Archive for the ‘Michael Jackson’ Category

Jamma Slamma

Tuesday, February 5th, 2019

I was going to write a super long post tonight about an avant-garde out-of-print synth masterpiece, but I just don’t have it in me. Here are a shitload of Michael Jackson remixes.

Michael Jackson
Jam (7” Edit)
Jam (Roger’s Jeep Mix)
Jam (Atlanta Techno Dub)
Jam (Roger’s Jeep Radio Mix)
Jam (Teddy’s Jam)
Jam (More Than Enuff Mix)
Jam (Atlanta Techno Mix)
Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough (Masters At Work Remix)
Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ (Brothers In Rhythm House Mix)

For a short time I would say that “Jam” was my favorite Michael Jackson song. It was the fourth single off of Dangerous, following “Black or White,” “Remember The Time” and “In The Closet.” I dug the shit out of “Black or White” when I was a kid, but I was not big on those other two numbers. “Remember the Time” just felt like a mediocre mid-tempo love song to me, and I just outright hated everything about “In the Closet,” I just thought (and still think) it’s a crappy song.

But I got on “Jam” hard when it came out. The video, which featured Michael Jordon, probably had something to do with that. Like every 12 year old boy in 1992, I was a Bulls fan, often rocking my dope Bulls Starter jacket to school, so to see MJ with MJ (see how they planned that) was just too much for my little brain to take. And the song is just fucking great, even as a kid I preferred upbeat, silly dance tracks to emotional ballads or mid-tempo pop hits. I was ready to get in a groove even then.

I’ve been buying singles for “Jam” for what must be over a decade now. I’ve bought 12″ vinyl singles at least twice, both back in the states and in Japan, and each time they were scratched to high heaven. All attempts to clean them up digitally always failed. Thankfully, I was finally able to find the singles on CD this year, and get not one, not two, but seven goddamn remixes of the song. Word. Score.

But even better than the a-side remixes are the bonus cuts, remixes of MJ classics “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” and “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” by the legendary production crews Brothers In Rhythm and Masters At Work. Holy shit.

I’m still amazed that all these fantastic remixes are sitting on a self somewhere, unreleased and unable to purchase in 2019. I get that there are…issues with MJ at the moment (I have no educated opinion on that so no comment from me) but the demand is certainly there. I don’t know how much I’d be down with another album of newly mixed and/or finished MJ tunes that were previously unreleased, but I’d be totally down for the MJ estate to re-release all of Michael’s singles, complete with their remixes. Am I in the minority here? The lack of 12″ mix re-releases by huge artists like MJ, Prince and even Madonna make me feel that maybe the demand just isn’t there. I guess that kind of makes sense, maybe most people don’t need eight versions of “Vogue” and five versions of “Smooth Criminal” BUT I SURE AS FUCK DO AND DAMMIT THEY SHOULD CARE ABOUT ME.

Seriously though, just put this shit on iTunes and streaming services already, what the fuck do they got to lose? Assholes like me are just going to share it all anyways.

Woke MJ

Thursday, November 15th, 2018


Michael Jackson
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Club Mix)
Black Or White (The Clivilles & Cole House/Dub Mix)
Black Or White (The Underground Club Mix)
Black Or White (House With Guitar Radio Mix)
Black Or White (Tribal Beats)
Earth Song (Han’s Radio Experience)
Earth Song (Han’s Around The World Experience)

As much as I lament the lack of protest music in the year 2018, I think the lack of message songs, even ones without an overt political viewpoint, is even worse. Save for the occasional track about suicide, we just don’t get many songs that cover social issues these days. Sure, “We Are The World” and “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” might not be very good, but at least they were trying to raise awareness and support for a serious problem. Where are the songs about civil rights, workers’ rights, the shrinking middle class, the opiod crisis, and so on?

If anyone under the age of 25 is reading this, they might think it’s silly of me to even ask that. But there are plenty of amazing songs that tackle such topics. There’s the entirety of Bruce Springsteen’s back catalog, for starters, not to mention songs from artists as diverse as Phil Collins (“Another Day In Paradise”), Nena (“99 Luftballoons”), Ultravox (“All Fall Down”), and even Frankie Goes To Hollywood (“Two Tribes.”)

