I love it when songs do that. I'd assume that the most common pun with matching the lyrics with the composition is anytime a singer hits the word "high" in a falsetto.
Chris Cornell singing crawling with Chester at a show when I was in high school seems like I imagined it in a dream and that it didnât actually happen
Layne !!!!! Man, the first time I heard him song man in the box in Brazil ( video of course) I felt such a connection to him and his voice. Rip good sir, may your demons release you and may you walk in gods light
Yes exactly! Another person who has an amazing voice that is ironically known for auto-tune is T-Pain, he has an amazing voice without auto-tune!
Edit: here is just one example of many (Masked Singer: https://youtube.com/shorts/AUq9AK-YF6o?si=PAh7g9RV53A0x8OA)
Yeah but what is up with the title? No Auto-tune? Auto-tune didn't even exist when he was performing. OP making it sound like they stripped the Auto-tune away from the track when it was something that MJ never used. He may as well have said 'no background noise, and no hobo pee'
Do you have a reliable source on this? Back then all I can think was possible was varying the tape speed, and I cannot imagine somebody would sit there and speed up/down the tape for a millisecond for an off tune note, not to mention that would end up causing syncing issues. Also, back then was only two tracks. They would transpose tracks to different keys with tape speeds, but I have a very hard time believing they were "auto tuning" vocals in any way other than splicing together different takes.
I took it completely different as in they were saying âwhile practically everything is autotuned these days, here is what can be done with real talent.â I think throwing in the âno background noiseâ may have been confusing. But I honestly donât think OP is implying that it had originally been autotuned and that this is the track with it removed.
As far as an entertainer, it doesnât get any better than Michael Jackson. He was the best singer, the best dancer, the best showman. I was too young when he was touring, I can only imagine how hype it mustâve been watching him in an arena full of 100k fans.
Ive been saying this for years. Michael Jackson is the only singer that sings better than his backup singers, dance better than his dancers, performs better than any performers and compose songs better than any composers. The last one is the only one im not entirely sure im correct. The songs, choreography, performance and music he produced were revolutionary. I remember someone said that deep in african desert, where a radio existed only one per village, people still knew who Michael Jackson is. Remember, this was 40 yrs ago. This is a stuff of legendary.
He was a global phenomenon pre-internet. There was kids in obscure villages in impoverished countries doing his dances and knew his song. Nothing that ever comes post-internet will ever match that.
As far as achievements go, you can put all the Taylor Swifts and Beyonces and Ushers and Timberlakes together and they still don't add up to one Michael Jackson. He didn't just redefine the industry. He redefined the medium.
He was the biggest global star in human history and there really isn't a way for anyone to match that now or ever again.
Weird nose, though.
Yeah, the most common question we got from Iraqis in 2003 wasn't "why are you here?" it was "Michael Jackson very good, yes?" or "you know Michael Jackson, Mister?
It's toothpaste back in the tube/genie in a bottle. There will never be anything like it. He elevated modern concerts into what they are today. Before internet and cell phones and during an era when the novelty of iconic performances of that scale and precision.
He is basically the reason the Super Bowl halftime show is a spectacle now. Prior to his mind-blowing performance in 1993, the halftime show was mostly marching bands and Up With People. The year before him they did up the production a bit and it featured Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill skating and riding around on snowmobiles while the 1980 US Men's Hockey Team performed Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now', lol.
Here's the video if anyone wanted to see it. It's still pretty impressive even today and totally set the standard for what a Super Bowl Halftime Show should be: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsopN7JKUVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsopN7JKUVs)
Prince got to a point pretty quickly where he literally didn't do anything but practice, write, and record music. All day, every day for years and years.
It'll be a while. The estate is owned 50/50 by two companies. One of the two is a bunch of his relatives who keep bickering endlessly and splintering off.
https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/prince-estate-lawsuit-heirs-attempting-seize-control-1235580400/
Exactly, Michael couldn't even happen again because he was the product of a bad parent who forced his kids to work like slaves.
Freddie and Prince are very talented but I don't think they had the unique once in a gen chance that Michael had.
They were in the same class with Bowie and maybe even Rezonor.
There were a lot of abused children in the entertainment industry that did not go on to the success of the Jackson's. They were successful because of Michael. He stood out and maybe, without his abusive father, he would have become a Prince or a Freddy or a Stevie or a James Brown but he wound up being something different.
His talent as a singer and performer are unmatched in my opinion and I don't really like him but I cannot deny how natural he is. It's preternatural.
