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:clapping: Thank-youBubsfor Originally Posting this Article :bow:
Michael Jackson - The Stories You Didn't Hear.. June11, 2012
On the Big Bang Theory, Sheldon and Amy Farrah Fowler tested Meme Theory to see what type of gossip is more likely to travel through a social circle. Said Amy to Penny, “Sheldon and I engaged in sexual intercourse, in other news, I'm thinking of planting a herb garden.” The news about her herb garden was never repeated once while the comment about her sex life spread within seconds. I think this is pretty much what happened to Michael Jackson. More or less. The weird, outrageous and sexual comments about him spread further and lasted longer than anything good and boring he ever did. So let’s take a second to talk about his “herb garden.”
In 1993 Oprah Winfrey went to Neverland to interview Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson was so popular that 90 million people around the world tuned in to watch that live interview, which set a world record in television history. But what of it, to the King of Pop, who could break records without breaking a sweat. The interview was monumental because Michael had not given one in 14 years. Quite different from the celebs of today, who Twitter and Facebook the mundane details of their lives constantly for attention. So, at the peak of his popularity he was also deliciously mysterious. Oprah of course dove in and asked him about all the juicy rumours that people think are important. Skin colour, plastic surgery, sexuality. Then true to form, because there was nothing else titillating to talk about, his charity work was touched on at the end of the interview. And we learned a very special thing about Neverland.
Did you know that Neverland had a theatre with special private rooms built into the large back wall, equipped with professional hospital beds, so that sick and dying children who were bedridden could watch magic shows and movie marathons, with other cancer patients, who were well enough to sit in the seats below? Of course, all necessarily accompanied by parents, doctors and nurses. This struck a chord with me as I realized, this was the side of Michael Jackson that people didn’t talk about so much. So I looked up his humanitarian side and was blown away by a 24 page document detailing his mind blowing charity contributions.
To list just a few details. Michael:
Equipped a 19 bed unit for leukaemia and cancer research.
Donated ALL the money he received from his Pepsi commercial to the Michael Jackson Burn Centre for children.
During his Bad World Tour, he spent time with children backstage who came in on hospital beds and were so sick they could barely hold their heads up. He knelt down for a photo with all of them.
Royalties from the “Man in the Mirror” single were donated to Camp Ronald McDonald for Good Times, a camp for children with cancer.
The recording of “We are the World” resulted in over $60 million dollars being channelled directly into famine relief around the world.
The song “Beat It” was donated for use in anti-drink driving campaigns.
1995 - he actually donated significantly to the Jane Goodall Ape Research Institute.
1996 - Micheal contributed approximately 85% of earnings from the Indian leg of his HIStory World Tour to help create jobs for 270,000 Hindi young people. In the same year he also donated $100,000 to an orphanage in Bangkok he visited, as well as personally distributed toys and gifts at the orphanage and also a school for the blind.
Donated $1.1 million in 1997 to a charity in India that helps educate children in the slums.
In 2000, Michael Jackson was listed in the Guiness Book Of World Records for the "Most Charities Supported By a Pop Star".
Hosted 200 Air Force families at Neverland in 2002.
In 2004 he received a Humanitarian Award from The African Ambassadors’ Spouses Association (AASA) for his international efforts, but especially for his work in Africa, where he supported programs to build and equip hospitals, orphanages, homes and schools, in addition to financially supporting Child immunization, programs for HIV-AIDS, education and apartheid.
As an endorser of the Make-A-Wish Foundation as a donor and Wish granter Michael always gave ill and underprivileged children free tickets to his concerts.
In many cases, the children Michael Jackson helped were ecstatic to meet him. But in other parts of the globe, the slums, the orphanages, the children had no idea he was a world famous pop star. They just thought he was a nice person who brought hope.
I think it is rare to find someone who personally gives so much personal time and energy, in addition to financial support, to help others. The media is more interested in sharing how people selfishly, excessively, materialistically use their wealth (think Kardashians and all other stupid crap on the E! Channel) as this increases consumption, as opposed to promoting charity.
When Oprah asked Michael Jackson in 1993 what he felt was his life’s purpose, one of the things he said was “I feel I was chosen as an instrument to give music and love and harmony to the world." Maybe he was “chosen” to have such a phenomenal musical talent because his good heart could possibly help teach us something... I hope that people will remember his actual contributions instead of the drama and and know that, unlike so many other self-absorbed celebrities today, he actually did the best that he could to try and heal the world.
:clapping: Thank-youVeronasfor Originally Posting this Article :bow:
The Article: How the Media Shattered the Man in the Mirror
Posted: 06/12/2012 10:42 am
The Huffington post article regarding 2005 verdict:
June 13 is the 7th Anniversary of Michael's vindication day June12th, 2012
It was seven years ago when the twelve jurors of Santa Barbara County liberated Michael Jackson of the heinous charges for sexual abuse, conspiracy and giving alcohol to a minor. Interesting, 12 jurors of the most conservative California County, with not a single Afro-American among them, after more than four months of the trial, hundreds of witnesses interviewed and 30 hours of deliberation, reached an unanimous "not guilty" decision on all 10 counts.
Except for this trial was declared a "trial of the century" and displayed media at their worst. Sensationalism, exclusivity, negativity, excentricism, chaos, and hysteria were some of the features. After all, that was the thing that interested them and us the most (and unfortunately there are few who do not fit into stated majority).