Of course, it’s not entirely fair of me to say that artists aren’t making socially-conscious music. They are, it’s just that people aren’t listening to it all that much. Billboard made a list of their favorite protest songs of last year, and the overwhelming majority of those tracks were not hits, save for the Pink song and Jay-Z’s amazing “The Story of OJ.” But it’s hard to say if people don’t want these songs, or of the outlets covering music/the radio aren’t trying hard enough to get these songs out there. Chicken and the egg. I still think that if the song is good enough, or if the artist is big enough, the message can get out there. That’s why it’s a shame that artists like Bruno Mars, Imagine Dragons, and Taylor Swift are fucking up and skirting their responsibilities as some of the biggest artists in the world.

Michael Jackson knew he had the world’s ear, and that’s why he wrote songs like “Man In The Mirror” as these two tracks that I’m featuring tonight. When you’re the biggest star on Earth, you can turn a cry for social justice into a Top 10 single if you try hard enough. “Black Or White” was considered cheesy by some even at the time, but I’m never going to mock a message of peace and racial harmony. It’s a simple song, that’s for sure, ignoring the broader social issues that led to racial divides, but hey, it was a different time. This came out after the Rodney King beating (but before the riots), there were a lot of calls for racial harmony at the time. We were still a decade or so away from more people addressing the larger issues that were keeping that from being a reality. Gotta start somewhere.

“Earth Song” is, duh, a song about the environment, a topic that is crazily barely ever talked about in the media, let alone music, these days. That’s insanity. Literal insanity. The environment should be the number one issue on all of our minds at all times. The world is on the brink of an environmental collapse. Like soon, like, within most of our lifetimes. But you really have to dig deep in the media to even find mention of this, and it’s 100% absent in our pop culture. The pop stars of 2018 could actually help raise awareness about this dire issue. But they aren’t even trying. The world as we know it could end relatively soon. You think someone out there would try to right a fucking song about it.

Can a song literally save the world? I don’t know. But it could at least try.

Annie’s not okay, and neither am I – Smooth Criminal Remixes

Saturday, November 3rd, 2018

Last time I posted Madonna. Let’s stay in the 80s for a while longer. It’s safer here.

Michael Jackson
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix Radio Edit)
Smooth Criminal (”Annie” Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Dance Mix – Dub Version)
Smooth Criminal (A Cappella)

I originally posted these nearly a decade ago but if you somehow were reading then and you’re still reading now, well firstly, thanks for not bailing on me like 90% of my audience did. Secondly, you should probably download these versions now. Those old ones were ripped from a scratchy record on a subpar turntable. These are fresh new CD rips, taken from a Japanese single that I scored last week, during the same trip that got me the previously featured Madonna single.

I’ve bought this on vinyl at least twice, and both sounded like shit in the exact same way, even with nearly identical scratches! I can only imagine there was some kind of problem with the original pressing. I’ve had that happen with other singles in the past. No matter how many times I buy “Right By My Side” by the Eurythmics, for example, I have the same problem.

Anyways, that’s a problem no more thanks to the wonders of digital music. CDs are underrated! Seriously! This vinyl boom is getting ridiculous. Why you wanna buy music on vinyl? What’s the point?

I know that sounds funny coming from me, proprietor of Lost Turntable, but I’ve long said that the main reason I got into vinyl wasn’t out of nostalgia, but because a lot of what I buy just isn’t easily available on CD or digitally. Of course, that was much truer when I started this blog 12 years ago than it is now. Truth be told, I buy a hell of a lot more CDs these days. And the vastness of iTunes digital library has literally saved me hundreds of dollars on formerly out-of-print CDs and LPs. Did you know that Prince’s Crystal Ball is on iTunes now?! Thirty songs for twenty bucks! You know how much that fucker goes for on CD? More than twenty bucks, I’ll tell you what.

But these remixes still aren’t on iTunes. Hell, most MJ remixes remain insanely out-of-print. A decision that is just utterly baffling. It’s not like the demand isn’t there. Why they hell are they sitting on these? Are they waiting for another anniversary so they can re-sell us all Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous again? I mean, I’ll buy them, I don’t mind. Assuming the remixes are included and sound good.

