NEW BOOK: Michael Jackson: Rewind: The Life and Legacy of Pop Music's King

ILoveHIStory

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by Daryl Easlea (Author), Ndugu Chancler (Foreword)

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Relive the incredible history of the King of Pop - in reverse - with Michael Jackson: Rewind.

By the time Michael Jackson passed away in 2009, he had sold an estimated 750 million records worldwide over his career; He had won 26 American Music awards and 13 Grammy awards as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and was ranked number three, after The Beatles and Elvis Presley, of best-selling music artists. Five years after his death, the net worth of his estate is more than 600 million dollars. He is, without a doubt, one of the most popular - and controversial - artists of all time.

Now, for the first time ever, author Daryl Easlea will explore the life and history of Michael Jackson...in reverse. Starting with his tragic death and rewinding to his early hits with the Jackson 5 and life in Gary, Indiana, this is a complete illustrated history of the King of Pop: his genius, his life, and his demons. Loaded with over 300 images, a timeline of his life, a complete discography, and more, this is the must-have book for any Michael Jackson fan.


Pre-order: $40.00
Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Race Point Publishing (October 15, 2016)
Language: English

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1631062530/creativepubco-20

About the Author

Daryl Easlea is an author, DJ, and broadcaster whose work can be found in Record Collector (where he was once deputy editor), The Guardian, The Independent, and on the BBC. He is the critically acclaimed author of Without Frontiers: The Life and Music of Peter Gabriel, Cher: All I Want to Do, Madonna, and Talent Is an Asset: The Story Of Sparks.

Among his work on Thriller and Bad, Ndugu Chancler provided one of the most famous drumbeats of all-time on "Billie Jean." He also has played with artists including Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, George Duke, Weather Report, Santana, and Lionel Richie. He played on "Love Is in Control (Finger on the Trigger)" by Donna Summer. Listed as one of the Top 25 drummers in the world, aside from his ongoing musical career, he is currently Professor of Jazz and Contemporary Music Studies at the Thornton School Of Music, University Of Southern California.
 
It looks like he has a goatee!

$40 is kinda steep for a 200+ page book, unless it's a large coffee table sort.
 
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:artist:This is indeed Beautiful Artwork. I wonder who is the artist.
 
the 328th book and counting.....everyone wants to chime in lollllll......
True. There's a ton of them. But I like the art work anyway-doesn't mean I'll buy it. Just like 99.9% of the others.
I tried to blow it up on my phone but I couldn't read what's on his upper lip.
 
True. There's a ton of them. But I like the art work anyway-doesn't mean I'll buy it. Just like 99.9% of the others.
I tried to blow it up on my phone but I couldn't read what's on his upper lip.

I Just Can't Stop Loving You.

I would buy it but they haven't included Privacy in the artwork.
 
Interesting concept, going backwards instead of starting at the beginning.
 
Nice artwork, I know they say don't judge a book by the cover.. But I'm sure people will be more interested what's inside cuz of the cover! ;)
 
LIVE IN LIMBO
- http://www.liveinlimbo.com/2016/11/14/literature/michael-jackson-rewind-daryl-easlea.html

There was a period where Michael Jackson was something actually like what the king of pop would be. Between 1984 and 1994, he was ubiquitous. I was young back then, but even I remember how much he loomed over culture: he was everywhere in a way nobody quite is any more. In a way nobody could be any more.

The story of Michael Jackson is something of a tragedy. There was the quick ascent to stardom within the Jackson Five, then another level with his solo debut Off the Wall. With Thriller, he became something else: a global phenomenon. Just as quickly, it went off the rails: scandal after scandal, some self-inflicted, others unleashed by a gossip-hungry media. They drove his career further and further off course. It’s easy to forget now, but less than 20 years after making Thriller, an album that’s gone platinum many times over, he was quietly dropped by his label and never released another record in his lifetime.

It’s a story that’s been told many times before, but a new large-format book by British author Daryl Easlea offers a new twist. On Michael Jackson: Rewind, he tells the story backward, starting with his final days and finishing some 200 pages later with the formation of The Jackson Five.

It’s a bit of a gimmick, but it’s an interesting one. Most readers will already know the outline of Jackson’s life, so there’s an element of expectation in a regular retelling. This way, he’s able to address the messy end of things first, and then slowly work his way into the important years of Jackson’s career: 1995, when he released HIStory, a best-of collection, to 1980’s Off the Wall, when he broke out as a distinctive solo act.

At the same time, this structure does a few things to the narrative. Nearly every chapter ends with an ominous tone, since we know what’s going to happen and what leads where. When Jackson is prescribed Propofol, we know where that drug will lead him; when we see him and Paul McCartney clowning around in the studio, we know their relationship will fall apart. Indeed, it almost adds to the sense of tragedy running throughout Jackson’s career: at his peak, he released some of the 80s’ best pop and R&B. And instead of slowly transitioning into an icon (as peers like Prince did), he slowly faded into controversy and spectacle.