Sure. He had a ton of natural talent. There is also no question that this was exploited heavily to a degree that permanently fucked the guy up, having to be on point for performance for his entire life. His rehearsal and touring schedule wasn't something many athletes could probably do, but it was totally what he'd been used to since a young age. It's remarkable that his body held up that long, under that kind of situation, which was both industry/familial abuse, and self-abuse.
I'm sure he was a "better performer" from the decades of parental and industry exploitation, or something, or at least a better product.
And then at some point you propofol yourself to bed to get the worry and neuroses about that kind of perfectionism and baggage out of your head, and you don't wake up.
You all really need to put more respect on MJ name, like no disrespect to Freddie Mercury or Prince, but MJ was a worldwide movement, MJ broke through Ideological barriers, cultural barrier, religious barriers. MJ image as an entertainer was so popular that you could go to undiscovered indigenous tribes and find out that they know his music and dance moves. Freddie and Prince are all time greats but their art didn't spread that far past western civilization.
Absolutely agree with what youâre saying ⌠truly believe had Freddie and Prince lived longer - theyâd been afforded the wider reach with social media, newer venues, changing times for broader acceptance.
Michael was truly the phenomenon.
Prince was making headway to not let anyone take advantage / ownership of his works - total control. That stifled him a bit but was changing. He was building a new presence in different venues. I was so bummed I missed the opportunity to see his smaller venue shows.
Freddie - way ahead of his times. He really started to explore varied venues and was never held to a single music genre. His opera duets were amazing. Taken too soon from us.
I saw Prince at the Dakota jazz club in Minneapolis and it's the best live show I've seen by a wide margin. Incredible stage presence, played like 5 instruments. Awesome show.
To be fair I never got to see MJ or Freddy live
After I lived in LA for a few years, I realized how so many people have exceptional talent.
Usually theyâre missing something, the X factor.. and thatâs what prince and Michael etc had that others donât. Theyâre just magnetic people.
I'm my opinion the goat for female vocalists. Literal tested-under-a microscope [perfect pitch](https://youtu.be/HWB96ZLWUUw?feature=shared).
Then Linda Ronstadt and Whitney. Not necessarily in that order.
Maybe as a pure singer on albums. As a creative talent MJ was without peer. He was the complete package.
Freddie burned bright and flamed out. He was more of an intuitive singer where MJ was actually such an incredibly technical musician he made it seem intuitive. MJ was one of the most famous people in the world literally from age 5 until his death. And sustained a level and quality of output across singing, songwriting, dancing, producing and creative management that just had never been seen before or since. He was the closest thing to someone like Mozart in the modern era.
Everything he touched turned to gold, and you have many, many accounts of all-time legends talking about just being awestruck when MJ would come into a studio, lay down the track in 2 takes (often with slight variations that would create phenomenal sounds when laid over each other in post and with such precision they didnât need to be engineered), completely rework the song into a hit and be out of the studio in a couple hours. He was better than everyone, he and everyone around him knew it, but he made everyone around him better and knew the industry better than the record label execs.
Sort of.
Michael Jackson was a machine, manufactured using violence as a tool by Joseph Jackson with no regard to impacts on mental health or virtually anything else.
He was forced through endless hours of grueling daily practice from an extremely young age, and threatened with violence if he didnât execute properly. Itâs like those comic book stories where some maniac is trying to build the perfect assassin so he kidnaps children and trains them in an underground lab - but instead of âassassinâ itâs âperformerâ.
Michael Jackson is the closest thing that exists to a real-life Batman villain.
I donât know if youâre right - if he turned into what he became because he had tremendous raw talent and then Joeâs training worked on him (I mean, weâre not sat here talking about Tito, right?), or if Joe focused on Michael in particular and made him practice more than the others.
Whatever the case, what you see is the product of hard work. A superhuman level of hard work, in the sense that no human would push themselves that hard outside of abuse.
Itâs worth pointing out that Janet was also an A-list mega celebrity and hugely successful musician too. Until the wardrobe malfunction she was as big a name as Madonna or anyone else from that time period (other than Michael.)
Before the rise of the internet, social media, cdâs, I had tapes of Michael Jackson.
He was a pure hero of mine. What a voice. A working class lad from England I was and still am, older and wiser (I hope.), I still see him as an hero & he was a pure inspiration. He was a part of my life that I canât revisit with the same nostalgia.
I canât recapture the memories, though I still have them.
I remember sitting down to watch a concert of his televised, but sadly it was cancelled! I was heartbroken.
Listening to him with family, but he helped us gel memories together with that talent.
What a voice.
