[lithos]

You Tube

You Tube

[Unsinkable II]

that famous Billie Jean number on stage at Motown that blew a lot of minds at the time.

Minds that hadn't seen "The Little Prince"!

[magkelly]

Minds that hadn't seen "The Little Prince"!

I actually own and have seen that movie at least 4 dozen times since I was a kid. Both the book and the movie are wonderful I think. But that still didn't take away from the amazement of seeing Billie Jean done live for the first time. Sorry we'll have to agree to disagree on this one. I do not think you're giving MJ his due.

I love Fosse. I will avidly watch anything he's done, but I don't think it takes anything away from MJ's own dancing that he obviously learned from him. Every great dancer on the planet does that, borrows moves from other dancers. It's always been a big part of dancing. We wouldn't have most of the major classic forms of dancing unless that had happened actually. I studied dance for a lot of years actually. Everyone owes a debt to Fosse like they owe a debt to Balanchine or Astaire, et all. But no one in the dance world would consider what MJ did stealing. It's just a style of dancing, and Fosse actively taught it to many people who also passed it on until it just pretty much became a part of dance as a whole. But a lot of what you'd consider "his" moves he got from people before him too.

Jazz dance was around before Fosse. He just took those basic steps and made them his. What Fosse was most known for was his stylized use of his hands. But he wasn't the first one to use those. Those hands, they already existed in mime. He just brought them into dance and made them move. FYI, most classically trained dancers are also taught mime. I think Jackson actually was watching a lot of people besides Fosse. He was also a big Chaplin fan and if you look at how he moves sometimes, there's Chaplin in there too, and Disney animation, and Astaire, and a number of other influences. I don't think it was a conscious thing really and intentional act of stealing. I think he just grew up watching all these great dancers, all these different styles, as we all did, and got all this stuff deep into his subconscious. But even Fosse likely wouldn't have seen that as stealing. He would have seen himself as influencing MJ sure, but if he was so jealous of his moves he wouldn't have taught so many people.

Dancers they aren't like that. They don't call each other out so much over things like this. They all learn from each other and pass it on. Nobody cares so much who the move "belongs" to. It's not like a song lyric situation where it's all copyrighted. Very few dancers, particularly those who consider themselves "hoofers" as both Fosse and MJ were want to do will go there, criticize another dancer for taking a move and making it his or her own. Dance is an art where one move comes out of another, one style evolves from another. People pass moves back and forth all the time. It's just how you learn, grow. FYI, Jackson was very good about teaching others "his" moves. He spent a lot of time creating some really great dancers out of his people and when someone copied him, like the kid who ended up in the Pepsi commercial, and the one who he practically adopted as a son later, he encouraged it. He had no major problem with anyone copying him. To be fair, he was copied probably as much if not more as he copied in his day, still is. How many videos do you see even now where people are dancing like MJ? Tons. Street Dance owes a lot to his moves and his popularizing it actually. MJ and others who came after him? They made it respectable to dance like that. Look at how the pop shows are done today vs when he started with his own shows. Find a few 70's pop videos. All you'll mostly see is people standing around playing instruments or barely moving. Not now. Every video is like a mini Broadway show. It's a whole different world and yes, a lot of that is MJ's doing....

[lammie200]

Mj has been one of the graetest and he will be remembered for a long period of time.

I agree. Anyone that can continue to dance with their head on fire is outstanding!

[K-9]

Don't get me wrong; MJ was a genius.
Remember that his dancing was only a sideshow to the music he created.

MJ never said he created anything but did say he got his inspirations from others. What he did do is share those inspirational finds with many who would not have looked there.

He also got the bassline for Billie Jean directly from the Michael Zager Band's disco song Let's All Chant, which came out 4 years earlier.

[RioRico]

He also got the bassline for Billie Jean directly from the Michael Zager Band's disco song Let's All Chant, which came out 4 years earlier.

Blame Quincy Jones, who produced Billie Jean.

And review that Fosse piece, and note all the moves MJ *didn't* copy, like the penguin walk. So it's an incomplete copy. Don't we have an error code for that?

[magkelly]

Might as well give it up. There are people out there who just plain dislike MJ, who adore MJ and those who are somewhere between. But whatever they feel people usually don't feel anything lukewarm. He lived a life full of controversy that guy and I don't think anyone actually could say with certainty that they really knew which Micheal was the real one. Heck, I don't even think sometimes HE knew. I personally have come to believe over the years that he likely never molested anyone, but even so there will always be people out there who think he's the Devil incarnate and absolutely did.

At this point it probably doesn't matter what people think about him except maybe to his kids who will have to grow up with that big cloud over their Dad's reputation. For them I feel bad. Because I do have the sneaking suspicion that he was innocent and yet they'll have to live with people thinking that for the rest of their lives. But even he was the worst person ever born that would not negate the stunning talent he had or the excellent body of work he left behind. That's his real legacy. Not the scandal not the weirdness. That's what will live on behind him.

