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Michael Jackson covers- Yes or No?


redbandit599

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I have a bit of a beef with the current fashion for trial by media being used in place of, or to pre-empt trial in a court of law.

I'm not a fan of MJ, but far as I can see; nothing criminal has yet been satisfactorily proven against him, so I would not let the current media circus persuade me to avoid playing his songs.

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It's an odd one and I really don't know which way to go on it. I don't think this new documentary changes my opinion that he more than likely did do all these things and probably a lot more. I have played Smooth Criminal and Billy Jean in the past while holding the same opinion of MJ. However there is this tendency for public outrage now more than ever and I don't want my band to be blacklisted or bad-mouthed for playing a good song written by a terrible person. All you need is a slow news day and an over ambitious local news reporter and all of a sudden a few bad Facebook comments become a story in the local rag distributed to thousands with your picture included. If we still had any MJ in our set we would be discussing dropping it, and I don't think Beat It will be back on the "to learn" list soon. So protecting myself and my band from an expected bad reaction takes away the need for me to make up my own mind on the issue - I still don't know where to go on it. Just the other day this whole "mute R Kelly" movement made me realise that Bump n Grind is probably a dodgy choice, as much as I like the sheer tackiness of the song that could make it a good cover for parties... the safest thing in my view is to stay away, regardless of how great some of MJ's tunes may have been. 

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4 hours ago, Krysbass said:

I have a bit of a beef with the current fashion for trial by media being used in place of, or to pre-empt trial in a court of law.

I'm not a fan of MJ, but far as I can see; nothing criminal has yet been satisfactorily proven against him, so I would not let the current media circus persuade me to avoid playing his songs.

you could say the same about Jimmy Savile, not about playing his songs obviously but never been found guilty in a trial

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There are a lot of uncomfortable examples of musicians behaving in ways that are deplorable. One of the stranger ones that I have trouble getting to grips with is Eric Clapton's drunken, racist rant at a gig in Birmingham in 1976. He's talked about it many times since and while he seemed to be trying to explain it away in interviews at the time, he has since said that he is disgusted by his behaviour, that it didn't make sense and has apologised. He was, by all accounts, on a spiral of self-hatred and self-destruction that most people don't survive. Should he be forgiven for it?

Note: there are articles out there that purport to have transcripts of the outburst... they don't really tally with reports of the show where he was supposed to be mostly incoherent and slurring. I have looked for bootlegs of the show but none appear to exist.

 

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3 minutes ago, dlloyd said:

There are a lot of uncomfortable examples of musicians behaving in ways that are deplorable. One of the stranger ones that I have trouble getting to grips with is Eric Clapton's drunken, racist rant at a gig in Birmingham in 1976. He's talked about it many times since and while he seemed to be trying to explain it away in interviews at the time, he has since said that he is disgusted by his behaviour, that it didn't make sense and has apologised. He was, by all accounts, on a spiral of self-hatred and self-destruction that most people don't survive. Should he be forgiven for it?

Note: there are articles out there that purport to have transcripts of the outburst... they don't really tally with reports of the show where he was supposed to be mostly incoherent and slurring. I have looked for bootlegs of the show but none appear to exist.

 

I think that where the results of someone's behaviour were offence rather than injury and the person has shown honest regret rather than just a rote apology it's right to forgive. And it's right to take into account the context at the time. Oh tempora! Oh mores!

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15 minutes ago, Orbs said:

No, following this documentary we've stopped playing his material. I fail to see how anyone cannot believe the man is anything other than a paedophile tbh......

Maybe because he was investigated by the FBI for 10 years and there was never any evidence of sexual assault?

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15 minutes ago, Orbs said:

No, following this documentary we've stopped playing his material. I fail to see how anyone cannot believe the man is anything other than a paedophile tbh......

A bit of interesting background reading from Bill Whitfield's (MJ bodyguard) page on the Facebook. 

Screenshot_2019-03-15-16-08-21-394_com.android.browser.png

Screenshot_2019-03-15-16-08-42-980_com.android.browser.png

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3 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

In the context of this thread, it only matters whether 'you' think it's

a good idea to play MJ material at the moment or not, surely?