While working on the biography of Michael Jackson, a few weeks ago I spoke with his lawyer Thomas Mesereau, who was the most credited for the legal victory. We also talked about the media coverage of the case:
It was horrible. I learned very quickly that the media was the enemy, that the media had an agenda, and their goal was not justice, it was not fairness, it was not truth [...] Because the media likes things that shock people, they like drama, and to have him found guilty and have him hold of the jail would have made a great stories for them. So I didn't trust the media, I felt they were trying to sabotage me, I felt they thought I was an obstacle to them, and they also knew they could not seduce me or even find me. They could not find me in a restaurant, they could not find me in a bar, they could not try and put me in a compromising positing
Although the media have not managed to put Mesereau in a compromising position, they did it with a few people that were close to Jackson. Statements of his ex-wife Debbie Rowe have been twisted and remodeled. The media chased the former employees from his Neverland ranch to find the smallest particle of doubt.
They have written about the fact that he wasn't the father of his own children and looked back at his plastic surgery (publishing an increasing number of operations with each new publication), finding all that you might call "strange," "twisted" and "depraved." Bjork described it best in a 2003 interview: "...in the US right now, it's illegal to be an eccentric."
In the mildest sense the statements of people who defended Jackson were drawn from the context. The case of wrong information transmission was often. For example, when the heterosexual porno magazine was found on Neverland (Jackson admitted that occasionally leaf through such content) most of the media referred to it as pedophile material.
Many would say that we can't put all media representatives in the same mold. True, there have been several media outlets and authors who were following it objectively without any bias or prejudice, and reporting was based on court transcript and official documents, but they are, of course, a tiny minority. Our media (in Montenegro) have not been a part of that minority, but rather have served as a copy / paste mechanism which borrowed information from it's foreign colleagues, of course, only in the translated version.
And what to expect after these reports? June 13, 2005 came, and most of the general public
was surprised by the verdict after all they had read and heard in the media.
And a victim of the whole story? A 46-year-old musical genius, who has devoted his entire life helping others, without asking anything in return. Eventually he became a victim of people whose only motive -- money, of people who took advantage of his generosity and humanity, and those who were inventing sensational headlines in order to earn from the same.
:clapping: Thank-youVeronasfor Originally Posting this Article :bow:
The Article: How the Media Shattered the Man in the Mirror
Posted: 06/12/2012 10:42 am
The Huffington post article regarding 2005 verdict:
June 13 is the 7th Anniversary of Michael's vindication day June12th, 2012
It was seven years ago when the twelve jurors of Santa Barbara County liberated Michael Jackson of the heinous charges for sexual abuse, conspiracy and giving alcohol to a minor. Interesting, 12 jurors of the most conservative California County, with not a single Afro-American among them, after more than four months of the trial, hundreds of witnesses interviewed and 30 hours of deliberation, reached an unanimous "not guilty" decision on all 10 counts.
Except for this trial was declared a "trial of the century" and displayed media at their worst. Sensationalism, exclusivity, negativity, excentricism, chaos, and hysteria were some of the features. After all, that was the thing that interested them and us the most (and unfortunately there are few who do not fit into stated majority).
While working on the biography of Michael Jackson, a few weeks ago I spoke with his lawyer Thomas Mesereau, who was the most credited for the legal victory. We also talked about the media coverage of the case:
It was horrible. I learned very quickly that the media was the enemy, that the media had an agenda, and their goal was not justice, it was not fairness, it was not truth [...] Because the media likes things that shock people, they like drama, and to have him found guilty and have him hold of the jail would have made a great stories for them. So I didn't trust the media, I felt they were trying to sabotage me, I felt they thought I was an obstacle to them, and they also knew they could not seduce me or even find me. They could not find me in a restaurant, they could not find me in a bar, they could not try and put me in a compromising positing
Although the media have not managed to put Mesereau in a compromising position, they did it with a few people that were close to Jackson. Statements of his ex-wife Debbie Rowe have been twisted and remodeled. The media chased the former employees from his Neverland ranch to find the smallest particle of doubt.
They have written about the fact that he wasn't the father of his own children and looked back at his plastic surgery (publishing an increasing number of operations with each new publication), finding all that you might call "strange," "twisted" and "depraved." Bjork described it best in a 2003 interview: "...in the US right now, it's illegal to be an eccentric."
In the mildest sense the statements of people who defended Jackson were drawn from the context. The case of wrong information transmission was often. For example, when the heterosexual porno magazine was found on Neverland (Jackson admitted that occasionally leaf through such content) most of the media referred to it as pedophile material.
Many would say that we can't put all media representatives in the same mold. True, there have been several media outlets and authors who were following it objectively without any bias or prejudice, and reporting was based on court transcript and official documents, but they are, of course, a tiny minority. Our media (in Montenegro) have not been a part of that minority, but rather have served as a copy / paste mechanism which borrowed information from it's foreign colleagues, of course, only in the translated version.
And what to expect after these reports? June 13, 2005 came, and most of the general public
was surprised by the verdict after all they had read and heard in the media.
And a victim of the whole story? A 46-year-old musical genius, who has devoted his entire life helping others, without asking anything in return. Eventually he became a victim of people whose only motive -- money, of people who took advantage of his generosity and humanity, and those who were inventing sensational headlines in order to earn from the same.
:clapping: Thank-youVeronasfor Originally Posting this Article :bow:
The Article: How the Media Shattered the Man in the Mirror
Posted: 06/12/2012 10:42 am
The Huffington post article regarding 2005 verdict:
June 13 is the 7th Anniversary of Michael's vindication day June12th, 2012
It was seven years ago when the twelve jurors of Santa Barbara County liberated Michael Jackson of the heinous charges for sexual abuse, conspiracy and giving alcohol to a minor. Interesting, 12 jurors of the most conservative California County, with not a single Afro-American among them, after more than four months of the trial, hundreds of witnesses interviewed and 30 hours of deliberation, reached an unanimous "not guilty" decision on all 10 counts.
Except for this trial was declared a "trial of the century" and displayed media at their worst. Sensationalism, exclusivity, negativity, excentricism, chaos, and hysteria were some of the features. After all, that was the thing that interested them and us the most (and unfortunately there are few who do not fit into stated majority).