Easlea, who is a broadcaster and a writer, isn’t an impartial observer or an apologist for Jackson’s excesses and missteps. He doesn’t avoid writing about Jackson’s relationships with children, although perhaps he understates the case a little: “Jackson was playing with fire. It is simply not the conventional behavior of any man… to spend to spend so much time alone in hotel suites with an underage boy…” (pg 52). Elsewhere, he details Jackson’s messiah complex, like when he struck “a Christlike pose” at the 1995 Brit Awards, arms outstretched and dancers hanging off his limbs; Jarvis Cocker called it sick and suggested Jackson should “get a bit of reality into his life.”

It wasn’t always this way for Jackson. In the early 80s, he was arguably the most popular musician in America; by the end of the decade, his reach was global. As Easlea notes, Thriller’s sold over 100 million copies worldwide; his 2008 compilation King of Pop was issued in 28 specialized versions around the world. And, as Easlea astutely notes, Jackson was the first mainstream performer to play the Super Bowl at halftime, starting an annual tradition of elaborate stagecraft and tightly-constructed musical medleys which everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Prince to his sister has followed almost exactly to a T.
The most interesting part of Easlea’s book is his look at the larger Jackson mythos. Even after he went solo, Michael continued to work and tour with his brothers. It’d be easy to gloss over these performances, but Easlea explains how they’re part of the picture. For example, he zeroes in on key track from the 1978 Jackson Five record Destiny: “Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground).” Easlea says it’s “one of those truly incredible records that only Michael Jackson could create…” and suggests it’s here where Jackson settled on his iconic style: a mix of glossy disco grooves, driving African polyrhythms and a falsetto vocal.

Throughout the book, Easlea breaks down the music with the eye of a critic, looking at the subtext: Jackson’s revenge motive in Ghosts, how Bad was an attempt to connect with hip-hop culture, or even how the cover of the Jackson Five record Moving Violation showed they weren’t taken seriously in a way their peers were. Notes Easlea: “if that sleeve – an African-American group in a hugely expensive car bringing down the very establishment – had contained a record by, say, Funkadelic or Sly and the Family Stone, it would’ve been seen as positively incendiary.”
Still, the lingering reputation about Jackson centers on his infamous criminal trials. In these, Easlea deftly sidesteps the question most readers will ask: did Jackson do it. Instead, he focuses on the aftermath of each trial. There aren’t any clear answers, although he does tip his cards slightly: “As the days progressed,” he writes, “it became apparent Even Chandler owed $68,000 in child support payments, so perhaps there was an ulterior motive at play…”

As a whole, Easlea’s book walks a narrow line between exploring what made Jackson’s music work and what led to his downfall, without speculating too much on what Jackson’s private life or motives were. While there isn’t anything here hardcore fans won’t already know about Jackson, his familiar story is still compelling; at the same time, there are many photos spread throughout this book and even just charting the many changes in Jackson’s appearance and demeanor – and the ways he stayed the same – is compelling in another sense.

There’s a photo about halfway through the book of Jackson, Quincy Jones and Bruce Swedien. They’re posed at a piano, like three men collaborating on a record. Both Jones and Swedien are dressed semi-casually, but Jackson’s cosplaying as Charlie Chaplin, right down to the cane and toothbrush mustache. This photo encapsulates the Jackson who comes through in this book most clearly: a naïve, sheltered man who mentally thought of himself as a child, who through a staggering amount of success, was able to surround himself with enablers and yes-people. It didn’t just lead to some staggeringly poor decision making regarding him and children, but directly to his decline as a musical talent and ultimately to his early death.
 
^ Well we've heard the story forward so many times... "Born in Gary Indiana to a steal mill worker and a religious mother. Growing up on 2300 Jackson street, Michael and his brothers......"

They are trying to see how it works by ending the book... "Born in Gary Indiana to a steal mill worker......." lol!

Frontwards, backwards, It all equals the same... AWESOMENESS!


I'm interested to know what the next book theme would be.. "Michael Jackson: Pop Up Video style" like VH1 music videos back in the day, give the story with little side notes of interesting fact along the way...
 
It's bizarre to me, reading this synopsis, how people get Michael's persona in his adult years so wrong. Or have I been in the wrong for 30plus years.
I don't think I have.
 
ILoveHIStory;4174949 said:
When Jackson is prescribed Propofol, we know where that drug will lead him; when we see him and Paul McCartney clowning around in the studio, we know their relationship will fall apart. Indeed, it almost adds to the sense of tragedy running throughout Jackson’s career: at his peak, he released some of the 80s’ best pop and R&B. And instead of slowly transitioning into an icon (as peers like Prince did), he slowly faded into controversy and spectacle.

