#JusticeForInvincible - Why Are Fans Reviving This Album?

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by m the fangirl (@mthefangirl07) on May 1, 2020 at 7:00am PDT

I have posted a picture on Instagram just this week that may or may not have intrigued you, as I did have a lengthy caption to accompany it. It was basically about the album Invincible by Michael Jackson and how fans are streaming and buying it again 19 years after its debut. You may be wondering 'Michael Jackson is Michael Jackson. It already has earned enough attention. Why are they bringing this back again?'

As what has been mentioned, Invincible was released 19 years ago - on October 30, 2001. It had just been the turn of a new decade and a new century and times have passed since Michael Jackson's last album release which was Blood On The Dance Floor: HIStory In The Mix in 1997. During that break, Michael was actually working on his next release which would be Invincible. Upon its release, it debuted number one on the Billboard 200 due to fans' massive anticipation. However, as far as his albums released under Epic are concerned, Invincible was noticeably weaker sales-wise as it only amassed 13 million units sold. With 16 cutting-edge tracks that were able to keep up with the times, yet, were sonically timeless as well and considerably coming from such a massive artist like Michael Jackson, why did this not sell as expected?

Chris Tucker performing 'You Rock My World' alongside Michael Jackson at the Michael Jackson:30th Anniversary Celebration in 2001.

Michael, being signed to Sony Music Entertainment at that time, had conflicts due to a contract that was signed back 1991 regarding the rights to the masters of Michael's previous releases that turned out would revert back to him much later than what was agreed upon. Michael had also learned that time that the lawyer he worked with for this contract was also working for Sony, revealing that there was a conflict of interest. Michael would leave Sony shortly after the album's release and Sony did not go forth with much promotions for this album. They did have the 30th Anniversary special which would mark Michael's first and last performance of the single 'You Rock My World', short films to accompany singles 'You Rock My World' and 'Cry', and releasing 'Butterflies' to only be promoted on radio, but that is basically it. A tour did not come through as Michael backed out of this idea. Sony would say that they have done what they could with the album. But to Michael and millions of fans around the world, they would say Invincible should have been promoted more.



Michael Jackson's short film for 'You Rock My World' that was released in 2001.

Just last week, Janet Jackson's 'Control' album and Mariah Carey's 'E=MC2' album had been brought on top of the charts decades after their release and this gave the Michael Jackson fans hope that Invincible will be given the attention and respect that it deserved. Fans all over the world have then come together to buy and stream the album in hopes that people would see the brilliance of Michael Jackson in this album and in this new era. Hashtags #JusticeForInvincible and #StreamInvincibleAlbum were created and used on tweets and Instagram posts to promote this event and to bring in people to check out the album and rediscover Michael Jackson in that period of time. And as someone who only became a fan in 2009, I want for the masses to see and hear Michael's unwavering artistry and innovation in this album.

To close off this blog post, of course as a fan I urge you, my readers, to rediscover Invincible or if you have not listened to this album, to give the album a shot! You may check out the links below to stream the album. And I would love to hear what you think of the album!

Stream the album:

Spotify



Apple Music



References:

Chan, Tim. 'How a Connecticut Teen Propelled a 12-Year-Old Mariah Carey Album Back to the Top of the Charts'. https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/mariah-carey-emc2-itunes-991334/

Harris, Jonathan. 'Michael Jackson's 'Invincible': 18 Years Later, a Full Review'. https://medium.com/@JonathanTSDM/michael-jacksons-invincible-is-all-grown-up-18-years-later-a-track-by-track-review-cdbbf7ae92de

Holloway, Lynette and Holson, Laura. 'Sony and Its Star Go to War Over the Promotion of Album'. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/10/business/sony-and-its-star-go-to-war-over-the-promotion-of-album.html

Magnocavallo, Fabio. 'Janet Jackson’s ‘Control’ Album Enters The Top 5 iTunes Chart 34 Years After Its Original Release'. https://www.inquisitr.com/6024287/janet-jackson-control-itunes-top-5/

Read more

New Beginnings: The Redemption Arc of m the fangirl

You may be asking "Did she commit some kind of crime?" or just basically "What did she do wrong?" Well, the answer is I didn't do anything! Period!

There may be some of you who were able to witness me building this blog in hopes of people reading my thoughts and have them thinking that the posts resonate their own thoughts. A lot of my blog posts were done during my long break from being a fresh graduate and preparing for board exams. There are some cute material and there are some that came too close from the heart.

With the hardships I had to face in the past 2 years, I just thought that I am not in the right head space to be posting lighthearted things. So I didn't update in such a long time. I would still post from time to time but it was not the path that I envisioned for this blog to take.

I am not regretting the posts that I have put out in this blog. In fact, it documented how human I was. I am much rather regret letting myself wallow in sadness and in turn, I succumbed to the feeling and lost myself in the process.