While working on the biography of Michael Jackson, a few weeks ago I spoke with his lawyer Thomas Mesereau, who was the most credited for the legal victory. We also talked about the media coverage of the case:
It was horrible. I learned very quickly that the media was the enemy, that the media had an agenda, and their goal was not justice, it was not fairness, it was not truth [...] Because the media likes things that shock people, they like drama, and to have him found guilty and have him hold of the jail would have made a great stories for them. So I didn't trust the media, I felt they were trying to sabotage me, I felt they thought I was an obstacle to them, and they also knew they could not seduce me or even find me. They could not find me in a restaurant, they could not find me in a bar, they could not try and put me in a compromising positing
Although the media have not managed to put Mesereau in a compromising position, they did it with a few people that were close to Jackson. Statements of his ex-wife Debbie Rowe have been twisted and remodeled. The media chased the former employees from his Neverland ranch to find the smallest particle of doubt.
They have written about the fact that he wasn't the father of his own children and looked back at his plastic surgery (publishing an increasing number of operations with each new publication), finding all that you might call "strange," "twisted" and "depraved." Bjork described it best in a 2003 interview: "...in the US right now, it's illegal to be an eccentric."
In the mildest sense the statements of people who defended Jackson were drawn from the context. The case of wrong information transmission was often. For example, when the heterosexual porno magazine was found on Neverland (Jackson admitted that occasionally leaf through such content) most of the media referred to it as pedophile material.
Many would say that we can't put all media representatives in the same mold. True, there have been several media outlets and authors who were following it objectively without any bias or prejudice, and reporting was based on court transcript and official documents, but they are, of course, a tiny minority. Our media (in Montenegro) have not been a part of that minority, but rather have served as a copy / paste mechanism which borrowed information from it's foreign colleagues, of course, only in the translated version.
And what to expect after these reports? June 13, 2005 came, and most of the general public
was surprised by the verdict after all they had read and heard in the media.
And a victim of the whole story? A 46-year-old musical genius, who has devoted his entire life helping others, without asking anything in return. Eventually he became a victim of people whose only motive -- money, of people who took advantage of his generosity and humanity, and those who were inventing sensational headlines in order to earn from the same.
Musical House Tours: Apartment Therapy LA Salutes Michael Jackson
Over here at Apartment Therapy LA, music is a huge part of both our home and work lives. With one of us working in the music industry and another in a band, we're constantly checking out each other's music libraries. And while we may disagree on the latest and/or greatest, here's one thing we can agree on: Michael Jackson may have gone completely nutbar crazy wacko; but damn, he wrote some GREAT songs. As our salute to the King of Pop, we've delved into our own personal house tours to come up with a musical playlist featuring some of our favorite MJ tunes...
Abby Jackson 5: Who's Loving You
The first time we visited Abby's home, we were greeted with two things: A cocktail and a huge poster of Audrey Hepburn's Two For the Road. Abby's home is so comfortable and warm with touches of glamour everywhere. For her place, we chose this Jackson 5 tune that just seems to capture that same effortless, bluesy feel that fits her home's wonderful style.
Beth Billie Jean
Beth's home is full of amazing vintage finds from various thrift stores in addition to gems from her family. Based on all the nods to the antique and vintage, we dug up a true Michael Jackson classic.
Grace Off The Wall
I'd say that 90% of the time my home feels (and looks) like a circus. This is due mainly to the dogs fighting/playing all the time. But here's one thing that my friend clued me in on: When you have pets or kids, you realize that it's all just stuff anyway. So true: When Nanners broke a family heirloom, I was distraught for a week...until my mum just shrugged and said, "That lunatic dog of yours is a much better treasure than a vase that sits on a shelf." Or another way to sum it up:
Laure Smooth Criminal
Laure's stylish home is full of personality: it's quintessential laid-back California casual mixed with a bit of French influence. Her place is where we want to go for brunch, for drinks, for chili cook-offs. This particular song is dedicated to her beloved kitty Coco.
Gregory Beat It
Initially, we had asked Gregory what his favorite Michael Jackson tune is. His response? "Remember the Time, but probably because I liked the morphing. Umm...and Say, Say, Say with Paul McCartney..." Both excellent picks, Gregory. But we're thinking this is a better fit overall (please don't yell at us).
Rebecca Rock With You
We love, love, LOVE what Rebecca did with her outdoor space. It's an ideal area for entertaining or just relaxing solo...or having an impromptu dance party. In case you want to host your own impromptu dance party, Orlov-style, bust out your glitter silver shirt and match boots and start it off with this:
Jonathan Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
We honestly could not do this post without including Jonathan's vibrant home! Saturated colors just pop out against the white--it's so cheerful and bold. And the perfect song!
R.I.P, Michael Jackson. Thanks for all the great music.
Musical House Tours: Apartment Therapy LA Salutes Michael Jackson
Over here at Apartment Therapy LA, music is a huge part of both our home and work lives. With one of us working in the music industry and another in a band, we're constantly checking out each other's music libraries. And while we may disagree on the latest and/or greatest, here's one thing we can agree on: Michael Jackson may have gone completely nutbar crazy wacko; but damn, he wrote some GREAT songs. As our salute to the King of Pop, we've delved into our own personal house tours to come up with a musical playlist featuring some of our favorite MJ tunes...
Abby Jackson 5: Who's Loving You
The first time we visited Abby's home, we were greeted with two things: A cocktail and a huge poster of Audrey Hepburn's Two For the Road. Abby's home is so comfortable and warm with touches of glamour everywhere. For her place, we chose this Jackson 5 tune that just seems to capture that same effortless, bluesy feel that fits her home's wonderful style.