It is the most ridiculous thing to say that while his peers "transitioned into icons" MJ somehow faded away. The media is so out of touch with the reality of MJ's lifelong popularity and they still totally refuse to acknowledge it. Which is why the reactions when he died came as a surprise to them. But it seems they still refuse to learn the lesson. Is MJ fading compared to these huge icons why his death caused the biggest and most global reaction? Is MJ fading compared to these huge icons why he is still out selling them - in life or death? MJ was actually more than just an icon - he was a legend. And of course once again this need to insert Prince into this. The irony is that the author of this article mentions Propofol while trying to pit him against Prince. Remind me then, how did Prince die?


barbee0715;4174957 said:
It's bizarre to me, reading this synopsis, how people get Michael's persona in his adult years so wrong. Or have I been in the wrong for 30plus years.
I don't think I have.


Most journalists are simply lazy, so they just keep repeating the same fallacious things ad nauseam.
 
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I read the synopsis and I must say I am quite disappointed.
I don't know how one, who has (supposedly) educated oneself about Michael Jackson, can misunderstand Michael that much and be out of touch with facts related to him.
It doesn't require a supernatural effort to research on Michael Jackson (deeply), does it ?
 
"They drove his career further and further off course. It’s easy to forget now, but less than 20 years after making Thriller, an album that’s gone platinum many times over, he was quietly dropped by his label and never released another record in his lifetime. "

:scratch:


If this is in the book.............
 
It is the most ridiculous thing to say that while his peers "transitioned into icons" MJ somehow faded away. The media is so out of touch with the reality of MJ's lifelong popularity and they still totally refuse to acknowledge it. Which is why the reactions when he died came as a surprise to them. But it seems they still refuse to learn the lesson. Is MJ fading compared to these huge icons why his death caused the biggest and most global reaction? Is MJ fading compared to these huge icons why he is still out selling them - in life or death? MJ was actually more than just an icon - he was a legend. And of course once again this need to insert Prince into this. The irony is that the author of this article mentions Propofol while trying to pit him against Prince. Remind me then, how did Prince die?

Exactly!
MJ, NEVER faded, and he still hasn't.
Artists today have their asses kissed by the media for having an album sell equal to or LESS then Michael's WORST selling album, but Michael had "faded.":smilerolleyes:
People can get the FOH with that shit.

To this day you have artists aping him in the hopes of garnering 1/4th of his success and/or popularity.
IMO, the media in general praises other artists heavily in contrast to Michael, yet Michael has sold more with Thriller alone, and in general accomplished much more then some of those artists have in their entire careers.

Michael also has the best longevity, and most diverse fan base in race and age of any artist.
You can go almost anywhere on this earth and people of ALL ages and races will know Michael Jackson, and I don't mean just by name as some old act of yesteryear.
They'll actually know his music, have a favorite song, etc.
On streaming platforms (one of the newest advents in music) Michael's popularity rivals (and sometimes beats) that of CURRENT, living, touring, music making, artists (and let's not even talk about how fast and how many times over a "faded" Michael sold out the O2 for This Is It).
I honestly can't say all of that for any other artist that is no longer living, and many that are.
Michael is The Standard, The Best to ever do it, and The King.
Haters/Detractors will deal.
 
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Judging from what ive read here i will give this book a miss
 
The 350th book about Michael Jackson since 2009, it's about musical chairs right about now, everyone wants to chime in
 
350 books and almost a billion people watched his memorial service. Too bad he faded into obscurity and didn't become an icon like Prince. Lol.
 
350 books and almost a billion people watched his memorial service. Too bad he faded into obscurity and didn't become an icon like Prince. Lol.

IKR, that's such a cringeworthy statement.

But Michael knew how people always downplayed him.
That's why in Black Or White he straight up told em he was second to NONE.

And thing is, when he said he was second to none he made a true statement.
When you combine his talent with what he's accomplished, Michael truly is the best solo artist to ever do it.
Only Michael could say he was second to none and have it be true.:bow:
 
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people simply talk out of there @$$! a real stinky@$$
 
people simply talk out of there @$$! a real stinky@$$
I notice that people always say extremely dumb shit when trying to tear down Michael because in reality the only argument that CAN be posed against Michael is that he couldn't play an instrument at an adept level.
Michael was so damn good that people actually HAVE to resort LIES to try and discredit him because otherwise they just couldn't.
IMO, it's even worse when people try to discredit Michael for the sake of making their own fave look better because it only makes them look insecure, jealous, and bitter.
 
Bubs;4174991 said:
"They drove his career further and further off course. It’s easy to forget now, but less than 20 years after making Thriller, an album that’s gone platinum many times over, he was quietly dropped by his label and never released another record in his lifetime. "

:scratch:


If this is in the book.............
Remember when he got booed at the World Music Awards despite the fact that everyone including the other stars there (Chris Brown and Beyonce) were stanning like hell for him.
[video=youtube_share;WviiygVo3Oc]http://youtu.be/WviiygVo3Oc[/video]
 
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