I had a lot of time to think about this, considering we are all in the comfort of our own homes and there is so much time for you to exhaust the fun you are having from just scrolling on Twitter or playing games on your phone. I was able to conclude that I want to bring back the joy that came with doing this whole blog. Hence, I will be the fangirl self that I can be again by being active on this blog again! And this time, it's real!

I will be posting every weekend talking about the things I am currently fangirling over, things that I am doing in life, things that I plan on doing, basically anything that sparks this heart of mine! If you are into K-Pop, Pop Culture, Alternative Rock (or basically music), TV shows, films, and fangirl culture in general, then you came to the right place!

My next blog post will be next weekend so I hope you'll tune in! In the meantime, you can view my Instagram page for some quick updates on what I am doing at the moment~ You may wanna watch BTS in their element as they livestream their previews concerts for free! So if you love BTS or if you are itching to know what the hype is about go click here to check out the BANG BANG CON event!

I guess I will be seeing you in the near future?

Read more

Facing Adulthood Strong? Possibly...

Waah! I haven't been in here for so long! But the reason why I've been away for so long is the topic of today's blog entry. This will be your typical average girl trying to make it into the real world so if you wanna stay then you may grab your snacks and enjoy reading and I'll try to make this as entertaining yet real as I can :). It has been over a year since I last did an entry since I did land a job somewhere in Manila. It was a decent job for a beginner like me and it somehow will be educational for me as a recently licensed professional. It was fine until some of the people in my office were creating lies about me. I had not known about this until I got transferred to another office for a higher paying job. I thought to myself that it was only right that I was transferred at that time because I didn't want to be around those kind of people on a daily basis. A few months into the new job I got, we were forced to face such challenging tasks. Preparations supposedly for a year became only for months. Demands of everyone involved were piling up. We've been doing our best to fulfill each tasks that was thrown at us but efforts were not being appreciated. It drained us mentally, physically, and emotionally to the point of us wanting to resign from the company completely. Having all of these hardships seem like they aren't worth my time, my effort, my attention, and my co-workers think so too for themselves. But despite all that, we've reached the end of that road. We were able to go out of hell. But of course, work doesn't stop from there and our boss was just a pain in the ass. This is where my family comes in. With so many rants about my current work life status, my mother and my sister push me to go look for another job - a job that is better paying and much more fulfilling than the one I have now. I've been trying, I really am. It was not that easy to go look for another job. And to top it all off, I just think companies are looking for someone more superior than I am. I am a mere nobody. I don't have much skills to brag. I don't have the knowledge to back me up if I go to the profession that I am supposed to be in. I just feel like no one would want me. So right now, I am still where I am. I've just been doing my job in a University as a Technical Assistant. I've been mostly writing, which is not really what a Psychometrician does (but I think it will be helpful if I ever go to that path, especially when doing reports). I've been planning on getting myself regularized there because I want to take up my Master's and it will be much cheaper if I become a permanent employee there. But I am not completely sure. Being not sure in life may be a nuisance to all, but it is what makes life colorful. It's what makes life more adventurous. I never expected to be doing minutes of meetings and writing communication letters when I was in college or in high school. But I know it will be a stepping stone towards something more beautiful. I don't know what exactly will I become when I grow older but I'll just hope for the best and just keep walking forward, and I hope whoever is reading this will feel optimistic too as we go on in this challenge called adulthood and this journey called life.

Read more

M Listens To: BTS' Conclusion to a Saga - 'Love Yourself 結 'Answer'

Having released a full-length album just this May, BTS immediately pushed out another album last August - only having 3 months gap to complete this album that I am to talk about. Love Yourself  結 'Answer' ties up the stories that have been told in the previous works released - full-length album Love Yourself 轉 'Tear', EP Love Yourself 承 'Her', and Love Yourself 起 Wonder which was only released as a short film narrating the happenings to the story in that part of the saga using the Jungkook solo track 'Euphoria'.

To clear things up, the Love Yourself series follows a storytelling composition 起承轉結 or 기승전결 - Starting off with Wonder or the 起 / 기 (gi) meaning the beginning of the plot, followed by Her or 承 / 승 (seung) or the rising part of the story leading to the climax or conflict of the story, then with Tear or 轉 / 전 (jeon) meaning the climax or the conflict of the story has risen, and Answer or 結 / 결 (gyeol) meaning the conclusion. However with the release of each work, Wonder was released after Tear and Her were already available, acting as a prequel instead.

from BTS' Euphoria video. Watch it here.

Answer contains 2 CDs - the first CD has 7 new tracks, but this part of the album has some vital tracks from Tear and Her, and they were sequenced based on the  起承轉結 order, making 'Answer' not only the conclusion to the saga, but also as means to tie up the story from start to finish. The 2nd CD, meanwhile, contains other tracks from the other 2 albums as well as some remixes and the alternate version of the title track 'Idol' that features 'Chun Li' rapper Nicki Minaj.

