Aerosmith is nothing, musically. Might as well idolize the Monkees.

Really... well we all have opinions. Aerosmith has done some great rock songs... "Last Child" as simple as it is, is a great rock song. "Dream On"...the whole Toys in the Attic album...even some of their later stuff, a bit more complex...still great songs.

The Monkees? They didnt write most of their songs, but Mickey Dolenz' voice was one of the best sounding pop voices of the 1960s... Boyce and Hart wrote some catchy tunes for them and the Monkees did do some playing on the later records... they werent all fluff...there was some talent there.

There is a lot of myth in rock and roll....some "genius" has been created out of myth... other true genius like for example, Brian Wilson... have been called many things...but if you listen to the Pet Sounds Session, you can hear Wilson totally and completely in charge of the production getting the exact sounds that he wanted... directing every note and sound on his songs...that is the true genius of rock and roll right there..... Paul McCartney is another... Lennon in a different sort of way.

If you like alot of musical styles, its easy to see 'genius' in a lot of different artists... Michael had his genius too...

Who said that James brown was nothing?? My Dad saw JB perform when he was in college in the '50s, I saw him when I was in college in the '70s and if I'd had a kid, he could have seen him when he was in college. He was a great and he certainly would not have slighted MJ's gifts.

Aerosmith?? I enjoy listening to them at times but they are nothing special at all. If they'd never existed, the world of music would be no poorer. They did schit that had been done 100 times before, and better. Can't believe that you seem to lump them together w/ JB in that quote.

They're is no accounting for taste sometimes. :cool:

Brian Wilson is truly one of those underrated geniuses who will be remembered for many generations and probably become more famous long after he's gone. Paul McCartney is in the same vein, but no one can say he's underrated. He's one of the founding fathers of rock and everyone on Earth knows it.

I'm not a big Aerosmith fan, but I still rank them way, way above MJ. No one ever decided to pick up a guitar or drums because of anything MJ did. Aerosmith has inspired countless kids to play music. And they've been around forever, write their own stuff, don't have to hire armies of dancers or choreographers or songwriters. They are a real band and could put on just as good a show in some dive bar with a college kid running sound or a full arena concert. Not so with MJ. He couldn't put on a show with fewer than 100 handlers and helpers.

Aerosmith had some songs and they're alright. I just don't consider them in the league with the innovators. Brian Wilson is god in my book but like most all great artists, collaboration was a big part of his gift. Van Dyke Parks, Phil Spector, the Wrecking Crew, he knew where to go for whatever it was he was looking for.

The Monkees were a manufactured group, (so was Steely Dan), they were actually talented guys. Michael Nesmith is brilliant in several areas besides music and I agree about Mickey Dolenz. I just saw him at a party/opening a couple weeks ago and was looking for a picture, he looks fantastic for his age! Thought I had a better one but he's unmistakable in the fedora:


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TWS, June 29

With the passing of Michael Jackson, discussion among musicologists has once again turned to the unheralded genius of Rudy Vallee. Vallee's implementation of megaphonic amplification presaged the dominance of modern electrified music. Vallee's "Whiffenpoof Song" stands alongside Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nachtmusic" as an exemplar of melodic subtlety; destined to dominate public radio for centuries to come. "WS" taken from the 1929 manuscript, is Vallee's haunting lament over internet bulletin board contributors beset by the dark question of pop music stardom. The progression in G minor paints their titanic struggle, which Vallee expresses in poetic lyricism, "We are poor little lambs who have lost their way...baa....baa.....baa"

BTW, here's a pretty cool old anecdote on the making of Beat It.

www.vhnd.com

Why does it matter that Michael Jackson's performance were big and required lots of choreography etc? That's the nature of his type of performance. Might as well complain that a great conductor needs a hundred musicians to put on his type of performance. Not all acts are three guys in a bar.

Jackson had enormous influence on pop music, dance, and indeed pop culture. 25 years later, watch videos of today's Timberlakes and so on, they are doing Jackson-inspired moves. (But they don't look near as good.) And he almost defined the 1980's in dance/pop music. "Thriller" is the biggest selling album in all history, AFAIK.

