and defined the sound of the 1980s.Quincy Jones first met Michael Jackson in the early 1970s at Sammy Davis Jr.’s house in Los Angeles, when the 12-year-old was still a bubble-gum soul singer leading his brothers in the Jackson 5.Jones and Jackson’s second meeting, at the end of that decade, proved the more pivotal, both for them and for the future of pop music. Jackson landed a role as Scarecrow in “The Wiz”; Jones had been hired as the music supervisor for the film.What came next cemented one of the most celebrated musical relationships of all time. The pairing of Jones, a noted composer, arranger and producer for jazz and R&B acts, and Jackson, the child star looking for a breakout sound, over three albums remains a career-defining arc that transformed pop music in the 1980s.Jones, who died Sunday at 91, spoke extensively about his working relationship with Jackson, telling The New York Times in a 2012 interview, “You’re looking at one of the most talented kids in the history of show business. Michael was very observant and detail-oriented. You put that together with my background of big-band arranging and composing, we had no limitations.”From left, Jackson, Diana Ross and Jones worked together on the 1978 film “The Wiz.”CBS, via Getty ImagesWith “Off the Wall,” Jackson’s solo debut released in 1979, Jones called on his wide-ranging network of studio musicians and collaborators, notably recruiting Rod Temperton from the band Heatwave to write songs for the album, including “Rock With You,” and “Burn This Disco Out.” “Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough,” the single that established the album’s polished disco grooves, won Jackson his first solo Grammy for best male R&B vocal performance.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      How Quincy Jones Brought Pop’s Greats to the Studio: Eddie Van Halen, Bob Dylan and More

      by

      For decades, he had many of the pop world’s best players on call — and knew how to coax out their sharpest performances.“Quincy called me.”That is the opening line of the best stories told by some of the best musicians in the world over the last half-century or so, as they recount being recruited for recording sessions by Quincy Jones, the super-producer whose work was often as much a matter of casting as of capturing sounds on tape.Eddie Van Halen got the call one day in 1982, to add a pyrotechnic guitar solo to Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” He declined credit for it, but after Jackson’s death in 2009, Van Halen said that session was one of the “fondest memories in my career.”Greg Phillinganes, the synthesizer virtuoso who began his career with Stevie Wonder, got many such calls as an in-demand session player, working on Jones-helmed albums by Jackson, Donna Summer and James Ingram, among others.“By virtue of getting a call,” Phillinganes recalled this week, “that was the endorsement that you were worthy of being there” — an induction into an elite circle that included both big stars and supremely skilled but lesser-known musicians, each chosen with intention by Jones for what they could bring to a project.Jones, who died on Sunday at 91, was the master of a nearly vanished mode of record-making that relied on groups of talented musicians working under the finely attuned ear of a producer. For decades, he had many of the pop world’s best players on call, and — in what could be a career-making enlistment or just the umpteenth studio gig — would hire them to spice up a track with a guitar lick, or smooth its contours with a synthesizer part, or ground it with just the right beat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares159 Views

      in Music

      Quincy Jones, Giant of American Music, Dies at 91

      by

      As a producer, he made the best-selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” He was also a prolific arranger and composer of film music.Quincy Jones, one of the most powerful forces in American popular music for more than half a century, died on Sunday in California. He was 91.His death was confirmed in a statement by his publicist, Arnold Robinson, that did not mention a cause. The statement said that he had died peacefully at his home in Bel Air.Mr. Jones began his career as a jazz trumpeter and was later in great demand as an arranger, writing for the big bands of Count Basie and others; as a composer of film music; and as a record producer. But he may have made his most lasting mark by doing what some believe to be equally important in the ground-level history of an art form: the work of connecting.Beyond his hands-on work with score paper, he organized, charmed, persuaded, hired and validated. Starting in the late 1950s, he took social and professional mobility to a new level in Black popular art, eventually creating the conditions for a great deal of music to flow between styles, outlets and markets. And all of that could be said of him even if he had not produced Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” the best-selling album of all time.Mr. Jones’s music has been sampled and reused hundreds of times, through all stages of hip-hop and for the theme to the “Austin Powers” films (his “Soul Bossa Nova,” from 1962). He has the third-highest total of Grammy Awards won by a single person — he was nominated 80 times and won 28. (Beyoncé’s 32 wins is the highest total; Georg Solti is second with 31.) He was given honorary degrees by Harvard, Princeton, Juilliard, the New England Conservatory, the Berklee School of Music and many other institutions, as well as a National Medal of Arts and a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master fellowship.His success — as his colleague in arranging, Benny Carter, is said to have remarked — may have overshadowed his talent.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 188 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Book Review: ‘From Here to the Great Unknown,’ by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough

