|
Post by HIStoric on Dec 24, 2017 4:33:17 GMT
I don't think we've had a thread like this (I did a quick search?), so I thought it'd be cool to see how we all got into MJ! So I got into Michael Jackson in my pre-teens, around a year and a bit before he died. One of my cousins showed me Thriller on YouTube and that became my favourite video for a while! I rewatched it a number of times, even downloaded the video, converted it to mp3 and burned it to CD so I could dance to it in my room. I vaguely remembered my parents had some sort of Michael Jackson CD so I rushed to their collection and took a gander, found HIStory and furiously scanned the back for Thriller. A few seconds later I found it and rushed back to my room and blasted Thriller! I remember dancing around my room and my Dad walked past with a big smile on his face because of what I was playing hehe. I didn't recognise any of the other songs by name either, not even Billie Jean or Black or White! In fact I ended up discovering Billie Jean by accidentally pressing play on CD without selecting a track, followed up by the iconic drum beat and I was like "OH MY GOD ITS THIS SONG!!!". This ended up happening for a number of Michael Jackson songs like BoW too. I spent a number of nights playing that CD on my radio with my earphones on - the acoustics of the argument for BoW was so good I actually took off my earphones thinking my neighbours were arguing ๐ Later that year I got my first iPod and spent a lot of the summer nights (winter nights for you Americans/Europeans) just devouring the second disc of the album - songs like Earth Song, TDCAU, Scream, HIStory all really stood out to me. I fell in love with that album and came to really appreciate his work, despite whatever nonsense I heard about him in real life. I never felt the urge to explore outside of HIStory but that album certainly gave me a lot to listen to! Half a year later, Michael unfortunately passed away and I remember watching a number of his music videos on a music channel later that night. I remember being transfixed, Smooth Criminal stood out and I was legitimately sad it wasn't on HIStory! Mum bought it for me on iTunes a few days later thankfully, but it was that moment onwards I started to properly explore his catalogue, transitioning from a normal fan into a hardcore fan... and well, I guess the rest you could say is HIStory What about you guys?
|
|
TonyR
The Legend Continues
Posts: 8,417
|
Post by TonyR on Dec 24, 2017 11:38:56 GMT
I grew up with him. Not literally.
So I slightly recall the OTW era but by the time I was 10 Thriller was out and basically you couldn't help but he transfixed and a fan.
Unlike many others I just became more and more obsesssed like I've written before and the gigs etc,...
Dangerous just sent me into ultra fandom, it drove me crazy and was therapeutic through some hard times.
|
|
|
Post by mjjfan810 on Dec 24, 2017 13:15:31 GMT
I became a fan right around the time Bad was released (spring of '87, so i would have been a junior in high school). I remember seeing the "Bad" video on MTV late at night and thinking, "This guy is something else." Then a couple of friends of mine kept talking about how much they loved MJ and they each lent me copies of Thriller and OTW... then I went out and bought Bad. I listened to it all summer and really fell in love with it. I think I credit Bad with expanding my horizons and opening me up to harder-sounding music.
I love every single song, I think it's sequenced perfectly, the videos are all perfect...really, it is the perfect MJ album.
|
|
|
Post by Russg on Dec 24, 2017 13:16:27 GMT
I've been a fan since the early nineties. I bought Dangerous on cassette tape back in the day. My parents were big Jackson 5 fans and followed MJ's career as well, and they brought me to see the Dangerous tour back in 1992.
The rest is HIStory.
|
|
|
Post by HIStoric on Dec 25, 2017 3:23:59 GMT
My parents were big Jackson 5 fans and followed MJ's career as well, and they brought me to see the Dangerous tour back in 1992. That must've been insane! Seeing him grow from a little boy in The Jackson 5 into the unstoppable creative juggernaut he was just over a decade later!
|
|
|
Post by MattyJam on Dec 25, 2017 22:49:10 GMT
I have quite a few memories of MJ and his music prior to becoming a fully fledged fan. My family always liked MJ, and apparently I went to see Moonwalker when it came out at the cinema, but I have no recollection of this as I wouldโve been very young at the time.
I do remember staying up late with my dad and brother to watch the Dangerous concert on BBC2 back in 93.
My sister had a cassette copy of Bad and I believe my brother had Dangerous. I remember sneaking into their rooms when they were out and listening to these two albums.
It wasnโt until the release of HIStory that I became a fully fledged fan myself. As soon as I saw the Scream video I was sold and there was no going back.
|
|
|
Post by Snow White on Dec 25, 2017 23:23:01 GMT
I've had memories of listening to his music, watching Thriller and pieces of Moonwalker since 1989 because my godfather was/is a fan being blown away and believing Michael could be a werewolf and a zombie (my naivety, ๐
I was 3 years old.) But when I saw by accident the Billie Jean Motown 25 performance a year later, he fully got me for life.