Beth Billie Jean
Beth's home is full of amazing vintage finds from various thrift stores in addition to gems from her family. Based on all the nods to the antique and vintage, we dug up a true Michael Jackson classic.
Grace Off The Wall
I'd say that 90% of the time my home feels (and looks) like a circus. This is due mainly to the dogs fighting/playing all the time. But here's one thing that my friend clued me in on: When you have pets or kids, you realize that it's all just stuff anyway. So true: When Nanners broke a family heirloom, I was distraught for a week...until my mum just shrugged and said, "That lunatic dog of yours is a much better treasure than a vase that sits on a shelf." Or another way to sum it up:
Laure Smooth Criminal
Laure's stylish home is full of personality: it's quintessential laid-back California casual mixed with a bit of French influence. Her place is where we want to go for brunch, for drinks, for chili cook-offs. This particular song is dedicated to her beloved kitty Coco.
Gregory Beat It
Initially, we had asked Gregory what his favorite Michael Jackson tune is. His response? "Remember the Time, but probably because I liked the morphing. Umm...and Say, Say, Say with Paul McCartney..." Both excellent picks, Gregory. But we're thinking this is a better fit overall (please don't yell at us).
Rebecca Rock With You
We love, love, LOVE what Rebecca did with her outdoor space. It's an ideal area for entertaining or just relaxing solo...or having an impromptu dance party. In case you want to host your own impromptu dance party, Orlov-style, bust out your glitter silver shirt and match boots and start it off with this:
Jonathan Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
We honestly could not do this post without including Jonathan's vibrant home! Saturated colors just pop out against the white--it's so cheerful and bold. And the perfect song!
R.I.P, Michael Jackson. Thanks for all the great music.
Musical House Tours: Apartment Therapy LA Salutes Michael Jackson
Over here at Apartment Therapy LA, music is a huge part of both our home and work lives. With one of us working in the music industry and another in a band, we're constantly checking out each other's music libraries. And while we may disagree on the latest and/or greatest, here's one thing we can agree on: Michael Jackson may have gone completely nutbar crazy wacko; but damn, he wrote some GREAT songs. As our salute to the King of Pop, we've delved into our own personal house tours to come up with a musical playlist featuring some of our favorite MJ tunes...
Abby Jackson 5: Who's Loving You
The first time we visited Abby's home, we were greeted with two things: A cocktail and a huge poster of Audrey Hepburn's Two For the Road. Abby's home is so comfortable and warm with touches of glamour everywhere. For her place, we chose this Jackson 5 tune that just seems to capture that same effortless, bluesy feel that fits her home's wonderful style.
Beth Billie Jean
Beth's home is full of amazing vintage finds from various thrift stores in addition to gems from her family. Based on all the nods to the antique and vintage, we dug up a true Michael Jackson classic.
Grace Off The Wall
I'd say that 90% of the time my home feels (and looks) like a circus. This is due mainly to the dogs fighting/playing all the time. But here's one thing that my friend clued me in on: When you have pets or kids, you realize that it's all just stuff anyway. So true: When Nanners broke a family heirloom, I was distraught for a week...until my mum just shrugged and said, "That lunatic dog of yours is a much better treasure than a vase that sits on a shelf." Or another way to sum it up:
Laure Smooth Criminal
Laure's stylish home is full of personality: it's quintessential laid-back California casual mixed with a bit of French influence. Her place is where we want to go for brunch, for drinks, for chili cook-offs. This particular song is dedicated to her beloved kitty Coco.
Gregory Beat It
Initially, we had asked Gregory what his favorite Michael Jackson tune is. His response? "Remember the Time, but probably because I liked the morphing. Umm...and Say, Say, Say with Paul McCartney..." Both excellent picks, Gregory. But we're thinking this is a better fit overall (please don't yell at us).
Rebecca Rock With You
We love, love, LOVE what Rebecca did with her outdoor space. It's an ideal area for entertaining or just relaxing solo...or having an impromptu dance party. In case you want to host your own impromptu dance party, Orlov-style, bust out your glitter silver shirt and match boots and start it off with this:
Jonathan Don't Stop Til You Get Enough
We honestly could not do this post without including Jonathan's vibrant home! Saturated colors just pop out against the white--it's so cheerful and bold. And the perfect song!
R.I.P, Michael Jackson. Thanks for all the great music.
Note
The original thread is still in Legacy forum - Rather than MOVE good content and projects from legacy while you revamp. I have just brought a COPY in to revamp _ then it can be replaced when you are done.
For this thread an update is probably best rather then revamping the whole thing Its is evident The content and contributions of others above doesnt need to be removed or revamped
So in this thread - you can add your content to update it or edit you own posts in it. The original thread
should remain in Chosen Ones name
Reflections of Michael Jackson :
Articles, Blogs & Stories
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One of our major objectives here at the Legacy Project is to raise the level of dicussion as it pertains to Michael as an artist.
In this thread we will focus on writings that look at Michael's body of work in a way that is respectful and thought-provoking.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and insights, stories and Articles you think reflect Michael Jackson in eyes :agree:
As always, thanks go out to MJ TinkerBell for her tireless research in this area. :clapping:
Michael Jackson was the most influential artist of the 20th century. That might sound shocking to sophisticated ears. Jackson, after all, was only a pop star. What about the century's great writers like Fitzgerald and Faulkner? What about visual artists, like Picasso and Dali, or the masters of cinema from Chaplin to Kubrick? Even among influential musicians, did Michael really matter more than the Beatles? What about Louis Armstrong, who invented jazz, or Frank Sinatra, who reinvented it for white people? Or Elvis Presley, who did the same with blues and gospel, founding rock in the process? Michael Jackson is bigger than Elvis? By a country mile.