Oh, and btw, the people coming out of the woodwork to deny his kids were his? None of them apparently have eyes. He's got a thinner nose and finer features than MJ did as a kid, lighter skin, probably his mother's DNA talking, but the kid they call "Blanket" Prince Micheal III is more and more a dead ringer for the man who supposedly didn't contribute any DNA to his makeup. Look at his face shape, and his physical build, the way he moves the next time there's a clip on TV. He's MJ's kid all right. I don't know who his mother was, but there a lot of MJ in him. The two oldest kids? They have a lot more of their mother's looks but they are clearly Jackson's kids too. I see a lot of him in the little girl Paris actually. Not so much in physical resemblance. She looks very much like her mother at a younger age, but in personality. She's an amazing kid already that little girl. Incredibly self possessed given her age.

I think it won't be long before the whole world has to acknowledge it. Those kids are Jackson's all right and they already seem to be determined to follow in their father's footsteps, even though that was apparently something he didn't want for them. At first I thought it was the family pushing them into it but now I'm beginning to think it's the other way around. All 3 of them definitely have a good healthy dose of MJ's determination that's for sure. I just hope that it doesn't have them going down exactly the same road that he did. That family has had enough tragedy, enough scandal. I really hope his kids get to live a better life and be happy.

I've always thought it was a shame that genuine genius so often comes paired with mental instability and abuse. It's like the back slap of the universe operating....

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Last edited by magkelly; 06-15-2012 at 11:07 PM.

[magkelly]

Speaking of MJ consider my mind officially blown by this. MJ and PRINCE jamming on the same stage actually singing together, and a Beatles song no less!!!! I've never seen this one.

You Tube

You Tube

[RioRico]

Speaking of MJ consider my mind officially blown by this. MJ and PRINCE jamming on the same stage actually singing together, and a Beatles song no less!!!! I've never seen this one.

That looks to me like two concerts spliced together. Stage lighting is totally different in the Prince vs MJ scenes. We never see them together in the same frame. I call fake.

[magkelly]

That looks to me like two concerts spliced together. Stage lighting is totally different in the Prince vs MJ scenes. We never see them together in the same frame. I call fake.

You think? Looked real to me. But then it was the wee hours. I just can't even imagine them on the same stage at all. Prince has nothing bad to say about MJ or vice versa in the clips I've seen but I can't even begin to see them actually performing together.

[RioRico]

You think? Looked real to me. But then it was the wee hours. I just can't even imagine them on the same stage at all. Prince has nothing bad to say about MJ or vice versa in the clips I've seen but I can't even begin to see them actually performing together.

In the clip I don't even see their respective band members together in the same frame. I have no idea whether or not they've ever performed together. This clip shows some clever editing. I'll let the detail-mongers sift through history for evidence.

BTW among the first videodiscs (CEDs) I bought were MAKING OF THRILLER and PURPLE RAIN (along with STAR WARS and JAWS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and MAN WHO WOULD BE KING and CASABLANCA). Both those music+ discs just knocked me out, absolutely brilliant stuff.

[K-9]

Blame Quincy Jones, who produced Billie Jean.

And review that Fosse piece, and note all the moves MJ *didn't* copy, like the penguin walk. So it's an incomplete copy. Don't we have an error code for that?

Producing it does not mean he wrote it. Michael wrote the song and Jones reportedly did not like the song or the bass line, and didn't want it on Thriller.

[magkelly]

Well, I know he and Prince were apparently on stage with James Brown once but they actually didn't seem to perform together there either. There was a lot of tabloid stuff over the years pitting them against each other as rivals but Prince totally dissed those people. He said he and Micheal didn't see eye to eye on some things musically speaking but that otherwise they got along very well. You get the general impression that he thought MJ was a bit weird but that he admired him. To me Prince thinking MJ was strange was a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, I mean if anyone is truly weird it's Prince, lol. They're both pretty strange if you ask me but the music is great most of the time so I don't care....

[SineC]

Yeah, but from all accounts I've heard, he never even mentioned Fosse.

Fosse's performance in The Little Prince was basically an EXACT template that Jackson copied for his look post '82.

Gloves? Check.

Hat? Check.

Wind? Check.

Every single move? Check.

Jackson wasn't being derivative or adding much to it. It was flagrant plagiarism and because most people don't know an obscure 1974 film, they think it's "his".

At least Beyonce was open enough to admit that she based the "All the Single Ladies" dance from a Fosse original, and she, like Jackson took it further. But it's a LOT easier to make a great chocolate cake than it is to make the first chocolate cake, and Jackson never acknowledged that he had copied Fosse's original recipe verbatim.

I'm not disputing he was a fabulous dancer; just that most people presented with Fosse's earlier look and moves would go "No way, that's all MJ... he created that". Michael Jackson was a downright copycat. A talented one that took it far.

I would have to disagree about Michael Jackson being a total copycat, someone like Usher or Chris Brown yes. But MJ no. He did invent things himself(Anti-Gravity) which may not be considered a dance move but it was inventive. and he also did what all dancers do and that's take what they see and make their own thing based on that, like for example MJ's Circle Glide as people call it is based on Hip Hop footwork the slide and the glide but he took it and made a dance that was his style. I believe that if you took every dance and analyzed it you will that no is really original but it is how well you execute it and if you can take what you and come up with something yourself based on that. I also noticed that his dancing when he had released Off The Wall was very much his own style. The way he moved his legs and stuff was definitely something seemed new to people.

[Tom S.]

And so comes back to life a 9 month old thread!