Quote: (08-24-2015 02:12 PM)WalterBlack Wrote:
Quote: (08-03-2015 11:48 AM)TigerMandingo Wrote:
MJ was a superstar before he was a teenager. And that was before social media. I like Weeknd, but he'd be lucky to sniff MJ's doo-doo.
I think a lot of people nowadays don't appreciate how big Michael Jackson was back in the day (the 80s/90s). He could easily sell out shows with 80K+ people in the crowd at his peak in many countries around the world. I remember talking to villagers in India who have zero interest in western music who had heard of him.
How many current musical artists could sell out an 80k stadium in Seoul, London, Rio and Tokyo?
A ton of current artists, actually. And many of them do sell out globally. katy perry, not even one of the biggest figures is selling out shows in NZ most recently.
I wish I could say you were right - as most of these artists are hot garbage, but Here's the rub - MJ became that famous WITHOUT the global internet access. The current artists today have three things going for them that MJ did without the benefit of:
1) widespread internet access on their side
2) an obsessive clickbait-driven media which pushes specific artists music onto people - even if you don't listen to any of his music, chances are Beiber will somehow become "trojan horsed" onto your computer on the websites you browse.
3) a distribution vehicle the likes of which have never been seen before in history. When I said "a ton of current artists," above, I'm strictly referring to the ones signed to (a)Universal, (b)Sony, or ©Warner.
3 is vastly underestimated. Now MJ was signed onto the Motown imprint which was part of Universal, but that was before the Big 4 (now consolidated down to A-C listed above) completely took over the industry as a cartel.
Beiber sells out shows across the world - as does TaylerSwift, Katy Perry, etc. etc. but if he, or any of them, were to croak tonight, they would be replaced by another, new pop star by months end. You can't say the same about MJ. So going full circle, and to end up validating your point, MJ was on a whole other level than these artists we see today.
(some edits for clarification)