First, there is no question that musicians in the 20th century had far more cultural impact than any other sort of artist. There is no such thing, for instance, as a 20th-century painter that is more famous than an entertainer like Sinatra. There are no filmmakers or movie stars that had more cultural sway than The Beatles, and no 20th-century writers who touched more lives than Elvis. Consider that thousands of human beings, from Bangkok to Brazil, make their living by pretending to be Elvis Presley. When was the last time you saw a good impression of Picasso? Even Elvis, though, is overshadowed by Jackson's career.
First, with the possible exception of Prince and Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson simply had more raw talent as a performer than any of his peers. But the King of Pop reigns as the century's signature artist not just because of his exceptional talent, but because he was able to package that talent in a whole new way. In both form and content, Jackson simply did what no one had done before.
Louis Armstrong, for instance, learned music as a live performer and adapted his art for records and radio. Sinatra and Elvis were also basically live acts who made records, ultimately expanding that on-stage persona into other media through sheer force of charisma. The Beatles were a hybrid; a once-great live band made popular by radio and TV, forced by their own fame to become rock's first great studio artists.
Jackson, though, was something else entirely. Something new. Obviously he made great records, usually with the help of Quincy Jones. Jackson's musical influence on subsequent artists is simply unavoidable, from his immediate followers like Madonna and Bobby Brown, to later stars like Usher and Justin Timberlake.
Certainly, Jackson could also electrify a live audience. His true canvas, though, was always the video screen. Above all, he was the first great televisual entertainer. From his Jackson 5 childhood, to his adult crossover on the Motown 25th anniversary special, to the last sad tabloid fodder, Jackson lived and died for on TV. He was born in 1958, part of the first generation of Americans who never knew a world without TV. And Jackson didn't just grow up with TV. He grew up on it. Child stardom, the great blessing and curse of his life, let him to internalize the medium's conventions and see its potential in a way that no earlier performer possibly could.
The result, as typified by the videos for "Thriller," "Billie Jean," and "Beat It," was more than just great art. It was a new art form. Jackson turned the low-budget, promotional clips record companies would make to promote a hit single into high art, a whole new genre that combined every form of 20th century mass media: the music video. It was cinematic, but not a movie. There were elements of live performance, but it was nothing like a concert. A seamless mix of song and dance that wasn't cheesy like Broadway, it was on TV but wildly different from anything people had ever seen on a screen.
The oft-repeated conventional wisdom—that Jackson's videos made MTV and so "changed the music industry" is only half true. It's more like the music industry ballooned to encompass Jackson's talent and shrunk down again without him. Videos didn't matter before Michael, and they ceased to matter at almost the precise cultural moment he stopped producing great work. His last relevant clip, "Black or White," was essentially the genre's swan song. Led by Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the next wave of pop stars hated making videos, seeing the entire format, and the channel they aired on, as tools of corporate rock.
The greatest impact of the music video wasn't on music, but video. That is, on film and television. The generation that grew up watching '80s videos started making movies and TV shows in the '90s, using MTV's once-daring stylistic elements like quick cuts, vérité-style hand-helds, nonlinear narrative and heavy visual effects and turning them into mainstream TV and film movie conventions.
If Jackson had only been a great musician who also invented music video, he still wouldn't have mattered as much. Madonna, his only worthy heir, was almost as gifted at communicating an aesthetic on-screen. The aesthetic Jackson communicated, however, was much more powerful, liberating and globally resonant than hers. It was more powerful than what Elvis and Sinatra communicated, too. Hence, that whole "Most Influential Artist" thing.
American popular music has always been about challenging stereotypes and breaking down barriers. Throughout the century, be it in Jazz, Rock or Hip-Hop, black and white artists mixed styles, implicitly, and often explicitly, advocating racial equality. Popular music has always challenged sex roles, too. Top 40 artists especially, from Little Richard and proto-feminist Leslie Gore, to David Bowie, Madonna and Lady Gaga have pushed social progress by bending and breaking gender rules.
Jackson was clearly a tragic figure, and his well-documented childhood trauma didn't help. But his fatal flaw, and simultaneously the source of his immense power, was a truly revolutionary Romantic vision. Not Romantic in the sappy way greeting card companies and florists use the word, but in its older, Byronic sense of someone who commits their entire life to pursing a creative ideal in defiance of social order and even natural law. Jackson's Romantic ideal, learned as a child at Motown founder Berry Gordy's feet, was an Age of Aquarius-inspired vision using of pop music to build racial, sexual, generational and religious harmony. His twist, though, was a doozy.
He not only made art promoting pop's egalitarian ethos, but literally tried embody it. When that vision became an obsession, a standard showbiz plastic surgery addiction became something infinitely more ambitious—and infinitely darker. Jackson consciously tried to turn himself into an indeterminate mix of human types, into a sort of ageless arch-person, blending black and white, male and female, adult and child. He was, however, not an arch-person. He was just a regular person, albeit a supremely talented one, and time makes dust of every person, no matter how well they sing. Decades of throwing himself against this irrefutable wall of fact ravaged him, body then soul, and eventually destroyed him.
At his creative peak, though, it almost seemed possible. Michael could be absolutely anything he wanted; Diana Ross one day, Peter Pan and the next. Every breathtaking high note, every impossible dance-step and crazy costume projected the same message. There are no more barriers of race, sex, class or age, he told his audience. You, too, can be and do whatever you want. We are limited only by our power to dream. A performer who can make you believe that, to feel it, even for a moment, comes along once in a lifetime. Maybe. If you're lucky.
As years pass and history sanitizes his memory, Jackson's legend will only grow. One day, in addition to being the most influential artist of the 20th century, he may well topple Elvis become the most-impersonated as well. Jackson, after all, only died a year ago. Elvis has been gone since 1977. Another two or three decades and Michael might have the most impersonators from Bangkok and Brazil. Let's just hope that they don't take it too far.