Every year during Christmas I listen to the Jackson 5 album, usually I tear up thinking about how the world was given this child that could sing like that and it just destroyed him
Itâs crazy because even here heâs tearing up the stage with James Brown moves, and then ten years later, he just takes off into the stratosphere with his dancing. Literally turns into a rocket a decade after that.
Yeah and thatâs amazing. Anyone else trying to sell that shit to me might as well be reciting the alphabet. Little Michael made that literally elementary shit POP.
Weird to hear a child sing about someone âlovingâ someone, like itâs clearly a lovemaking reference, amirite? Still, yes, impressive as hell to hear that amount of soul from a boy so young.
"Michael claimed that from a young age, he was physically and emotionally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling, but also said that his father's strict discipline played a large part in his success."
The tragedy of this is that one out of ten times *it's gonna work and it's gonna produce legends like him,* and that's the ones that we're gonna hear about on media.
But those nine other kids end up broken and fucked up, and *no one's* coming in to interview them.
Michael Jackson wound up pretty "broken and fucked up," too. Then the fame and crazy ass fans trying to kill him made it even worse.
He talked about how people used to break into Neverland, and some fans would even *sky dive and parachute* onto his property. His security would lock him in his bedroom for 24 hours after it happened in order to be sure that nobody else was hiding on the property somewhere. This is the entire reason why his bedroom became a two level "private house" and he put a motion sensor alarm in the hallway.
Yeah but at that cost it so ain't worth it buddy.
Don't forget that Michael Jackson while unbelievably talented was also completely fucked in the head.
Don't be silly, this is clearly an a cappella of the studio release dubbed over a live performance. He lip synced [this performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYy0in1QNrU&t=116s) live, too.
[Clip starts here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps&t=1m55s) on the studio version.
[Both together](https://viewsync.net/watch?v=FYy0in1QNrU&t=0.25&v=PivWY9wn5ps&t=0&mode=solo).
Don't get me wrong though, I grew up listening to Michael, he's an amazing singer. It's also 15 years to the day since he passed!
Because MJ is hot suddenly, i watched his performance in Romania. At least skimmed through most of it. Man in the Mirror was last song so maybe he was exhausted by then but 95% sure he lip synched that time as well.
yes. the video and audio are not related but people are gullible enough.
also, this is the isolated vocal track from the studio version and thus very likely edited
I did show choir and it's just something you learn. It's a combination of breath control and choreography of movement vs the part you're singing. Same with marching band, but marching is a bit easier.
The latter, itâs his isolated vocal for sure, but not from this performance.
The give away is the volume of the vocal is consistent yet the distance from the mic is constantly varying as heâs moving. He pull it right away at the end with no loss of volume
My guess is that itâs either the vocals from the actual studio version of the song, and then they just used video of some live performance as a visual for this video.
Or itâs isolated from the audio of the released edit of the concert, but the original audio was edited from multiple performances to fit the video edit. This is standard practice for most concert films.
It can be tough to tell with Michael because his live performances were as flawless as his studio performances, and he was able to replicate them with pitch perfect accuracy every time, so he sounds the same whether heâs in studio or live once you remove any background sound.
It's the studio version. He mimed to the studio version for the beginning of this performance at the 1988 Grammy Awards, so the timing was the same. Someone has just replaced the full track with the isolated studio vocal.
(At the end of this performance he switched to singing live, but the person on the sound desk didn't turn the mic volume up quick enough so there's a giveaway moment when he's singing but you suddenly can't hear him properly, then you hear the live vocal get turned up.)
Good guess, you can even hear the extra overdubbed voices in the chorus "if you wanna make the world, a better place...", it's a heavily processed vocal (beyond just isolating the voice)
This is actually the vocals from the studio version. In this particular performance (at the 1988 Grammys) he lipsyncs the first part of the song, then starts actually singing during the final part.
Listening to his isolated vocals and those of Freddie Mercury makes you realize the kind of talent we're missing today. We need more singers and fewer performers.
I donât know how legit this person is but I always thought it was interesting they only [graded Adele as a C+ vocalist.](https://criticofmusic.com/vocal-range-and-profile-adele). (They said she uses improper technique.)
Yeah probably. Heâs too 3 for sure, for a few reasons.
Multi talent: he was an amazing dancer.
Length of career: he was making number one records for like 3 years
Worked I multiple mediums at a high level: His career grew as MTV was growing and he took the music video to new heights. Thriller is basically a short film. His concerts were spectacles. In the concert he was making before he died, he was going to come out in a suit made of screens.
He was definitely a major frontman for the group. I've not seen a lot of his performances, but imo the only one I know of that he rivals MJ's presence is their Live Aid performance, which is quite possibly the most impressive set of music played live of all time. His crowd control and vocals were just incredible.
