Michael Jackson covers- Yes or No?

[steantval]

Check out The Voice, Nicole Shirtywoman is turning into a MJ lookalike 😱

Edited March 24, 2019 by steantval

[mcnach]

1 hour ago, steantval said:

Check out The Voice, Nicole Shirtywoman is turning into a MJ lookalike 😱

 

You can't pay me to sit and watch that, so I'll take your word for it, whoever she might be.

[Woodinblack]

2 hours ago, steantval said:

Check out The Voice, Nicole Shirtywoman is turning into a MJ lookalike 😱

Seeing as I would never watch that I wouldn't know, but which MJ does she look like?

 

[steantval]

49 minutes ago, mcnach said:

 

You can't pay me to sit and watch that, so I'll take your word for it, whoever she might be.

Lewis Hamilton’s ex.

[mcnach]

On 24/03/2019 at 17:06, steantval said:

Lewis Hamilton’s ex.

 

I know what Lewis Hamilton looks like... but I can't say I know much about his life outside a F1 car... 

[Jus Lukin]

-

Edited March 3, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[tauzero]

On 24/03/2019 at 17:06, steantval said:

Lewis Hamilton’s ex.

The repeated application of yoghurt to her nose may be having some side effect.

[Phil Starr]

Our vocalist walks in plugs in a mic and just sings along. The rest of us spend hours in the shed figuring/learning chord progressions making our fingers do things they don't want to do. I love the bass lines in a lot of MJ's songs and I dare say drummers and the others find things to admire. I doubt Jackson had much say in any of that. Do we lose all of that because the singer was (possibly) very dodgy. I'm also an innocent until proven guilty sort of person and there is a lot of money riding on a successful case in this instance with some pretty hot lawyers coaching claimants. Truly legal systems are distorted by big money of all kinds. We may never have truth.

Equally for those of us playing covers I think we have to exercise moral judgements and also not offend audiences. I won't play Sweet Home Alabama because it is explicitly racist and I won't play Brown Sugar, I'm not sure it is actually encouraging us to 'whip the women, just around midnight' or that raping slaves means we are 'doing all right' but you can form your own judgements. I wouldn't sing it in front of my daughter so why play it in front of anyone's daughter? For each of us the lines are different of course but music has the effect of normalising things and I don't think we have no responsibility. fortunately we have thousands of songs to choose from.

PS our singer is actually a lovely guy, and that mic is really heavy

[Stub Mandrel]

48 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

I won't play Sweet Home Alabama because it is explicitly racist and I won't play Brown Sugar, I'm not sure it is actually encouraging us to 'whip the women, just around midnight' or that raping slaves means we are 'doing all right' but you can form your own judgements. I wouldn't sing it in front of my daughter so why play it in front of anyone's daughter? For each of us the lines are different of course but music has the effect of normalising things and I don't think we have no responsibility. fortunately we have thousands of songs to choose from.

I used to think that too.

I was wrong; Sweet Home Alabama was aimed at NY for stereotyping all southerners as racists in Southern Man and Alabama.

In his autobiography (which I'm reading at the moment) NY says " "My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue."

By the way, Clydie King, one of the two black ladies who sang backing vocals on Sweet Home Alabama died earlier this year.

[Phil Starr]

2 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I used to think that too.

I was wrong; Sweet Home Alabama was aimed at NY for stereotyping all southerners as racists in Southern Man and Alabama.

In his autobiography (which I'm reading at the moment) NY says " "My own song 'Alabama' richly deserved the shot Lynyrd Skynyrd gave me with their great record. I don't like my words when I listen to it. They are accusatory and condescending, not fully thought out, and too easy to misconstrue."

By the way, Clydie King, one of the two black ladies who sang backing vocals on Sweet Home Alabama died earlier this year.

I think that's just justification after the fact, the song specifically refers to Governor (George Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace ) and was a response to that  Neil Young song. I'm happy to believe 'Alabama' was the foolish response of a then very young man from the South and I'd probably play the other Skynyrd song if asked but Alabama itself is quite specifically opposed to the equal rights movement. I suppose it would be the equivalent of a song written in support of P.W. Botha at the heart of apartheid. I'm happy to accord the same reasoning to NY, we all have done things as young people we wouldn't do now. 