It sounds strange to say this, but Michael Jackson is coming off one of the biggest years of his career. Jackson has sold more than 9 million albums and nearly 13 million digital tracks in the U.S. in the year since his death. He was hotter than he'd been at any time since his glory days in the ‘80s. He even achieved a career goal that had eluded him in his lifetime--a hit movie.
I think what happened in the past year is that people focused on Jackson's music for the first time in many years, and remembered how much they liked it. Sadly, it took Jackson's death for people to look past all the controversies--large and small, troubling and trivial--that turned a lot of people off.
In the year since he died, Jackson has sold 9,023,000 albums in the U.S. This has enabled him to vault from #47 on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the top 200 album sellers in its history (which dates to 1991) to #18 this week. That's a tremendous one-year gain.
Jackson's posthumous sales are among the most impressive in the history of the music business. Nielsen/SoundScan didn't exist when Elvis Presley died in 1977 or when John Lennon was killed in 1980, so precise comparisons aren't possible, but the Billboard charts shed some light on the matter.
With his smash compilation Number Ones, Jackson became only the 13th artist to have the best-selling album in the U.S. posthumously. And with the subsequent soundtrack to Michael Jackson's This Is It, he became one of only five artists to have the best-selling album in the U.S. with two albums after his death. Bandleader Glenn Miller and rappers 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. each had three posthumous #1 albums. Nirvana, featuring the late Kurt Cobain, had two.
Eight other artists had one posthumous #1 album: Presley and Lennon are joined on this list by Janis Joplin, Jim Croce, Selena, Aaliyah, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles.
Jackson long wanted to be a movie star, a sort of modern-day Fred Astaire. In death, he got at least part of his wish: a #1 box-office hit. Michael Jackson's This Is It topped the box-office in its opening weekend at the end of October with a domestic gross of more than $23 million.
The soundtrack album entered The Billboard 200 at #1 that same week, with first-week sales of 373,000. (It was eligible for that chart because it was a new compilation.)
That made Jackson only the sixth music star since the early ‘80s to star in a movie that came in #1 at the box-office and also spawned a #1 soundtrack (on which the star was featured). He followed Prince (1984's Purple Rain); Whitney Houston (1995's Waiting To Exhale); Will Smith (1997's Men In Black); Eminem (2002's 8 Mile); and Miley Cyrus (2009's Hannah Montana: The Movie).
Michael Jackson's This Is It grossed more than $72 million in the U.S., which made it the top-grossing music concert film in history. (The old record was held by Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus' 2008 movie Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour, which grossed more than $65 million.) The movie grossed an additional $180 million in foreign markets for a combined worldwide gross of $252 million. It was also a hit on DVD, with U.S. DVD sales estimated at $43 million.
Beyond the box-office success, the movie helped Jackson's image because it showed him in action and in charge. And we haven't seen that side of him since his heyday. Since Bad came out in 1987, he was usually on the defensive, facing slipping sales, image problems, criminal charges, and all the rest. His life spun out of control. Here, he was seen as being in control again.
In the weeks following his death on June 25, Jackson toppled records that had stood for decades. In the week after he died, he had the three best-selling albums in the U.S.: Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, and Thriller. Since 1963, when Billboard combined its separate stereo and mono charts into one comprehensive listing, no other act had accomplished that feat. (The Beatles came closest, nailing down three of the top four spots in May 1964.)
For two weeks in July, Jackson had six of the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. This broke a record that had stood since April 1966, when Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had four of the top 10.
As I noted last summer, this has a strong sense of déjà vu for me. I wrote a column for Billboard in 1983 and 1984, when Jackson was setting new records virtually every week. I never imagined that it would all happen again, and certainly not under these sad circumstances.
In the week after he died, Jackson became the first artist to sell more than 1 million digital tracks in one week. (He sold 2.6 million, obliterating the old record.) Combining solo hits with songs he recorded with his brothers, he had a staggering 49 of the top 200 titles on the Hot Digital Songs chart that week. He held down six of the top 10 spots.
In each of the first seven weeks after he died, Jackson had three of the five best-selling albums in the U.S.: His biggest seller throughout this period was Number Ones. The hit-studded collection sold more copies in the first 16 weeks after Jackson's death than it had in the five and half years between its release in November 2003 and his death. At its peak in July, Number Ones sold 349,000 copies in one week. That constituted the biggest one-week sales tally for a non-holiday catalog album in Nielsen/SoundScan history.
Number Ones logged six weeks as the best-selling album in the U.S. That was the longest that an artist who had died had the nation's top-seller since 1980-1981, when Double Fantasy, by John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono, topped The Billboard 200 for eight weeks. It was the longest that a greatest hits set was the best-selling album in the U.S. since 2000-2001, when the Beatles' 1 held the top spot for eight weeks. It was the longest that Jackson had the top-seller since 1987, when Bad held the top spot for six weeks.
Jackson's phenomenal posthumous success forced Billboard to change its long-time policy of excluding catalog albums from The Billboard 200. Beginning with the chart for the issue dated Dec. 5, 2009, catalog albums were able to compete alongside current product on the magazine's flagship chart. The move came too late for Jackson's albums to take their rightful places in the top 10, but it was welcome development nonetheless.
When Nielsen/SoundScan released its final sales tallies for 2009, Jackson had four of the year's top 20 albums: Number Ones at #3, Michael Jackson's This Is It at #12, Thriller at #14 and The Essential Michael Jackson at #20. This constituted a record for the SoundScan era. The old record was held by Garth Brooks, who had three of the top 20 albums of 1992. (In Brooks's case, however, all three made the year-end top 10.)