Aerosmith - whatever, just another band. Ok, I know they were popular at a time, I happened to be more into Led Zeppelin.

Justin Timberlake - just another ex-boy-band dancer. Can anyone here hum one of his tunes in their head? In 25 yrs. from now, will anyone remember him? He'll be less remembered than Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassidy. Total bubblegum pop nonsense. Not serious music.

You know that for sure, do you? Maybe you should check out the BET awards tomorrow, and find out how many successful musicians were influenced by Michael Jackson.

Michael Jackson wasn't a band. He was a performer. And Steven Tyler couldn't come close to "performing" in the way Michael Jackson did.

There's a huge difference. Comparing the two is ridiculous. Every music critic worth their salt would laugh out loud at what you just wrote.

I didn't start the Aerosmith comparison, just commenting on it. And I never said no one was influenced by MJ. There's a world of difference from between being inspired to pick up an instrument and start making music and just being influenced by someone. I didn't watch the BET Awards show. But I have to wonder which musicians or songwriters were inspired by MJ, since he didn't play an instrument or write songs.

Backpedaling, Rick, is only good for stopping a bicycle...:rolleyes:

Couldn't let this one get by. I laugh out loud at people who make a living calling themselves music critics. Though I wish I could make money at doing something so silly. Has any music critic ever changed your mind? If you agree with them, they're smart. If you don't, you call them an idiot. When Kurt Cobain's death was all over the news, I remember some music critic saying Cobain was the John Lennon of the Gen X'ers and if you didn't agree, then you just didn't get it. Well, I belong to that generation and couldn't stand anything Cobain did (to say nothing of killing himself when he had a wife and kid) and love most of what Lennon did. I adore John Lennon and loathe Kurt Cobain (musically speaking, of course). Music critics' opinions mean less to me than those of politicians.

I'm not denying the fact that MJ was a legend. But his influence will not last much longer than the lifespans of those who bought Thriller when it was first released.

Well...when you talk about sht that has been done 1000 times already...Jackson himself has admitted that he got most of his dance moves from JB (except the moonwalk which he got from someone else)....

i much prefer JB cause he is/was more organic in his style... you could watch JB and a couple musicians on stage and he would rock...Michael always seemed to need a big production.... Its the same thing as going to watch Prince rock out...or Britney Spears... no way in hell Britney could come out with just an acoustic guitar player and rock out...but you know Prince could do it easy.

Too bad Michael seemed to feel that he needed all that crap. It would have been awesome to see him go raw with just him and a band to see what he could do...but his persona got away from his reality.

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no artist lives in a bubble and they all get something from someone else...

Here is Brian Wilson telling the Wrecking Crew exactly what he wants... He was quite the driver in the studio. This is on the Pet Sounds Box Set...btw

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Hey Eddie got married again...good for him. Didnt hear about that in the news....
as a side note...Eddie never got paid for the MJ session... lol.

Anyway...it is pretty obvious that Michael Jackson was a complete neurotic, chronically dissatisfied with himself as evident by his obssesive scarring of his face with the repetitive surgerys. This was probably some sense of needing to be perfect, which was driven in to him as a child by his crazy parents and drove him over the edge at a young age.

Is he still dead? I thought it was a publicity stunt!

Wow, what a wandering thread!

Mozart, Aerosmith and MJ all being compared, etc.

Interesting the way this thread evolves. I can't wait to see where it's at later!

Still waiting for the assignment of "blame" for his passing. Any doctors, advisers, accountants being singled out as the cause of his demise yet? Certainly couldn't have been a natural or self inflicted event, right?

Only asking because I stopped watching the ad nauseum coverage hours after the story broke. Glad nothing else is happening in the world. I can't think of many things that are less news-worthy. Mother Theresa didn't get this kind of coverage.

The govenor of South Carolina should be a suspect. Completely got his affair with an Argentinian hotty bumped from the news.

Mother Teresa actually did love children.:D