You were so lucky to see Michael in concert in his best Dangerous tour leg, I was 7 years old when he came to Mexico in 1993 and the only fan in my household. My parents didn't want to take me to any of his 5 concerts.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Dec 27, 2017 10:46:22 GMT
I just love telling this tale, but it goes back many years. I was 3 or 4 and I remember hearing "Rock with you" on the radio and just thinking what a nice song. As I was a preschooler and being a sufferer of High Functioning Autism, I could not talk so being a fan was an impossibility. I just liked the song, I did not know it was by Michael Jackson and only worked that out a few years later.
My next memories are in early 1983 and I remember the songs Billie Jean and Beat It being #1 hits, we had a show called RTR countdown on Saturday night from the 70s to mid 90s and I remember watching it before a bath and bed. By this stage I was 7 and could talk and knew that it was by a guy called Michael Jackson, who was a huge star and wore military uniforms and could really dance. I used to love them and my brother (Older) got the Thriller album. Then of course being the 80s and I was young I got into other acts like Wham! and Culture Club (Before I knew I was gay, but I had "gay" musical tastes).
By 1987, Bad had come out and I was 11, I remember loving all the songs and bought singles, but never got an actual copy of Bad until early 1988. I count my true fandom from them, as I was allowed to buy the music and listen to it, before I got the Bad album on cassette, I bought those cheap 20 hits on one album sets that had big hits and faded them out early to fit 18 or 20 songs on one album or tape and one of them had Bad (Single) on it.
In 1988/89 I was still playing the heck out of Bad, but discovered other artists I just loved for my life like Madonna, George Michael (Solo from Wham!) and Terence Trent D'arby, but also Kylie Minogue/ Whitney Houston and Tiffany (Gay I know).
In 1990 I got into rap along with the pop, but went off it by 1997. In 1991 I remember buying Black or White when it dropped as a single and all the singles off Dangerous, but never the album until 1993, as I was 15 and had pocket money so had to buy any music with that (Back in the late 80s, my parents bought the albums or gave me the money). It also did not help the day I bought Black or White, I also bought my first Prince single - Cream and that started my obsession with Prince.
In 1993/94 I remember being a hardcore fan of mainly Prince and Michael Jackson, along with the Red Hot Chili Peppers and having to defend Michael from idiots who said he was guilty in the Chandler case and watching that horrible Hard Copy with all its bullshit and the interview where Michael said "They took photos of my penis, buttocks etc". Of course my early fandom peaked in June 1995 when I stood out in the snow at midnight to buy HIStory as it was released (The story is in another thread). I played that album to death and converted my cousins through the Hits Tape on it (My younger cousin also got into MJ way back with Bad when he was 4 and I was 11).
In late 1996 I kicked myself as I had uni exams when MJ played the other end of the country in the HIStory tour. Between 2000 and 2005 I kind went off him a bit, but came back in around the time of Thriller25 and it ahs not let up since.
So overall I have been alive just under 42 years on this earth and at least 30 of them have been as a fan of MJ and 38 as at least knowing who he was.
|
|
|
Post by respect77 on Dec 29, 2017 13:45:35 GMT
I told this story several times on MJJC but if someone has not heard it yet: I was about 10 around 1987-88 when the son of a friend of my father's accidentaly left his Bad cassette tape in my father's car. My father put it in the player in the car and that was it for me. Love at first sight (or first hearing). I loved it so much that my father then made a copy of the tape for me. I wore it down. Then I started reading all those teen bopper magazines here that always had something about MJ and I fell in love with him as a person too.
|
|
|
Post by mistermaxxx08 on Jan 8, 2018 4:08:11 GMT
his music played and my family members always dug him. he was always like a family member.
