Victory by Jacksons (The) (CD, Oct-1984, Epic USA)

Michael never made it a secret that both the 'Victory' album and the tour was done for his brothers as a 'thank-you-for-all-the-years-and-goodbye-after-this-I'm-on-my-own' thing. MJ wrote in his book: "I didn't want to go on the Victory Tour and fough against it. I felt the wisest thing for me would be not to do the tour, but my brothers wanted to do it and I did it for them."

A funny thing is that MJ writes a lot in his book about both the good and the bad things about the tour, but doesen't write a single word about the ALBUM 'Victory'. Maybe he was too embaressed to do it. When Michael listens to the album today he must shake his head to some of the tracks and think "Did I let these songs come out with MY name attached to it??"

Not a single song from this album was performed during the actual tour even though the album had the same name and was supposed to PROMOTE the tour, and even though Mick Jagger reportedly had said he was willing to perform 'State Of Shock' onstage with Michael when he himself was in town, if only they asked him but they didn't... The official explanation was that they thought the fans had not yet had time to learn the new songs, so they went with the 'greatest hits' package instead. Whatever the case may be the show was better off without the 'Victory' songs, I think.

All the brothers has one track each on the album where they write, produce, arrange and sing lead vocal. Overall the album has a kind of dark and sad feeling over it, and the songs most of the time puts you to sleep. The only real upbeat and happy track on the album is Marlon's 'Body' which borrows a lot from MJ's 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin''. Marlon, who comes across as a real nice guy may not have the best voice in the world, and during the Victory Tour he was the most obvious I-wanna-look-and-dance-like-Michael of the brothers. But he should be given credit for the song 'Body' who has that old Jacksons feeling to it even if it borders to bubble-gum, and since its the last song on the album it leaves you in a good mood. It's the best song on the record together with 'State of Shock' in my opinion. The man sitting in the middle on the picture I have attached below is Freddy Mercury, lead singer of Queen, who recorded the first demo version of 'State Of Shock' only to be replaced later by Mick Jagger.

The problem is that except for Jermaine, who made a couple of excellent albums at Motown from 1976-82 and some horrible pop albums at Arista from 1984-89, none of Michael's brothers has enough talents to stand on their own as far as singing or personality goes. Tito plays the guitar and Randy plays the percussions well but that's it, while Jermaine plays bass AND sings good. If all of the brothers would have put their heads together on each and every track with Michael taking the lead, like on 'Destiny' and 'Triumph', then maybe this album would have been just as good as those albums. Now you really get the feeling that all the brothers wanted to exploit the super-fame of Michael to show up their own supposedly 'talents' as singers etc, maybe to launch future solo careers and Michael lets them do it as a solidarity act.
Was it anyone that cared that the oldest brother Jackie missed out most of the Victory Tour dates due to a broken knee from a motorcykle accident? That just left more space onstage for Michael to move around and dance!

It was obvious that by then Michael had surely outgrown his brothers.