      by

      In a new memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown,” Elvis Presley’s daughter and granddaughter take turns exploring a messy legacy.FROM HERE TO THE GREAT UNKNOWN: A Memoir, by Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough“What is the point of an autobiography?”Lisa Marie Presley asks this question toward the end of her incredibly sad memoir, “From Here to the Great Unknown.”Presley died of a bowel obstruction — a complication of bariatric surgery — before she could finish the book, having endured 54 years of intense public scrutiny. Her daughter, Riley Keough, picked up where she left off, listening to interviews her mother had recorded for the project. Their perspectives appear in alternating sections — a haunting harmony that builds to a crescendo of heartbreak.The answer to Presley’s question comes from Keough, who is best known for her star turn in Amazon’s adaptation of “Daisy Jones & the Six”: The point of an autobiography — this one, anyway — is to show the toll of fame and addiction.Anyone who’s skimmed tabloid headlines at the grocery store knows the basics, but here’s a quick summary for online shoppers: Lisa Marie Presley, the only child of Priscilla and Elvis Presley, grew up without stability or peace, hounded by paparazzi, criticized for her looks, her weight, her drug use, her marriage to Michael Jackson. From start to finish, her life took place in the public domain.“I guess I didn’t really have a shot in hell,” Presley writes.“My mom was really affected by what people wrote about her,” Keough tells us. “She had no siblings to share the burden, nobody who understood what it truly felt like. In a way she was the princess of America and didn’t want to be.”The first third of “From Here to the Great Unknown” is full of nostalgic musings about Graceland, the Presley family home in Memphis. We get a peek at the parts that aren’t on the tour. We learn about Lisa Marie’s tonsillectomy and her baby blue golf cart. She is just 9 when we see her father’s body leaving the house on a stretcher — his pajamas, his socks. We see his entourage picking over his belongings.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Music

      He Wrote Michael Jackson’s ‘Human Nature’ and Has 2 More in the Vault

      by

      Steve Porcaro of Toto, who played on some of the biggest hits of the ’80s, has sold the rights to his music, including a pair of unreleased tracks with the superstar.After more than four decades, Steve Porcaro is still amazed that his song ended up on the biggest-selling album of all time.In 1982, when he was a keyboardist in Toto — the band of studio insiders that dominated rock radio with sleekly crafted hits like “Africa” and “Hold the Line” — Porcaro was tinkering with a new tune, a mid-tempo ballad inspired by his attempt to comfort his young daughter after a playground quarrel. The rest of the group wasn’t into it.But Porcaro kept working on the song at the studio of his Toto bandmate David Paich, the group’s primary songwriter, who was pitching Quincy Jones some rock-oriented material for Michael Jackson’s next album. One day, they put two of Paich’s songs on a cassette for Jones; on the flip side was a rough demo of Porcaro’s ballad.When Jones heard that tape, it was Porcaro’s tune that entranced him, with its mellow mood and searching chorus: “Why, why?/Tell her that it’s human nature.” With lyrics added by John Bettis, “Human Nature” became a key cut on “Thriller,” which sold 34 million copies in the United States alone and transformed pop music in the 1980s.“It was a total, absolute fluke,” Porcaro recalled in a recent video interview from his home studio in Los Angeles, which is lined with gold and platinum albums by Toto and Jackson.“Human Nature” is now part of the latest in the music industry’s big catalog transactions. This week, Porcaro signed a deal, estimated in the low eight figures, to sell the rights to his music to the Jackson estate and the independent music company Primary Wave, they confirmed.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Michael Jackson Died With $500 Million in Debt

      by

      Jackson owed about $40 million to the tour promoter A.E.G. in 2009, his estate’s executors said in a court filing. They said all the debts have been eliminated.Michael Jackson’s debts and creditor’s claims at the time of his death in 2009 totaled more than $500 million, according to a court filing by the pop superstar’s estate that provides details of his financial woes toward the end of his life.Jackson owed about $40 million to the tour promoter A.E.G., according to the filing, which was made in Los Angeles County Superior Court this month and earlier reported by People magazine. The filing said that 65 creditors made claims against the singer after his death, some of which resulted in lawsuits, and that some of his debt had been “accruing interest at extremely high interest rates.”A representative for the Jackson estate, which is executed by John Branca and John McClain, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The estate filed the court papers as a request to authorize the payment of about $3.5 million to several legal firms for their work in the second half of 2018.In the court filing, the executors say that they have eliminated the estate’s debt and that almost all of the creditors’ claims and litigation have been resolved.Jackson earned hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the 1980s and 1990s as the creator of some of the biggest-selling albums of all time, along with dazzling concert tours that filled stadiums around the world. He bought the Beatles’ song catalog for $47.5 million in 1985 and later sold it to Sony/ATV Music in exchange for a 50 percent share in the company. Sony bought back the estate’s share for $750 million in 2016.But when Jackson died at the age of 50, shortly before he was supposed to embark on a tour called This Is It, he left behind a tangled web of assets and liabilities.Jackson was famous for his lavish lifestyle and spent money with abandon. He incurred millions of dollars in debt from his Neverland Ranch estate in Southern California and had a penchant for expensive art, jewelry and private jets. He was paying more than $30 million annually on interest payments, a forensic accountant testified during a 2013 wrongful-death trial in which A.E.G. prevailed.The Jackson estate is currently in a dispute with the I.R.S. after a tax audit. In a separate court filing this year, the estate said that the federal agency accused it of undervaluing its assets and said it owed “an additional $700 million in taxes and penalties.”Kirsten Noyes More

    • 63 Shares199 Views

      in Music

      How Big Is Taylor Swift?

      by

      You might have heard: Taylor Swift cannot be stopped. Her new album, “The Tortured Poets Department,” sold 2.6 million copies in its opening week last month, earning Swift her eighth Billboard No. 1 album since 2020. At the Grammy Awards in February, she became the first artist to win album of the year for a […] More