Songoftheday 5/3/20 - Skin head dead head everybody gone bad, situation aggravation everybody allegation...
from the album HIStory: Past, Present and Future: Book I (1995)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #30 (four weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 5
Today's song of the day comes from the "King of Pop" himself, Michael Jackson, whose half-retrospective/half new album material HIStory had scored a pair of pop hits in 1995 with his duet with sister Janet, "Scream", and his #1 ballad "You Are Not Alone". In Europe and abroad, where his popularity had not waned despite his many, many legal and PR problems, the grand statement single "Earth Song" was released as his third international single, where it was a massive success. Topping the charts in the UK. Germany, Iceland, and Switzerland, as well as reaching the top ten almost everywhere else, it was mind-boggling that the track wasn't released as a single in the U.S. Honestly, I think it was the best piece of music he ever recorded. Instead, the song "This Time Around", which featured rapper Notorious B.I.G., was serviced to radio, where it rose to #23 on Billboard magazine's R&B Airplay chart, while the remixed version peaked at #18 on their Dance Club Play list, but it totally stiffed at pop radio. (A week later from that song's debut on the dance chart, a promo-only release of "Earth Song" to club DJs helped it enter the dance chart, going to #32.)
It wasn't until the spring of 1996 that another single from Jackson would show up in America, and that would be the one that I would consider his biggest misstep. "They Don't Care About Us", written and produced by Jackson, was meant to be an aggressive tirade against the powers that be, and the struggle for the oppressed and injustice between the financially and hereditary "elite" (which he just happens to be a member of) and the poor and downtrodden. However, that was shot to shit with his choice of phrasing, using this couplet near the start of the song...
Jew me, sue me, everybody do meAt first Jackson defended his choice of words saying its meant to say that he was absorbing the oppression of the Jewish people, but that idea is batshit insane of course. He eventually had to go back and re-record the lyrics to substitute the "Jew" and the epithet completely. Nevertheless the controversy all and all hurt the song, where it seems that only his most die-hard fans (as well as urban radio) would support the single, and while it did make the pop top-40, it was mostly from the sales of the single (which coincidentally included a dance remix of the far superior "Earth Song" anyway). The music video even caused a stir, with Michael and director Spike Lee shooting in Brazil, where his spotlight on their poorer neighborhoods was thought to be a hindrance to their prospective goal of nabbing the Olympic Games in 2004...
Kick me, k!ke me, don't you black or white me...
"They Don't Care About Us" became Michael's third top-40 pop hit from HIStory in June of 1996. The song did much better on urban radio, peaking at #10 on Billboard's R&B chart. The remixes of the track, done by the neo-disco act Love To Infinity as well as Charles Roans, got to #27 on the Dance Club Play tally as well. Internationally, the single did do better, topping the singles chart in Germany (two weeks) and Italy (one week), and reaching the top ten in Spain (#2), Austria (#2), Sweden (#3), Switzerland (#3), Belgium (#3W/#9F), the UK (#4), France (#4), the Netherlands (#4), Norway (#6), Finland (#6), Ireland (#7), Denmark (#9), and New Zealand (#9). It got to #16 in Australia and #20 in Iceland.
Internationally, the HIStory song "Stranger In Moscow" was released as the next single, where it spent five weeks at #1 in Spain, and week on top in Italy. The single also made the top ten in the UK (#4), Switzerland (#5), the Netherlands (#6), New Zealand (#6), Hungary (#6), Austria (#7), and Denmark (#8). But in America, where they waited a year to release it on the heels of his remix album Blood On The Dance Floor, "Stranger" only slipped on to the pop Hot 100 at #91, while cresting on the R&B list at #50. I'm certain that if they really pushed "Earth Song" as the third single in the U.S., this could've been the follow-up that did much better, it's equally a hidden gem in his catalog.
"They Don't Care About Us" ended up re-entering the top-40 in the UK twice, first in 2006 with a barrage of single reissues from the artist, and again in 2009 after his death.
In my humble opinion, and with the luxury of hindsight, Jackson would've been able to relay his message on this song much more effectively if he didn't release this as a "single", but rather a promo track to MTV (using the visually striking "prison video") and of course losing those godawful lines.
(Click below to see the rest of the post)
There was a second version of the music video for "They Don't Care About Us", which included shots of Jackson in a real life prison along with images of many many bad things...
Next up is the remix transformation done by Love To Infinity of the song...
Here's Michael on his HIStory world tour performing it...
And lastly, a clip from the movie This Is It where they're working on "They Don't Care About Us" for what would've been his last tour...
Up tomorrow: Seattle grungers get strung up.
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