From Quincy Jones: Why Did Michael Jackson Split Up?
Quincy Jones, who collaborated with Michael Jackson on three albums—Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad—has recently said in an interview with The New York Times that Michael ended their collaboration.
Question: You once wrote that Michael Jackson ended his collaboration with you because he felt you were getting more credit. If we say that the success of Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad was no longer repeated, then how much of that success is owed to you? Quincy Jones: Well, what do you think?
Question: I don’t know. I wasn’t in the studio.
Quincy Jones: But you’ve heard the albums, haven’t you? It has nothing to do with the individual—our collaboration was between the two of us. He was one of the most talented people in this industry. Michael was very sharp and sensitive to details. Put that trait next to my experience in arranging and composing, and boundaries for us were meaningless.
Question: Did he ever actually tell you that he didn’t want to work with you anymore?
Quincy Jones: No, he didn’t say that. It’s not like I’m going to put my head on the block and die because of it. He told his manager that I don’t understand the industry because I don’t know that rap had died in 1987. Rap hadn’t died—actually, it hadn’t even started yet.
Question: In the song We Are the World, people like Smokey Robinson didn’t get a chance to do a solo. For example, how were you able to tell Bette Midler that Kim Carnes could do a solo, but she couldn’t?
Quincy Jones: It wasn’t simple. If you have 46 singers and 21 lines of vocals, you’ll run into problems. That’s why we recorded the choir first, and then we went to the soloists. If we had recorded the soloists’ voices first, they would all have disappeared.
Source: eMJey.com / NY Times
Question: You once wrote that Michael Jackson ended his collaboration with you because he felt you were getting more credit. If we say that the success of Off the Wall, Thriller, and Bad was no longer repeated, then how much of that success is owed to you? Quincy Jones: Well, what do you think?
Question: I don’t know. I wasn’t in the studio.
Quincy Jones: But you’ve heard the albums, haven’t you? It has nothing to do with the individual—our collaboration was between the two of us. He was one of the most talented people in this industry. Michael was very sharp and sensitive to details. Put that trait next to my experience in arranging and composing, and boundaries for us were meaningless.
Question: Did he ever actually tell you that he didn’t want to work with you anymore?
Quincy Jones: No, he didn’t say that. It’s not like I’m going to put my head on the block and die because of it. He told his manager that I don’t understand the industry because I don’t know that rap had died in 1987. Rap hadn’t died—actually, it hadn’t even started yet.
Question: In the song We Are the World, people like Smokey Robinson didn’t get a chance to do a solo. For example, how were you able to tell Bette Midler that Kim Carnes could do a solo, but she couldn’t?
Quincy Jones: It wasn’t simple. If you have 46 singers and 21 lines of vocals, you’ll run into problems. That’s why we recorded the choir first, and then we went to the soloists. If we had recorded the soloists’ voices first, they would all have disappeared.
Source: eMJey.com / NY Times