“Smooth Criminal” is the best shit. A while back Todd In The Shadows did a hilarious video profiling Alien Ant Farm and their cover of the track. In that video, he posits that, as dopey as that cover is, it helped cement “Smooth Criminal” in the popular lexicon as one of Michael Jackson’s best. He might be right, it certainly gave it a boost. But to me it’s always been one of his best, if not his absolute best, track. Everything about “Smooth Criminal” is just as on-point now as it was all those years ago. Top-notch production, dope AF bassline, and, of course, some of the best vocals that Michael ever graced the world with.

And of course, there’s the video another of MJ’s best. And definitely an early inspiration for my…*ahem*…interest in men in suits. That video just gives me the vapors I say.

All of these remixes are ass-kickular fan-fucking-tastic. Even the dub, which is really just a pure instrumental, is killer. It lets you hear just how dope that bass is. And the “A Cappella,” whilst not really an a cappella mix (it still has the drum beat), serves as an absolutely stellar showcase of MJ’s amazing voice. You put this shit on at a club and people would dance to it. You don’t even need that bassline (dope as it is).

More MJ soon. And some Prince too. Fuck it. Let us worship our fallen 80’s idols so they may be resurrected and save us from our accursed reality.

Spread This Noise

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

First up, some recent reviews:

Phil Asher & Mark de Clive-Lowe – Boutique Breaks: Nu-Jazz breaks. That’s all I got to say.

Street Sweeper Social Club – s/t: We get it Tom (and Boots) you wanna fuck the man.

Moby – Wait For Me: Pretty.

In related news, I interviewed Moby a bit ago. Read that too. It’s awesome.

Now onto the business at hand.

I like my blog. I like writing my stupid little rants and posting stupid remixes of stupid songs. It’s enjoyable. However, there’s one things I really hate about my blog and that’s all the damned email I get.

Sure, there’s the (very) occasional “I just wanted to say I love your blog, thanks!” message in my inbox, but most of the time it is instead flooded with automateed mass-emailers from retared PR agents, marketing teams and bands themselves looking to get themselves exposure on as many music sites as possible, even though many of them (lke mine) really don’t focus on new music.

Sure, I’ll occasionally get something cool, maybe word on the new Erasure album or something, but usually it’s just bullshit through and through. I hate these emails, they drive me crazy and no matter how many I unsubscribe from there are always more waiting for me.

This is my little message to the stupid little bastards who send these emails out. I know it will do no good since none of them actually READ MY BLOG, but it will sure as hell make me feel better.

To all the PR agents, marketing assholes and no-talent garage bands, indie-rockers, remixes, producers and DJs out there…

I don’t care about your remix. I don’t care that you took a popular(ish) song and added beats to it. That doesn’t impress me. You found the acapella off a torrent and added some loops thanks to your stolen version of ProTools. Piss off, you’re not a DJ, producer or remix artist. Please go away.

I don’t care about your digital EP. I don’t care that you and a few of your friends got together in your parent’s basement to churn out three or four average tracks that at best are as good as Hinder. And I really don’t care if the digital EP has a remix on it. See above.

I don’t care about your exclusive online promo. I don’t care that you’re giving me the opportunity to download a track from an upcoming album that will “be huge” and “drops soon.” I’m not your PR agent. And while you call it an online promo, I call it what it really is, a fucking MP3.

In fact, I don’t care about your band at all. This is a site that is dedicated to rare and hard-to-find music that at least some people fucking care about. It is not a site dedicated to exposing new and upcoming artists. And even if it was, I still wouldn’t be profiling 99% of the bands that I get emails from. Why? Because they all suck. And you don’t read my fucking blog. It’s obvious you don’t. It’s annoying. I don’t come to your show and say how awesome you are before I hear a single song, so don’t email me and tell me how awesome I am without reading the fucking site.

If you are a wanna-be band looking to make it huge, do yourself a fucking favor. Turn off the fucking computer, drop your fucking PR agent, get a fucking van and fucking go on fucking tour. Leave me (and every other besieged blogger) the fuck alone. We have real music to talk about.

Shit.

And one more thing, I must be getting popular again (dammit) because the amount of requests for reposts has increased substantially over the past few months. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (because people don’t listen): I DON’T RESPOND TO REPOST REQUESTS! I don’t care how long you’ve been looking for the song, what the song means to you or how much you love my blog. Flattery will get you nowhere and neither will begging, pleading or offers for sexual favors (okay that might work, but I’d need a pic first). The only thing that will get me to even pay attention to you is an offer for something in return. And don’t bet on that either.