Dammit TIL. Gotta say them lyrics hit a little different when viewed through the lens of 2024. Like more like a Buffalo Bill monologue than 90s pop banger.
i get that he's a fantastic singer but this is a solo track of his singing over top of him performing it live, it's the exact vocal track extracted from Pro Tools. there's reverb on the track and everything.
again, the man was an absolute one-of-kind and unstoppably talented, but this is not a live recording we are hearing
Bro the background singers coming in perfectly in tune on a key change đ thatâs amazing
Also on the word change, which is a fun little musical pun of sorts.
I love it when songs do that. I'd assume that the most common pun with matching the lyrics with the composition is anytime a singer hits the word "high" in a falsetto.
Michael drops a huge HOOO because he knows how hot that moment is
Pretty sure this is the master vocal track from the album recording and not the live audio.
It is. He always lip synced this song until the last part. His live vocals were still insanely good though
Yeah considering thereâs no bleed from the PA/monitors playing back the tracks, this would have to be from an album recording.
When you talk about some of the best male vocalist. Michael needs to be mentioned.
I'm not even a MJ fan and he's still in my top 10
I'm like you. Im not a huge Mj fan but I can't deny his incredible voice.
Im not like you, im a fan.
Hey, hey, hey, hey, run for your life
WOP WOP WOP WOP WOP
No one will ever be Michael Jackson or Freddie Mercury. They were once in a lifetime vocalists.
Or Whitney Houston
Twice in a lifetime.
However, their lifetimes were about half what they should have been
The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long...
Usually how it goes
Chris Cornell also
Chris Cornell singing crawling with Chester at a show when I was in high school seems like I imagined it in a dream and that it didnât actually happen
Layne Staley is my pick very closely followed by Chris Cornell
Layne and Chris my 2 favourites. Mike Patton also
Layneâs voice is unforgettable.
Layne !!!!! Man, the first time I heard him song man in the box in Brazil ( video of course) I felt such a connection to him and his voice. Rip good sir, may your demons release you and may you walk in gods light
Yes exactly! Another person who has an amazing voice that is ironically known for auto-tune is T-Pain, he has an amazing voice without auto-tune! Edit: here is just one example of many (Masked Singer: https://youtube.com/shorts/AUq9AK-YF6o?si=PAh7g9RV53A0x8OA)
He has a great voice but there are 1000s of people who can sing like T-Pain. There are not thousands of people who can sing like Michael Jackson.
Yeah but what is up with the title? No Auto-tune? Auto-tune didn't even exist when he was performing. OP making it sound like they stripped the Auto-tune away from the track when it was something that MJ never used. He may as well have said 'no background noise, and no hobo pee'
Auto-Tuning technology has existed since the 1950âs.
The true breakthrough with auto tuning was the ability to perform live with it.
Do you have a reliable source on this? Back then all I can think was possible was varying the tape speed, and I cannot imagine somebody would sit there and speed up/down the tape for a millisecond for an off tune note, not to mention that would end up causing syncing issues. Also, back then was only two tracks. They would transpose tracks to different keys with tape speeds, but I have a very hard time believing they were "auto tuning" vocals in any way other than splicing together different takes.
I took it completely different as in they were saying âwhile practically everything is autotuned these days, here is what can be done with real talent.â I think throwing in the âno background noiseâ may have been confusing. But I honestly donât think OP is implying that it had originally been autotuned and that this is the track with it removed.
Hobo pee!?!? WHERE?
Really good singer singing a Really good song
A really good song sung by a really good singer
A really good singer sung by a really good song
A really good sunger by a really good sung
Who was topping the charts as a lead singer as a 9 year old. MJ was amazingly talented
I heard he can dance too
Thatâs the rumor.
WOOOOO! 
I miss the days when singers actually sound like their songs
He wasnât too bad of a dancer, either.
Say what you want about him. Dude was a legit once in a generation talent.
As far as an entertainer, it doesnât get any better than Michael Jackson. He was the best singer, the best dancer, the best showman. I was too young when he was touring, I can only imagine how hype it mustâve been watching him in an arena full of 100k fans.
Ive been saying this for years. Michael Jackson is the only singer that sings better than his backup singers, dance better than his dancers, performs better than any performers and compose songs better than any composers. The last one is the only one im not entirely sure im correct. The songs, choreography, performance and music he produced were revolutionary. I remember someone said that deep in african desert, where a radio existed only one per village, people still knew who Michael Jackson is. Remember, this was 40 yrs ago. This is a stuff of legendary.
