OK! Since the decision from the corporation to take down the episode of The Simpsons featuring Michael Jackson, I am not much of a fan of the show. But unlike them, we are not trying to re-write history!
Even better, we just going to remind people that without Michael Jackson, The Simpsons will never have had a music album!
In 1990, The Simpsons was the most popular cartoon and Michael Jackson the biggest pop star on the planet.
On December 1990, due to high demand for merchandise, the creators of The Simpsons” decided to get an album out called “The Simpsons Sing The Blues”. The 10-tack album ended up at #3 on Billboard charts 200 and the first single “Do the Bartman” was an international success.
it all started with the success of the episode “Moaning Lisa” and the co-creators Sam Simon, Jim Brooks, and Matt Groening got an offer to do an album of Simpson’s music with Geffen Records.
“I had known James Brooks for quite a while, since Terms of Endearment,” the album’s producer John Boylan said. “I was peripherally involved with that movie as a music consultant, not on record or anything. I had been friendly with Jim Brooks, and I think he’s a wonderful filmmaker. Probably what happened was, and I have no proof of this, but Geffen gave him a shortlist of record producers and I was the only one on the list that Brooks knew.”
“You gotta remember this was highly collaborative and it was under tremendous pressure,” John said. “The Simpsons were at the top of the zeitgeist at the time. I think they were selling something like 250,000 Bart T-shirts a week. It was just ridiculous. And, of course, all the right-wing people were getting mad at The Simpsons. It was the talk of the country at that time. David wanted to get the album out ASAP. At one point, I was collaborating with Geffen Records and Fox and Gracie Films all were involved with it. A guy named Matt Walden was the guy at Fox. Of course, I dealt with Jim Brooks, Richard Sakai at Gracie Films, and The Simpsons characters. Geffen Records [was] mostly dealing with Eric Eisner, Al Coury, and Eddie Rosenblatt. We were trying to keep that all together.”
Of course they had songs set up for some of the characters but it needed something bigger than life to set the record in the stratosphere!
“[Michael Jackson] called and volunteered [to do the album],” John said. “I knew Michael because he was an Epic artist. He was our top-selling artist while I was there. Being an A&R person at Epic, I knew him enough so that he recognized me. He brought in a co-producer name Bryan Loren. He and Loren were going to write a song based on a dance that Michael made up called ‘The Bartman.'”
“The Simpsons Sing The Blues” became a huge success when it was released in 1990, yes, thanks to the success of the sitcom but mostly to Michael Jackson.
To date the album sold over 2 million copies worldwide peaking at #3 on Billboard 200, #6 in the UK charts and was certified gold at the time.
So while the episode featuring Michael Jackson is nowhere to be seen (unless you have the original DVD), Disney, who now owns The Simpsons, will never have a full set until they re-install the episode when they finally do a bit of research and find out that Michael Jackson is and always be innocent. Cannot wait for an apology!
SOURCE: The Things
Related article: “The voice behind “Lisa, It’s your birthday”“