😎

Yep, I don't think it's a good idea TBH - it kind of just dawned on me a bit that the song I was enjoying playing (well rehearsing actually as we haven't gigged it yet) was an MJ one. As per original post we do the Alien Ant Farm version of Smooth Criminal - which is very punky/rocky if you aren't familiar with it - so I don't immediately associate it with MJ.

It's good work out for the drummer and I thought the punters would like it - then a 'light bulb moment' of "Hang about this is actually an MJ song" prompted the thread.

I know there are people in our wider audience who have been directly impacted by abusers - there's no way I'd want them to be upset. Safe choice is drop the little weirdo, we've got plenty of other stuff to pick after all.

 

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The conversation reminded me of Jailbait by Motorhead - haven't heard that in years (it is pretty cr@p) but the lyrics made me squirm even 'back in the day.'

https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/92629/

Probably quite telling as to how attitudes have hopefully changed from the 'old days' of Rock 'n' Roll excess.

Edited by redbandit599
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Whilst I've no doubt there were and are people in a position to unscrupulously jump on a bandwagon/gravy train, $25 million payoffs to prevent civil suits will draw that sort of thing, and it in no way should detract from other cases.

It's amazing how slippery multimillionaires can be...the very definition of 'privilege'...

And no, I wouldn't play MJ stuff.

Edited by Muzz
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9 minutes ago, redbandit599 said:

Yep, I don't think it's a good idea TBH - it kind of just dawned on me a bit that the song I was enjoying playing (well rehearsing actually as we haven't gigged it yet) was an MJ one. As per original post we do the Alien Ant Farm version of Smooth Criminal - which is very punky/rocky if you aren't familiar with it - so I don't immediately associate it with MJ.

It's good work out for the drummer and I thought the punters would like it - then a 'light bulb moment' of "Hang about this is actually an MJ song" prompted the thread.

I know there are people in our wider audience who have been directly impacted by abusers - there's no way I'd want them to be upset. Safe choice is drop the little weirdo, we've got plenty of other stuff to pick after all.

 

I guess if he wrote the song you're on dodgy ground, I sometimes perform "It's Good News Week" at open mics, performed by Hedgehoppers Anonymous but written by Jonathan King, not many people know that 😊 

Edited by PaulWarning
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53 minutes ago, taunton-hobbit said:

In the context of this thread, it only matters whether 'you' think it's

a good idea to play MJ material at the moment or not, surely?

😎

This. If anyone thinks losing 15 good paying gigs at a holiday park through is worth scoring a point then you've lost me.

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1 hour ago, Les said:

This. If anyone thinks losing 15 good paying gigs at a holiday park through is worth scoring a point then you've lost me.

Are you a MJ Tribute? If so, you have my sympathies...as long as you've packed it in... 😀

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His Jackson 5 days were great and upto thriller then it all went horribly  wrong ,But there's no smoke without fire and artist over the years  have written some real dodgy songs when you listern to the lyrics  just a thought 🙈🙉🙊

Edited by kevvo66
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Maybe because he was investigated by the FBI for 10 years and there was never any evidence of sexual assault?

Then why would such an intelligent, shrewd and savvy man as he undoubtably was, spend his down time integrating himself and sleep with children, let alone paying off millions of dollars to the families of other kids, 'to settle out of court'.  If a bloke down the road was displaying this kind of behaviour the local community would be out to lynch him pronto. Unless of course you believe all the witnesses of his crimes were lying for their own means and that he simply loved children? As for the evidence, well the same argument could be said of Hitler, as there's no direct evidence to link him to the death camps, do you believe he wasn't responsible for them?

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I do think all of this is a shame really, the songs aren`t paedophiles, neither are (to my knowledge) the musicians that played on them. Even MJ himself wasn`t convicted of it. For me it just harks back to my earlier post, playing his songs could "excite" the local drunken idiots, and turn a good gig into bad one, all for playing a good song. Likewise with Gary Glitter songs. Not sure that many punters in a regular covers band venue would know Lost Prophets songs mind.

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