|
|
|
Post by aazzaabb on Jan 10, 2018 16:08:25 GMT
I don't think we've had a thread like this (I did a quick search?), so I thought it'd be cool to see how we all got into MJ! So I got into Michael Jackson in my pre-teens, around a year and a bit before he died. One of my cousins showed me Thriller on YouTube and that became my favourite video for a while! I rewatched it a number of times, even downloaded the video, converted it to mp3 and burned it to CD so I could dance to it in my room. I vaguely remembered my parents had some sort of Michael Jackson CD so I rushed to their collection and took a gander, found HIStory and furiously scanned the back for Thriller. A few seconds later I found it and rushed back to my room and blasted Thriller! I remember dancing around my room and my Dad walked past with a big smile on his face because of what I was playing hehe. I didn't recognise any of the other songs by name either, not even Billie Jean or Black or White! In fact I ended up discovering Billie Jean by accidentally pressing play on CD without selecting a track, followed up by the iconic drum beat and I was like "OH MY GOD ITS THIS SONG!!!". This ended up happening for a number of Michael Jackson songs like BoW too. I spent a number of nights playing that CD on my radio with my earphones on - the acoustics of the argument for BoW was so good I actually took off my earphones thinking my neighbours were arguing ๐ Later that year I got my first iPod and spent a lot of the summer nights (winter nights for you Americans/Europeans) just devouring the second disc of the album - songs like Earth Song, TDCAU, Scream, HIStory all really stood out to me. I fell in love with that album and came to really appreciate his work, despite whatever nonsense I heard about him in real life. I never felt the urge to explore outside of HIStory but that album certainly gave me a lot to listen to! Half a year later, Michael unfortunately passed away and I remember watching a number of his music videos on a music channel later that night. I remember being transfixed, Smooth Criminal stood out and I was legitimately sad it wasn't on HIStory! Mum bought it for me on iTunes a few days later thankfully, but it was that moment onwards I started to properly explore his catalogue, transitioning from a normal fan into a hardcore fan... and well, I guess the rest you could say is HIStory What about you guys? I love your story HIStoric and I love how you focused on one album and lived with it for quite awhile. HIStory is a great introduction with the hits disc aswell as the album. Brilliant story.
|
|
dewey
Speechless
Posts: 3
|
Post by dewey on Jan 10, 2018 18:03:16 GMT
I listened to radio very early in my life and I always remember hearing Dancing Machine (and trying to do the robot) and Blame It On the Boogie in the mid 70s as a child. I was vaguely aware of the Jacksons television show. I more clearly remember Rock With You and other songs from Off the Wall, especially when my fifth grade gym class did a dance routine to the first 3 minutes of DSTYGE. I also remember all the excitement from friends at school about the Jacksons tours. But it was the worldwide phenomenon of everything related to Thriller that really opened my eyes to Michael Jackson. MTV was huge and I saw Beat It and Billie Jean often, would even watch it for long periods of time to see either of those 'short films.' I was 13/14 years old then and plastered my bedroom walls with posters and magazine photos and I read everything I could find about him. I watched the Thriller short film hundreds of times (it seemed) back then. The Grammys '84...I fell in love with how he acknowledged the girls in the balcony. If he didn't have my full attention then, he got it big time with Bad and everything he did after. He was so kind and good and funny and enormously talented. (And gorgeous.) He remains a treasure.
|
|
|
Post by HIStoric on Jan 11, 2018 5:40:51 GMT
I love your story HIStoric and I love how you focused on one album and lived with it for quite awhile. HIStory is a great introduction with the hits disc aswell as the album. Brilliant story. Thanks!!! It's a superb introduction to him, and because it was HIStory that introduced me to the magnificent Michael Jackson, I'm always going to defend the Greatest Hits side of it. Some fans disagree with the fact it had a GH disc because it raised costs, but the way I see it is that it still sold extremely well (20+ million) and would've introduced countless people to him over the years so it's worth it
|
|
|
Post by aazzaabb on Jan 11, 2018 13:36:40 GMT
I love your story HIStoric and I love how you focused on one album and lived with it for quite awhile. HIStory is a great introduction with the hits disc aswell as the album. Brilliant story. Thanks!!! It's a superb introduction to him, and because it was HIStory that introduced me to the magnificent Michael Jackson, I'm always going to defend the Greatest Hits side of it. Some fans disagree with the fact it had a GH disc because it raised costs, but the way I see it is that it still sold extremely well (20+ million) and would've introduced countless people to him over the years so it's worth it Agreed. I never had a problem with the hits disc either. The price wasn't even an issue for me at the time. It was a new MJ album and as far as I was concerned I was owning it one way or another. It was also something of a novelty at that point because there hadn't been a hits collection and lots of artist's were doing those big double and triple boxes around that time, Prince The Hits The B-sides, The Beatles Anthology series, George Michael Ladies & Gentlemen and a few others. Hey, if that package brought you here then it's done it's job!
|
|
|
Post by funksoldier on Jan 14, 2018 19:51:12 GMT
I became a fan when he died, because I've never heard of him before that. And then when he died, I was kind of fascinated by his impact, I've never witnessed a storm like this when famous person died. And I got sad when I learned about him and about everything he ever did. Thriller, his Moonwalk, his Music Videos, I was like: "Woah, that's a person who deserves to be called a genius!" I'll never forget that, and the irony with MJ's death was, because of his music, it was the best summer I've ever had.
|
|