[uk_lefty]

30 minutes ago, Phil Starr said:

the song specifically refers to Governor (George Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Walla

But it does say "in Birmingham they love the governor. BOO BOO BOO" which doesn't sound very supportive of the governor to me. I'm happy playing it every gig and if I felt it racist (or enough people pointed out racist things I wasn't aware of) I'd go nowhere near it.

[operative451]

3 hours ago, Phil Starr said:

Our vocalist walks in plugs in a mic and just sings along. The rest of us spend hours in the shed figuring/learning chord progressions making our fingers do things they don't want to do. I love the bass lines in a lot of MJ's songs and I dare say drummers and the others find things to admire. I doubt Jackson had much say in any of that. Do we lose all of that because the singer was (possibly) very dodgy. I'm also an innocent until proven guilty sort of person and there is a lot of money riding on a successful case in this instance with some pretty hot lawyers coaching claimants. Truly legal systems are distorted by big money of all kinds. We may never have truth.

Equally for those of us playing covers I think we have to exercise moral judgements and also not offend audiences. I won't play Sweet Home Alabama because it is explicitly racist and I won't play Brown Sugar, I'm not sure it is actually encouraging us to 'whip the women, just around midnight' or that raping slaves means we are 'doing all right' but you can form your own judgements. I wouldn't sing it in front of my daughter so why play it in front of anyone's daughter? For each of us the lines are different of course but music has the effect of normalising things and I don't think we have no responsibility. fortunately we have thousands of songs to choose from.

PS our singer is actually a lovely guy, and that mic is really heavy

Well, actually... Micky J used to sing all the parts acapella in demo versions because he didn't play any instruments:

 

[cheddatom]

I've seen and heard a lot of people talking about this documentary so I just had to make time to watch it. I was ready to remain skeptical, as my instinct was "Innocent until proven guilty etc" but it really was so believable. I can't think of any motive strong enough to make all that up, ruining their own lives to an extent, certainly destroying their parents... what would they do it for? They might make a bit of money from the film but they didn't seem hard up...

I'd still listen to the music if I liked it though! I do love the Jackson 5 stuff

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Phil Starr said:

I think that's just justification after the fact, the song specifically refers to Governor (George Wallace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace ) and was a response to that  Neil Young song.

It says about him in a negative way, saying yes there is racism, but don't tar the whole south as racist and we won't tar the whole north as corrupt.

Neil Young says he would rather play sweet home than Alabama, as he said his song was too simplistic. Actually it was the two songs 'alabama' and 'southern man'.

[Stub Mandrel]

1 hour ago, uk_lefty said:

But it does say "in Birmingham they love the governor. BOO BOO BOO" which doesn't sound very supportive of the governor to me. I'm happy playing it every gig and if I felt it racist (or enough people pointed out racist things I wasn't aware of) I'd go nowhere near it.

Most people miss that...

[Phil Starr]

All these arguments have been pretty well rehearsed over the years, like others here I suspect I was alive at the time all these songs came out. It was a pretty polarised time and I'm pretty sure the song was intended to be inflammatory. You are all entitled to a different point of view. I don't assume every covers band that plays the song is racist and it's a catchy tune. A lot of MJ's songs are pretty catchy too, it's a loss if they disappear but it is also a moral challenge and we have to think about these things. My point is that I think we all contribute to the normalisation of ideas and values. I'm a great believer in the right to cause offense but most of us have lines we don't want to cross and I prefer to live with people who have principles and they aren't principle if you don't put them first. There's a lot of grey areas too, I don't expect or want us to all agree.

So hurrah for people who say no thanks, I may disagree with you over what we find offensive but I support anyone's right to say whoah that's far enough. 

[mcnach]

On 29/03/2019 at 13:13, operative451 said:

Well, actually... Micky J used to sing all the parts acapella in demo versions because he didn't play any instruments:

 

 

Indeed. I watched a documentary once and read in various places about his practice of recording parts using his voice. I'm not saying he would never leave musicians to come with their own parts, but he generally seemed to have a very good idea of what each part should sound like. Personal life aside, musically the guy was pretty exceptional.