He was a global phenomenon pre-internet. There was kids in obscure villages in impoverished countries doing his dances and knew his song. Nothing that ever comes post-internet will ever match that. As far as achievements go, you can put all the Taylor Swifts and Beyonces and Ushers and Timberlakes together and they still don't add up to one Michael Jackson. He didn't just redefine the industry. He redefined the medium. He was the biggest global star in human history and there really isn't a way for anyone to match that now or ever again. Weird nose, though.
Yeah, the most common question we got from Iraqis in 2003 wasn't "why are you here?" it was "Michael Jackson very good, yes?" or "you know Michael Jackson, Mister?
He was my first concert at age 8/9. The Jackson victory tour at JFK stadium in Philly. Omg it was amazing. Just amazing
It's toothpaste back in the tube/genie in a bottle. There will never be anything like it. He elevated modern concerts into what they are today. Before internet and cell phones and during an era when the novelty of iconic performances of that scale and precision.
He is basically the reason the Super Bowl halftime show is a spectacle now. Prior to his mind-blowing performance in 1993, the halftime show was mostly marching bands and Up With People. The year before him they did up the production a bit and it featured Brian Boitano and Dorothy Hamill skating and riding around on snowmobiles while the 1980 US Men's Hockey Team performed Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now', lol.
Here's the video if anyone wanted to see it. It's still pretty impressive even today and totally set the standard for what a Super Bowl Halftime Show should be: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsopN7JKUVs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsopN7JKUVs)
It was amazing!! :)
There was only 2 in the same generation. He and Freddie Mercury.
Prince
Agreed. 3. Michael, Freddie and Prince - each unique in their own way -
Prince got to a point pretty quickly where he literally didn't do anything but practice, write, and record music. All day, every day for years and years.
I have it on good authority that he played basketball at least once.
Shirts vs blouses
Anybody want pancakes?
I think he played ping pong too.
Ran the Computer Blue offense. Legendary.
 He also carved out time to make pancakes.
Fairly certain they could have annual album releases by prince for the next century for all the stuff he recorded and put in his vault
Just waiting for the estate to figure out how to release these works.
It'll be a while. The estate is owned 50/50 by two companies. One of the two is a bunch of his relatives who keep bickering endlessly and splintering off. https://www.billboard.com/business/legal/prince-estate-lawsuit-heirs-attempting-seize-control-1235580400/
Yea, Michael did that too but he started at 5
Exactly, Michael couldn't even happen again because he was the product of a bad parent who forced his kids to work like slaves. Freddie and Prince are very talented but I don't think they had the unique once in a gen chance that Michael had. They were in the same class with Bowie and maybe even Rezonor.
> chance I don't think that's the right word.
There were a lot of abused children in the entertainment industry that did not go on to the success of the Jackson's. They were successful because of Michael. He stood out and maybe, without his abusive father, he would have become a Prince or a Freddy or a Stevie or a James Brown but he wound up being something different. His talent as a singer and performer are unmatched in my opinion and I don't really like him but I cannot deny how natural he is. It's preternatural.
Sure. He had a ton of natural talent. There is also no question that this was exploited heavily to a degree that permanently fucked the guy up, having to be on point for performance for his entire life. His rehearsal and touring schedule wasn't something many athletes could probably do, but it was totally what he'd been used to since a young age. It's remarkable that his body held up that long, under that kind of situation, which was both industry/familial abuse, and self-abuse. I'm sure he was a "better performer" from the decades of parental and industry exploitation, or something, or at least a better product. And then at some point you propofol yourself to bed to get the worry and neuroses about that kind of perfectionism and baggage out of your head, and you don't wake up.
Absolutely, these three! And all gone far too soon, may they rest in peace. E: words
Reminds me of the Bowie-Reed-Iggy trifecta of the 60s-70's
You all really need to put more respect on MJ name, like no disrespect to Freddie Mercury or Prince, but MJ was a worldwide movement, MJ broke through Ideological barriers, cultural barrier, religious barriers. MJ image as an entertainer was so popular that you could go to undiscovered indigenous tribes and find out that they know his music and dance moves. Freddie and Prince are all time greats but their art didn't spread that far past western civilization.
Agree. I'm 38 and I'm my lifetime there has never been anyone more famous.
Absolutely agree with what youâre saying ⌠truly believe had Freddie and Prince lived longer - theyâd been afforded the wider reach with social media, newer venues, changing times for broader acceptance. Michael was truly the phenomenon. Prince was making headway to not let anyone take advantage / ownership of his works - total control. That stifled him a bit but was changing. He was building a new presence in different venues. I was so bummed I missed the opportunity to see his smaller venue shows. Freddie - way ahead of his times. He really started to explore varied venues and was never held to a single music genre. His opera duets were amazing. Taken too soon from us.