Because I have more music than you do. 37,668 itens, 117.3 days, 222.92 gigabytes worth. So y’know, just leave me alone.

Michael Jackson
Blood On The Dance Floor (Fire Island Vocal Mix)
Jam (Silky 12″ Mix)
Another Part Of Me (Extended Dance Mix)
Smooth Criminal (Extended Dance Mix)
They Don’t Care About Us (Love To Infinity’s Walk In The Park Mix)
Bad (Extended Dance Mix)
Black Or White (Clivillés & Cole House With Guitar Radio Mix)
Black Or White (The Civilles & Cole House Club Mix)
Billie Jean (Original 12′ Version)
I figured now was as good a time as ever to clear out all the remaining Michael Jackson remixes in my collection. Most of these originally appeared on 12” singles or CD maxi-singles, but in the interest of full disclosure I’ll be honest and say that I actually grabbed most of them off the internet. Michael Jackson singles have always been hard for me to find (even harder now) and the only one of these I actually own is “Smooth Criminal” but my version is scracthed to all hell. This one is better. God I love that damn song.

Non-MJ stuff later on this week.

Everything I Own I Give

Friday, June 26th, 2009

I don’t particularly have a lot to say about Michael Jackson. I was a pretty big fan of his in the 80s (who wasn’t?) and it’s safe to say that he played a pretty big part in my life for a long time. I wasn’t that big into Thriller when it came out, I was very young and the video scared me, but I thought Bad was the shit. Smooth Criminal is one of my favorite Jackson songs, and the video remains one of the best ever made.

His death does make me think about the superstars I grew up worshipping in the 80s, and looking back at many of them is just depressing now. Michael Jackson is the most obvious tragedy, but don’t forget the downfalls and tribulations of artists like Prince, Axl Rose, Whitney Houston, George Michael, and Michael Hutchence. That decade ate its young. When Madonna is the most sane and rational of the bunch that’s fucked up.

Sometimes I feel like we slipped into an alternate mirror world (ala Star Trek) where everything went horribly wrong. In the “real” world Prince is still sane(ish) Axl Rose and Slash are still tearing it up, Whitney Houston isn’t schooling Diane Sawyer on crack, George Michael isn’t offering to blow dudes in public restrooms (or at least not getting caught) and INXS never had to go on a reality show to find a new lead singer. In that world Michael Jackson was never accused of molesting children, his skin never faded away and his plastic surgery obsession stopped around the “kinda weird” phase of Bad. It may sound like I want time to stand still and celebrities to never change, that’s not true. I know that time marches on and people change, but damn, these guys didn’t fade they imploded into black holes of insanity and drug abuse.

So yeah, it sucks that Michael Jackson is dead now, and while I’m sure I’m just one of dozens of blogs that will be offering tribute to him over the next few days, I think I have some unique tracks that others definitely won’t be offering.

Scream (Classic Club Mix)
Scream (Pressurized Dub Pt. 1)
Scream (Naughty Main Mix)
Scream (Dave “Jam” Hall’s Extended Urban Remix)
I remember the hoopla surrounding this song and the video when it first came out. Both because it was his first single since the abuse allegations and because the video cost something like 80 bazillion dollars to make. I dug the song when it came out, and was especially stoked with the video, which featured some references to Akira, my favorite move at the time. These remixes are pretty good, the best being the Classic Club Mix, not just for its funky beats, but because Michael and Janet say “stop fucking with me” about a hundred times.

The Way You Make Me Feel (Dance Extended Mix)
The Way You Make Me Feel (A Cappella)
Not much for me to say about this one other than that it’s another classic tune. The extended mix is good, but the a cappella is classic and it transforms the tune into the sexiest babershop quartet song in the history of the world.

Will You Hurt My World
A bootleg/mash-up mix of “You Rock My World,” “Will You Be There” and Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt.” This shit is haunting, reforming the original into something far more poignant and touching, especially after today. I know very little about this mix, it’s by a guy who called himself DoKs (I think) and I downloaded it years ago off of a mash-up message board. If anyone can give me more information about this one and the guy who did it I would appreciate it. I really can’t downplay how damn good this mix is, you have to hear it.