By coming in at #3 for the year, Number Ones ranked higher on Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end chart than any album ever had following the artist's death. 2Pac's All Eyez On Me was the #6 album of 1996. The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death was the #6 album of 1997.
Number Ones sold 2,355,000 copies in the U.S. in 2009. It sold all but 117,000 of those copies after Jackson's death.
Jackson had seven of Nielsen/SoundScan's top 100 albums of 2009. In addition to his four albums that made the year-end top 20, Off The Wall was #66, Bad was #68 and Dangerous was #98.
Jackson had nine of the top 200 digital songs of 2009. His biggest hit was "Thriller," which sold 1,096,000 copies during the calendar year. His other top-selling songs for the year were, in descending order: "Billie Jean" (938,000), "Man In The Mirror" (890,000), "Beat It" (830,000), "The Way You Make Me Feel" (671,000), "Don't Stop ‘Til You Get Enough" (611,000), "Smooth Criminal" (605,000), "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (557,000), and "Black Or White" (511,000).
Since the digital era began, the song "Thriller" has sold 2,362,000 digital copies. Only one song from the ‘80s has outsold it. That's Journey's ubiquitous 1981 smash "Don't Stop Believin'," which has sold 3,819,000 copies. But Jackson tops the arena rock band in one respect: He has a second song on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the 200 best-selling digital songs in its history. "Billie Jean" has sold 1,898,000 copies in the digital era.
In the past year, Thriller has surpassed Dangerous as Jackson's best-selling album of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. Thriller has sold 5,816,000 copies since 1991. Dangerous has sold 5,786,000. This is remarkable because Thriller was released more than eight years before the start of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. By contrast, all Dangerous sales are contained in the SoundScan era.
Jackson topped charts all over the world after his death. Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson both reached #1 in the U.K. The latter album topped the U.K. chart for seven weeks, which was the longest run for an American artist since Justin Timberlake's Justified stayed on top for seven weeks in 2003.
Jackson also had a pair of #1 albums in Japan: King Of Pop (Japan Edition) and Michael Jackson's This Is It.
Reflections of Michael Jackson :
Articles, Blogs & Stories
One of our major objectives here at the Legacy Project is to raise the level of dicussion as it pertains to Michael as an artist.
In this thread we will focus on writings that look at Michael's body of work in a way that is respectful and thought-provoking.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and insights, stories and Articles you think reflect Michael Jackson in eyes.
As always, thanks go out to MJ TinkerBellfor her tireless research in this area.
Michael Jackson was the most influential artist of the 20th century. That might sound shocking to sophisticated ears. Jackson, after all, was only a pop star. What about the century's great writers like Fitzgerald and Faulkner? What about visual artists, like Picasso and Dali, or the masters of cinema from Chaplin to Kubrick? Even among influential musicians, did Michael really matter more than the Beatles? What about Louis Armstrong, who invented jazz, or Frank Sinatra, who reinvented it for white people? Or Elvis Presley, who did the same with blues and gospel, founding rock in the process? Michael Jackson is bigger than Elvis? By a country mile.
First, there is no question that musicians in the 20th century had far more cultural impact than any other sort of artist. There is no such thing, for instance, as a 20th-century painter that is more famous than an entertainer like Sinatra. There are no filmmakers or movie stars that had more cultural sway than The Beatles, and no 20th-century writers who touched more lives than Elvis. Consider that thousands of human beings, from Bangkok to Brazil, make their living by pretending to be Elvis Presley. When was the last time you saw a good impression of Picasso? Even Elvis, though, is overshadowed by Jackson's career.
First, with the possible exception of Prince and Sammy Davis Jr., Michael Jackson simply had more raw talent as a performer than any of his peers. But the King of Pop reigns as the century's signature artist not just because of his exceptional talent, but because he was able to package that talent in a whole new way. In both form and content, Jackson simply did what no one had done before.
Louis Armstrong, for instance, learned music as a live performer and adapted his art for records and radio. Sinatra and Elvis were also basically live acts who made records, ultimately expanding that on-stage persona into other media through sheer force of charisma. The Beatles were a hybrid; a once-great live band made popular by radio and TV, forced by their own fame to become rock's first great studio artists.
Jackson, though, was something else entirely. Something new. Obviously he made great records, usually with the help of Quincy Jones. Jackson's musical influence on subsequent artists is simply unavoidable, from his immediate followers like Madonna and Bobby Brown, to later stars like Usher and Justin Timberlake.
Certainly, Jackson could also electrify a live audience. His true canvas, though, was always the video screen. Above all, he was the first great televisual entertainer. From his Jackson 5 childhood, to his adult crossover on the Motown 25th anniversary special, to the last sad tabloid fodder, Jackson lived and died for on TV. He was born in 1958, part of the first generation of Americans who never knew a world without TV. And Jackson didn't just grow up with TV. He grew up on it. Child stardom, the great blessing and curse of his life, let him to internalize the medium's conventions and see its potential in a way that no earlier performer possibly could.
The result, as typified by the videos for "Thriller," "Billie Jean," and "Beat It," was more than just great art. It was a new art form. Jackson turned the low-budget, promotional clips record companies would make to promote a hit single into high art, a whole new genre that combined every form of 20th century mass media: the music video. It was cinematic, but not a movie. There were elements of live performance, but it was nothing like a concert. A seamless mix of song and dance that wasn't cheesy like Broadway, it was on TV but wildly different from anything people had ever seen on a screen.
The oft-repeated conventional wisdom—that Jackson's videos made MTV and so "changed the music industry" is only half true. It's more like the music industry ballooned to encompass Jackson's talent and shrunk down again without him. Videos didn't matter before Michael, and they ceased to matter at almost the precise cultural moment he stopped producing great work. His last relevant clip, "Black or White," was essentially the genre's swan song. Led by Nirvana and Pearl Jam, the next wave of pop stars hated making videos, seeing the entire format, and the channel they aired on, as tools of corporate rock.