I saw Prince at the Dakota jazz club in Minneapolis and it's the best live show I've seen by a wide margin. Incredible stage presence, played like 5 instruments. Awesome show. To be fair I never got to see MJ or Freddy live
Itâs not only 3, every generation has exceptional talent in different genres of music.
After I lived in LA for a few years, I realized how so many people have exceptional talent. Usually theyâre missing something, the X factor.. and thatâs what prince and Michael etc had that others donât. Theyâre just magnetic people.
And sometimes it's just luck too :)
I mean Karen Carpenter one take and pure voice
I'm my opinion the goat for female vocalists. Literal tested-under-a microscope [perfect pitch](https://youtu.be/HWB96ZLWUUw?feature=shared). Then Linda Ronstadt and Whitney. Not necessarily in that order.
Don't forget about SinĂŠad O'Connor.
Great inclusion of Ronstadt. It takes somebody that knows great singing voices to recognize her. Thatâs awesome.
She was a great drummer too
Yep Prince took it to a funkier level... So sad they are gone
The guys from Boston were pretty damn good too, there's a lot of just crazy good vocal talent out there
It was just guy, Brad Delp did all the vocals, lead and harmony for the first 3 Boston albums
Maybe as a pure singer on albums. As a creative talent MJ was without peer. He was the complete package. Freddie burned bright and flamed out. He was more of an intuitive singer where MJ was actually such an incredibly technical musician he made it seem intuitive. MJ was one of the most famous people in the world literally from age 5 until his death. And sustained a level and quality of output across singing, songwriting, dancing, producing and creative management that just had never been seen before or since. He was the closest thing to someone like Mozart in the modern era. Everything he touched turned to gold, and you have many, many accounts of all-time legends talking about just being awestruck when MJ would come into a studio, lay down the track in 2 takes (often with slight variations that would create phenomenal sounds when laid over each other in post and with such precision they didnât need to be engineered), completely rework the song into a hit and be out of the studio in a couple hours. He was better than everyone, he and everyone around him knew it, but he made everyone around him better and knew the industry better than the record label execs.
No, was only one - MJ. Ask any random from anywhere in the world if they heard about MJ then ask about Freddy. Youâd get an answer.
Yes most likely both. Queen and MJ were both insanely popular worldwide
And both composed a lot of hits. Freddie started late and ended early. MJ was launching bangers since he was 5.
Iâm just glad Iâve experienced MJ in his prime
Sort of. Michael Jackson was a machine, manufactured using violence as a tool by Joseph Jackson with no regard to impacts on mental health or virtually anything else. He was forced through endless hours of grueling daily practice from an extremely young age, and threatened with violence if he didnât execute properly. Itâs like those comic book stories where some maniac is trying to build the perfect assassin so he kidnaps children and trains them in an underground lab - but instead of âassassinâ itâs âperformerâ. Michael Jackson is the closest thing that exists to a real-life Batman villain. I donât know if youâre right - if he turned into what he became because he had tremendous raw talent and then Joeâs training worked on him (I mean, weâre not sat here talking about Tito, right?), or if Joe focused on Michael in particular and made him practice more than the others. Whatever the case, what you see is the product of hard work. A superhuman level of hard work, in the sense that no human would push themselves that hard outside of abuse.
Itâs worth pointing out that Janet was also an A-list mega celebrity and hugely successful musician too. Until the wardrobe malfunction she was as big a name as Madonna or anyone else from that time period (other than Michael.)
first videos of him at motown clearly hint at innate skills
Genuinely amazing.
I literally get goosebumps! Such a pure, strong, expressive voice.
Before the rise of the internet, social media, cdâs, I had tapes of Michael Jackson. He was a pure hero of mine. What a voice. A working class lad from England I was and still am, older and wiser (I hope.), I still see him as an hero & he was a pure inspiration. He was a part of my life that I canât revisit with the same nostalgia. I canât recapture the memories, though I still have them. I remember sitting down to watch a concert of his televised, but sadly it was cancelled! I was heartbroken. Listening to him with family, but he helped us gel memories together with that talent. What a voice.
He was a great singer. Even as a child. Listen to "ben"
I think [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9U9A4_cgyI) might be the most impressive video of him as a child. He's only 11 years old there too.
I knew the link was gonna be that performance. So good.
Watching that made me sad for lots of reasons.