Entering the story with the tracks off of the Wonder part of the series, Euphoria and Just Dance convey emotions of stepping into the feelings of being in love and the euphoric sensation of being in one. Euphoria had a very space-y vibe in it, making you feel like floating with the emotions conveyed by the instrumentals and the vocals provided by the youngest of the group - Jungkook. Euphoria has very beautiful instrumentalization that makes you feel light and bright. It is overall a song that makes you feel elated. Also having to know the layers that make up the song helps you appreciate the song more, as DJ Swivel - one of the producers of the song, breaks down the song for Genius. Click here to watch.

Trivia 起: Just Dance is one of the new tracks added for this album which elaborates the Wonder part of the saga. Vocals and rap solely from J-Hope - one of the group's rappers, he sings and raps about the joy and happiness he feels when dancing. Being a dance track with dubstep sounds, this song gives the right amount of dance and dubstep and it doesn't go overboard with it, making it enjoyable to listen to. It's also great due to its positive message and it doesn't follow stereotypical dance track lyrics as J-Hope had written the lyrics from his own love for dance. I also love the breakdown at the bridge as it helps intensify the emotions conveyed in the lyrics.

Tracks from the Her part of the story follows - which includes a full-length version of Serendipity, DNA, Dimple, another new track Trivia 承: Love, and Her which served as the outro for the EP that was released in 2017. The songs continue the story in which the person still feels love toward their significant other, but the person starts to question the realness of the love that he or she feels for the other. The tracks here convey the feeling of love despite the blurring lines of being their own person and being a person that their lover wanted them to be. Sonically, they are all very light like the tracks from Wonder but if put into the context of the lyrics, it seems like an illusion to the character that they are in love.

The full-length version of Serendipity didn't really change that much from the first shorter version that was released from the Her EP. An acoustic bit was added after the earlier R&B/Electronic version of the song. I do think that that bit was unnecessary and although it is beautiful in itself, it doesn't really add much to the complexity of the earlier version of the song. But I think it is still a great listen. What has caught my attention was the lyrics. It used metaphors referencing very unique things - like the blue mold and the calico cat. They used words that we're very beautiful and romantic, which was very fitting for an R&B track.

from BTS' Serendipity Comeback Trailer video. Watch it here

Trivia 承: Love is a trap song fused with bouncing piano sounds and elegant orchestral strings. The track also has many wordplay which makes it enjoyable for the listeners to look into and a message that will move the listeners as RM raps about his significant other who "erode all my corners and make me into love". A very clever track from RM and it was refreshing to have such a lively sounding trap beat as well as RM doing a trap song. The last time he did so was with J-Hope and Suga in Cypher Pt. 4

After closing off that portion of the saga with Her - a rap track with an old-school hip hop sound, we enter the Tear portion opening with Singularity, which is a neo-jazz track done solely by V, followed by emo/hip-hop track Fake Love, then with ballad The Truth Untold which was co-produced by Steve Aoki, and next with another Trivia track called Trivia 轉: Seesaw which is rapper Suga's solo, and closes off the portion with the powerful and aggressive Tear which served as the outro in the full-length album that was released in May.

Trivia 轉: Seesaw is a funky sounding track that talks about being in a relationship that doesn't lead to anything anymore, hence, playing in a "seesaw" game and seeing who of the two people concerned will back out. To think of such topic, you would have a more melancholic sound but Seesaw can make you snap your fingers to the beat. To add, Suga's rapping sounded very laid back, which moves away from the emotionally driven tracks that precedes and proceeds it - The Truth Untold and Tear, which I think is great as it just clarifies the point of the song - that the person is tired and is just waiting for one of them to get out of that seesaw - a tiring game that they are playing.

We proceed to the new tracks after Tear - which contains Epiphany, I'm Fine, the lead single Idol, and closer of the album Answer: Love Myself. Epiphany is a rock ballad track that features powerful vocals from Jin. Jin's vocals give so much emotion which benefits a lot for the track. It also has poetic lyrics that will make you sing the song passionately. Conveying intense emotions from realizing that you have to love yourself, Epiphany will leave you thinking about what it is talking about yourselves. 

Proceeding it is I'm Fine, which references their 2016 track Save Me from The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: Young Forever album. Starting the track with a nod to the earlier track, I'm Fine begins slower and progresses into a faster-paced track. It reminds me of anime OSTs due to how fast the tempo was. The message of the song is the complete opposite from Save Me that talks about needing the person you love to "not fall". I'm Fine is a track of independence. It is a track of hope and self-confidence. 

