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    It's clear that this thread needs some love and attention. A lot of the links have either expired or been miss-labelled. With the amount of tracks there are, this is quite a practice. I have made the decision to lock this thread from further replies and to put out this notice that I will be refreshing this thread with updated links and guidance where needed.

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Fan Life Before The Internet (1 Viewer)

Joined
17 July 2020
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76
Before the internet, the most common way to find out the lyrics to songs was to do it yourself. I would either record songs from the radio onto cassette tapes or play the official album cassette tapes. With a notebook and pen, I would play pause, play pause, line by line, for a few hours, to get the entire lyrics of a song. These are just some of the notebooks and pages of song lyrics I wrote down when I was a teenager.

For BTM.png
 
That's amazing! Thank God for lyrics in the liner notes, eh?
I was never a fan in the non-internet era. It was just starting out when I was a kid, but I remember the early days on internet fora, and how exciting it was to discuss topics with fans across the world!

thanks, I need to take some more photos of my pre internet fan stuff.

fun fact, Brad Sundberg wrote most of the liner notes lyrics, it was one of his jobs at the studio. I haven't told him yet that alot of them are wrong, and thats why I did the play , pause , write a line!!

Other pre internet things were the fan club magazines. I never got any of Adrian Grants first magazine OFF THE WALL, but I have a stack of KING magazines from MJNI, as well as MJ WORLD NETWORK's mini magazines and some German and French Black and White magazines.

For me in the late 80's and early 90's, TV was my main source for Michael.
MTV had Michael Jackson weekends, not just back to back music videos but Bad and Dangerous tour documentaries.
UK TV had Top of The Pops every Thursday at 7pm, as well as Saturday morning kids shows such as Going Live.
Irish TV had The Beatbox on Sunday mornings

I taped huge amounts from all the various TV stations onto VHS video tapes, which I still have.

Also SMASH HITS , a UK teen music magazine was an amazing source. It was published every 2 weeks and had everything from news and updates to interviews, and song lyrics.They also had various collectibles free with the magazine over the years, such as posters, trading cards, stickers etc. At the end of every year, they did a readers survey. They published a huge list of various awards and readers could post the completed survey. They then had a big award show / concert in London which was shown on TV called The Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.
 
I used to buy CDs, and took the lyrincs with an english dictionary by my side and tried to translate his songs. In that time, it was Bad album. I wanted to know so bad what he was saying. I have to say that he was my english teacher!!
Also, it was a BIG thing when he released one of his short movies. I used to wait and wait and wait in front of the tv. They used to stopt all tv content to show his short movie. I recorded on vhs The way it make me feel video, and played it over and over again LOL.... imaging being Tatiana....:ROFLMAO:.
I also remember to buy teenager magazines and cut his photos. I have two albums, that I keep to this day, of this photos. And my room was full of posters.
What we didn't have were interviews you could see him talking, or acting like a normal human being. Nowadays you can find in Youtube lots of contents where you have Michael speaking or drinking or playing with his children... We didn't have that. For us he was like God.
 
The liner notes don't work when you are missing the chorus to "She Drives Me Wild". That bothered me so much, I wish I confronted Brad about that when I had the chance :LOL: I believe he only did the Dangerous album lyrics.

Anyway, I used to do this too. Even with the internet, many artists' lyrics are wrong if you go to lyric sites and it's most likely fans doing what we used to do- pause, type, play, pause, type haha
 
Ahh scrapbooks.. I remember them well. Unfortunately I don't have many items from my youth anymore (including original MJ purchases :( ) but the closest I've got is my college folder from 1995 and it's just the cover. My scrapbooks were clippings from Music and MJ Fan magazines along with newspaper articles and 'lyrics' I used to write for the instrumental sections of his songs haha..

IMG_20201208_181145.jpg
 
The good old days. 😌
Overall being a fan was so different to today. Can't deny that todays globalized digital world has many benefits, but the fact that back then everything was a little harder and required more effort to find things, get the latest news or save up your money to afford overpriced MJ goodies ...it added a little extra magic to it all.

During my first trip to the UK in the early 90's I went to a big Virgin store in London and found some MJ fanzines. They were nothing fancy, just black and white prints ...one was called "JACKSON" and the other "Black Or White Billboard". The best thing was that they included ads from fans looking for pen pals or to trade stuff etc. This way for the first time I got in touch with other fans from the UK, Germany and Japan, which was a great thing.

Funny also what an effort it was back then (at least for me) to order MJ records:
I somehow had found out about some small music mailorders in the UK ("Esprite", "Eastbound"(?) etc) who sold all the rare "not for sale" promo-only and other rare vinyl records and CDs etc, which, as a fan, you wouldn't really find anywhere else. I received their newsletters / stock lists every few weeks via mail. When I wanted something I first had to make an expensive phone call to the UK, trying to speak in my poor school-English (everytime a near-death experience :eek:) to reserve things. Then I would go to my local bank and buy some cash British Pounds and then send those in a letter to the mailorder. 😅
Today that would be just a few clicks on ebay or discogs, and now almost everything is so much cheaper also.


 
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Nice! I think I've read 'For The Record, but I'm not sure - I get mixed up lol.

I really can't remember the magazines I bought, but I do remember having a small collection of them. They would have spanned Bad, Dangerous and HIStory.
 
thanks, I need to take some more photos of my pre internet fan stuff.

fun fact, Brad Sundberg wrote most of the liner notes lyrics, it was one of his jobs at the studio. I haven't told him yet that alot of them are wrong, and thats why I did the play , pause , write a line!!

Other pre internet things were the fan club magazines. I never got any of Adrian Grants first magazine OFF THE WALL, but I have a stack of KING magazines from MJNI, as well as MJ WORLD NETWORK's mini magazines and some German and French Black and White magazines.

For me in the late 80's and early 90's, TV was my main source for Michael.
MTV had Michael Jackson weekends, not just back to back music videos but Bad and Dangerous tour documentaries.
UK TV had Top of The Pops every Thursday at 7pm, as well as Saturday morning kids shows such as Going Live.
Irish TV had The Beatbox on Sunday mornings

I taped huge amounts from all the various TV stations onto VHS video tapes, which I still have.

Also SMASH HITS , a UK teen music magazine was an amazing source. It was published every 2 weeks and had everything from news and updates to interviews, and song lyrics.They also had various collectibles free with the magazine over the years, such as posters, trading cards, stickers etc. At the end of every year, they did a readers survey. They published a huge list of various awards and readers could post the completed survey. They then had a big award show / concert in London which was shown on TV called The Smash Hits Poll Winners Party.
Those were the days! I used to live for MTV MJ Weekends. I’d always have a VHS at the ready to record those weekends and any clips of MJ on any channel. Any Bad Tour footage was Holy Grail stuff and I lost my mind when they aired the Another Part of Me documentary which is only about 20 odd minutes but the footage of MJ is golden.

The Dangerous Diaries was another that I just watched endlessly on repeat, always rewinding the MJ live footage, pausing it repeatedly making the footage slow motion. Magical times.
 

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