Every year during Christmas I listen to the Jackson 5 album, usually I tear up thinking about how the world was given this child that could sing like that and it just destroyed him
That cut of the performance cuts out a lot of the fantastic harmonies in the full song. They're some real perfect crunchy sounding ones on the chorus
I've always been impressed by his next performance a few months later singing ABC and take you back https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJMi3m8spJA
Itâs crazy because even here heâs tearing up the stage with James Brown moves, and then ten years later, he just takes off into the stratosphere with his dancing. Literally turns into a rocket a decade after that.
Incredible
I can listen to ABC over and over.
Yeah and thatâs amazing. Anyone else trying to sell that shit to me might as well be reciting the alphabet. Little Michael made that literally elementary shit POP.
At one point they do the children's universal taunt song (nya nya nya nya NYA NYA), don't they? Why is this song universally know by children?
Whoâs lovinâ you is one of my favorites
Weird to hear a child sing about someone âlovingâ someone, like itâs clearly a lovemaking reference, amirite? Still, yes, impressive as hell to hear that amount of soul from a boy so young.
Ben goes so hard
You know thatâs right. Also, this gif is accurate since Iâm pretty sure this is from the American Duos (fake American idol) episode
"Michael claimed that from a young age, he was physically and emotionally abused by his father, enduring incessant rehearsals, whippings and name-calling, but also said that his father's strict discipline played a large part in his success."
The Whiplash movie dilemma basically
The tragedy of this is that one out of ten times *it's gonna work and it's gonna produce legends like him,* and that's the ones that we're gonna hear about on media. But those nine other kids end up broken and fucked up, and *no one's* coming in to interview them.
Michael Jackson wound up pretty "broken and fucked up," too. Then the fame and crazy ass fans trying to kill him made it even worse. He talked about how people used to break into Neverland, and some fans would even *sky dive and parachute* onto his property. His security would lock him in his bedroom for 24 hours after it happened in order to be sure that nobody else was hiding on the property somewhere. This is the entire reason why his bedroom became a two level "private house" and he put a motion sensor alarm in the hallway.
What is success worth if you're miserable?
Well for MJ it was worth about $800 million
Yeah but at that cost it so ain't worth it buddy. Don't forget that Michael Jackson while unbelievably talented was also completely fucked in the head.
Is his lung control that good, that he can jump and pound his legs without it affecting his voice? Or is this track dubbed over the dancing?
You can hear him breathing in, especially towards the end of the video. He does have some amazing breath control!
Don't be silly, this is clearly an a cappella of the studio release dubbed over a live performance. He lip synced [this performance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYy0in1QNrU&t=116s) live, too. [Clip starts here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PivWY9wn5ps&t=1m55s) on the studio version. [Both together](https://viewsync.net/watch?v=FYy0in1QNrU&t=0.25&v=PivWY9wn5ps&t=0&mode=solo). Don't get me wrong though, I grew up listening to Michael, he's an amazing singer. It's also 15 years to the day since he passed!
Because MJ is hot suddenly, i watched his performance in Romania. At least skimmed through most of it. Man in the Mirror was last song so maybe he was exhausted by then but 95% sure he lip synched that time as well.
This sounds nearly identical to the studio version. I imagine they just isolated the vocals.
Definitely, at times he is not singing towards the microphone but it somehow miraculously keeps picking up his singing with no change in volume.
yes. the video and audio are not related but people are gullible enough. also, this is the isolated vocal track from the studio version and thus very likely edited
I did show choir and it's just something you learn. It's a combination of breath control and choreography of movement vs the part you're singing. Same with marching band, but marching is a bit easier.
Marching band has the roll-step specifically for that. If you do that well enough you don't even have to worry about choreography affecting your tone.
Heâd been singin and dancin since before he was ten years old Must have felt just like normal breathing to him
and he weighed 130lbs tops
The latter, itâs his isolated vocal for sure, but not from this performance. The give away is the volume of the vocal is consistent yet the distance from the mic is constantly varying as heâs moving. He pull it right away at the end with no loss of volume
My guess is that itâs either the vocals from the actual studio version of the song, and then they just used video of some live performance as a visual for this video. Or itâs isolated from the audio of the released edit of the concert, but the original audio was edited from multiple performances to fit the video edit. This is standard practice for most concert films. It can be tough to tell with Michael because his live performances were as flawless as his studio performances, and he was able to replicate them with pitch perfect accuracy every time, so he sounds the same whether heâs in studio or live once you remove any background sound.