Next is the upbeat track Idol that contains African sounds and Korean traditional exclamations used in Pansori - a kind of storytelling done with music, it is just full of cultural references that steps back from the normal pop song that you will hear on the radio. Having a very hyped sound and vibe while talking about loving yourself, Idol is a big celebratory track. It is more evident in the music video that you can watch here. BTS hasn't done such a big sounding track that it makes it very different, good different, from the rest of their discography. This is one of the things that makes me appreciate this group. They aren't afraid to try out different sounds but the sound doesn't shift too far to being very foreign to their musical identity. They make it work, and they work with it really well.

from BTS' Idol music video

Ending the album is Answer: Love Myself. It switches the order of words from the album that makes the message of the whole album a lot more obvious - the answer is to love yourself. Having such an uplifting and light sound and message, it can help anyone who needed such message be affirmed. The sound of the track vaguely reminds me of Christian or gospel music, which does the same thing Answer: Love Myself do to its listeners - feel inspired and lifted. Personally, I listened to this track specifically when I was having self-esteem issues awhile back and it really helped me to avert my thoughts and change them for some time. It really did sound like an ending to a story. It is a clean conclusion to the album and to the saga.

Answer gives a great vibe that will make listeners not skip one track. You were taken to a  journey of going through all the phases of loving someone else to loving yourself and the intention really reflects through the sound of all of the tracks, especially with the lyrics. It makes the Love Yourself series a solid project that not only delivers sonically, but also lyrically through the message that BTS has meant to share to the world since early 2016 when they started planning and doing this project. An uplifting message coupled with great sounds is what makes BTS who they are and it solidifies their image and mission to the world - to spread love through their music.

Listen to the album on Spotify:

Read more

A Longer Life Update

Hi guys. It’s been around a month since I have posted something on this blog and I am so sorry for that (whoever may be waiting for anything on this site). It’s just been such an emotional month for me and I am still trying to heal. I thought I was going to be able to get back on my feet and be active like I did before what happened but I just wasn’t able to. I was thinking that I will be able to get my thoughts away from what happened by doing the things that I was doing before like reviewing, writing for this blog, editing photos, and all of that things but I was too weak, I admit that. What has happened just had this big impact on me that I think it will be something that I will be looking back to many times throughout my life.

I was supposed to do a blog entry on my trip to Baguio with my family. However, I just feel that doing that isn’t right and the idea just makes me feel uncomfortable. It just makes me look like I was having a good time when in fact I’m not at all. The declaration was made when my family and I were already on our way to Baguio and I, personally, was called by her friend in college about it. When she called, I sounded much stronger. But I think that time when the news came, it didn’t sink in that much yet. So I just continued on with my day with my family and tried to smile and hide the pain I had from visiting her the night before. It just impacted me that night when all of the people who we grew up with messaged me for confirmation and asking me for any details on her wake. Telling the story to so many people just feels like having the news in an audio playing repeatedly like a broken record and it was hurting me each time I have to talk to somebody about it. I am not angry that people decided to reach out to me for information because people know that I was her closest friend back when we were in high school and they would think that I would know all of what happened and what to know and they are right about that but each and every time I have to talk about it, the news just became a lot more real and clear to me and I was in pain. I cried so hard that night and I feel so sorry to my mom, brother, and sister for ruining the vacation vibes that they may have coming there. My family totally understood my condition and my mom became emotional even. She told me to just let it out and even have me eat it out. I was thankful for an emotional support physically with me. But of course, the thoughts don’t stop whatever I do.

I just basically lost most of my motivation in doing anything that time. I just have these thoughts of what ifs and whys. To have someone you have been so close with go so quick like that was heartbreaking. It was something that none of us thought would happen at our age. As I go through these thoughts and emotions, I messaged a few of my closest friends and just told them to take care of themselves. I know that what happened to her was quite inevitable but the least that my friends can do is to look after themselves and that I hope that my friends and I will be able to make a lot of memories throughout our days here on this planet because that is the one thing I regretted the most with all of this. I was not the kind of person to constantly pull my friends to go somewhere and just hang out and I don’t even talk to them as much as other people do with their friends. That’s just who I am but one thing for sure is that I will talk to them like we haven’t really not talked to each other for months. All of my friendships were low-maintenance and that was really convenient. But I think because of it, we haven’t made that many memories together after high school and I just feel quite envious of those who are able to meet their friends constantly and do what it takes to be able to go on adventures together and just be able to make as much memories as they can. But what can I do now at this point is just do that with the friends that I have still with me here on Earth. I just have to wait for my time in order to talk more with her.

I won’t go into details much longer but one thing I have to say is please treasure your friends. Make memories with them. Because you wouldn’t want to regret not being able to spend time together later when the time comes that you will be separated from each other. Also, I hope I’ll be able to heal and go on with life. I haven’t really accepted the fact that she has passed away yet and it is still hurting me some times whenever I remember but I hope I will be able to move on. Please include her and her family in your prayers.

Read more