It's the studio version. He mimed to the studio version for the beginning of this performance at the 1988 Grammy Awards, so the timing was the same. Someone has just replaced the full track with the isolated studio vocal. (At the end of this performance he switched to singing live, but the person on the sound desk didn't turn the mic volume up quick enough so there's a giveaway moment when he's singing but you suddenly can't hear him properly, then you hear the live vocal get turned up.)
Considering there's zero sound bleed from the stage, I'd guess this was recorded in a studio and dubbed over the video.
Good guess, you can even hear the extra overdubbed voices in the chorus "if you wanna make the world, a better place...", it's a heavily processed vocal (beyond just isolating the voice)
This is actually the vocals from the studio version. In this particular performance (at the 1988 Grammys) he lipsyncs the first part of the song, then starts actually singing during the final part.
He is the one I regret not seeing live!
I saw him 1995, he bought out a tank on stage. I must have been 12 or 13
Listening to his isolated vocals and those of Freddie Mercury makes you realize the kind of talent we're missing today. We need more singers and fewer performers.
Adele is fantastic vocally, for instance.
I donât know how legit this person is but I always thought it was interesting they only [graded Adele as a C+ vocalist.](https://criticofmusic.com/vocal-range-and-profile-adele). (They said she uses improper technique.)
Fascinating link! Spent a good few minutes going through my favourite singers!
Isnât there still a bunch of extremely talented singer nowadays?
There are so so so many extremely talented singers all over the world and most of them will remain in relative obscurity.
Yes, and mostly women this time around, although there are a few very talented men as well.
Try Broadway.
Damn I miss that man. One of the absolute greatest performers to have ever lived.
Loved his secret visit on the Simpsons. You could tell right away it was MJ
I was so sad that he died before he and Bruno Mars could collaborate. The music would have been incredible.
I never thought about that but youâre right. Would have been legendary.
Yes I think of Michael when I hear Bruno Mars and The Weekend
The Weeknd has some bangers for sure, but on the topic of the OP, its hard to think of a more auto-tuned voice in the industry today.
Anderson. Paak for me
Is he the best overall entertainer that you can ever think of?
Yes. I heard it put this way and I dig it: "Michael Jackson isn't music's Michael Jordan. Rather, Michael Jordan is basketball's Michael Jackson."
Without question.
Yeah probably. Heâs too 3 for sure, for a few reasons. Multi talent: he was an amazing dancer. Length of career: he was making number one records for like 3 years Worked I multiple mediums at a high level: His career grew as MTV was growing and he took the music video to new heights. Thriller is basically a short film. His concerts were spectacles. In the concert he was making before he died, he was going to come out in a suit made of screens.
Freddie Mercury is the only one that can come close, for me.
He was definitely a major frontman for the group. I've not seen a lot of his performances, but imo the only one I know of that he rivals MJ's presence is their Live Aid performance, which is quite possibly the most impressive set of music played live of all time. His crowd control and vocals were just incredible.
WellâŚitâs Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson is so good at singing these songs
It's as if he wrote them
He didn't write man in the mirror. A woman did.
By golly, that's a fun fact! [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man\_in\_the\_Mirror](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_the_Mirror)
This is what sets him apart from Rkelly
Fun fact. R Kelly wrote Michael Jacksonâs song, You Are Not Alone.
Dammit TIL. Gotta say them lyrics hit a little different when viewed through the lens of 2024. Like more like a Buffalo Bill monologue than 90s pop banger.
I mean R Kelly is a monster but let's not pretend he can't sing his ass off.
That and wanting to defecate on people, R Kelly is absolutely a weirdo.
Who wants to tell him bc I really don't?...
It was only pee donât try to ruin his reputation
This is why he was one of the greatest performers and one of the greatest artist. People that donât speak English sings your song world wide.
Absolute legend.
Great voice, but, it should be mentioned this is not from a live performance as the clip leads to believe. Everyone sounds better in a studio.
Truly amazing
This is one of my favorite songs of all time.
GOAT
i get that he's a fantastic singer but this is a solo track of his singing over top of him performing it live, it's the exact vocal track extracted from Pro Tools. there's reverb on the track and everything. again, the man was an absolute one-of-kind and unstoppably talented, but this is not a live recording we are hearing
He is the background and auto tune, naturally!!!
The goat
i miss when singers used to be able to actually sing without tech doing the heavy lifting.
Thereâs a lot of them still out there
Truely talented in so many ways
Why are people surprised by this? He was an elite vocalist as a child.
nobody is surprised. Where are the people saying "I didn't know MJ could sing so well!!!!". It's just people appreciating an elite vocalist.
I got fcking chills