The greatest impact of the music video wasn't on music, but video. That is, on film and television. The generation that grew up watching '80s videos started making movies and TV shows in the '90s, using MTV's once-daring stylistic elements like quick cuts, vérité-style hand-helds, nonlinear narrative and heavy visual effects and turning them into mainstream TV and film movie conventions.
If Jackson had only been a great musician who also invented music video, he still wouldn't have mattered as much. Madonna, his only worthy heir, was almost as gifted at communicating an aesthetic on-screen. The aesthetic Jackson communicated, however, was much more powerful, liberating and globally resonant than hers. It was more powerful than what Elvis and Sinatra communicated, too. Hence, that whole "Most Influential Artist" thing.
American popular music has always been about challenging stereotypes and breaking down barriers. Throughout the century, be it in Jazz, Rock or Hip-Hop, black and white artists mixed styles, implicitly, and often explicitly, advocating racial equality. Popular music has always challenged sex roles, too. Top 40 artists especially, from Little Richard and proto-feminist Leslie Gore, to David Bowie, Madonna and Lady Gaga have pushed social progress by bending and breaking gender rules.
Jackson was clearly a tragic figure, and his well-documented childhood trauma didn't help. But his fatal flaw, and simultaneously the source of his immense power, was a truly revolutionary Romantic vision. Not Romantic in the sappy way greeting card companies and florists use the word, but in its older, Byronic sense of someone who commits their entire life to pursing a creative ideal in defiance of social order and even natural law. Jackson's Romantic ideal, learned as a child at Motown founder Berry Gordy's feet, was an Age of Aquarius-inspired vision using of pop music to build racial, sexual, generational and religious harmony. His twist, though, was a doozy.
He not only made art promoting pop's egalitarian ethos, but literally tried embody it. When that vision became an obsession, a standard showbiz plastic surgery addiction became something infinitely more ambitious—and infinitely darker. Jackson consciously tried to turn himself into an indeterminate mix of human types, into a sort of ageless arch-person, blending black and white, male and female, adult and child. He was, however, not an arch-person. He was just a regular person, albeit a supremely talented one, and time makes dust of every person, no matter how well they sing. Decades of throwing himself against this irrefutable wall of fact ravaged him, body then soul, and eventually destroyed him.
At his creative peak, though, it almost seemed possible. Michael could be absolutely anything he wanted; Diana Ross one day, Peter Pan and the next. Every breathtaking high note, every impossible dance-step and crazy costume projected the same message. There are no more barriers of race, sex, class or age, he told his audience. You, too, can be and do whatever you want. We are limited only by our power to dream. A performer who can make you believe that, to feel it, even for a moment, comes along once in a lifetime. Maybe. If you're lucky.
As years pass and history sanitizes his memory, Jackson's legend will only grow. One day, in addition to being the most influential artist of the 20th century, he may well topple Elvis become the most-impersonated as well. Jackson, after all, only died a year ago. Elvis has been gone since 1977. Another two or three decades and Michael might have the most impersonators from Bangkok and Brazil. Let's just hope that they don't take it too far.
It sounds strange to say this, but Michael Jackson is coming off one of the biggest years of his career. Jackson has sold more than 9 million albums and nearly 13 million digital tracks in the U.S. in the year since his death. He was hotter than he'd been at any time since his glory days in the ‘80s. He even achieved a career goal that had eluded him in his lifetime--a hit movie.
I think what happened in the past year is that people focused on Jackson's music for the first time in many years, and remembered how much they liked it. Sadly, it took Jackson's death for people to look past all the controversies--large and small, troubling and trivial--that turned a lot of people off.
In the year since he died, Jackson has sold 9,023,000 albums in the U.S. This has enabled him to vault from #47 on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the top 200 album sellers in its history (which dates to 1991) to #18 this week. That's a tremendous one-year gain.
Jackson's posthumous sales are among the most impressive in the history of the music business. Nielsen/SoundScan didn't exist when Elvis Presley died in 1977 or when John Lennon was killed in 1980, so precise comparisons aren't possible, but the Billboard charts shed some light on the matter.
With his smash compilation Number Ones, Jackson became only the 13th artist to have the best-selling album in the U.S. posthumously. And with the subsequent soundtrack to Michael Jackson's This Is It, he became one of only five artists to have the best-selling album in the U.S. with two albums after his death. Bandleader Glenn Miller and rappers 2Pac and The Notorious B.I.G. each had three posthumous #1 albums. Nirvana, featuring the late Kurt Cobain, had two.
Eight other artists had one posthumous #1 album: Presley and Lennon are joined on this list by Janis Joplin, Jim Croce, Selena, Aaliyah, Johnny Cash and Ray Charles.
Jackson long wanted to be a movie star, a sort of modern-day Fred Astaire. In death, he got at least part of his wish: a #1 box-office hit. Michael Jackson's This Is It topped the box-office in its opening weekend at the end of October with a domestic gross of more than $23 million.
The soundtrack album entered The Billboard 200 at #1 that same week, with first-week sales of 373,000. (It was eligible for that chart because it was a new compilation.)
That made Jackson only the sixth music star since the early ‘80s to star in a movie that came in #1 at the box-office and also spawned a #1 soundtrack (on which the star was featured). He followed Prince (1984's Purple Rain); Whitney Houston (1995's Waiting To Exhale); Will Smith (1997's Men In Black); Eminem (2002's 8 Mile); and Miley Cyrus (2009's Hannah Montana: The Movie).
Michael Jackson's This Is It grossed more than $72 million in the U.S., which made it the top-grossing music concert film in history. (The old record was held by Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus' 2008 movie Best Of Both Worlds Concert Tour, which grossed more than $65 million.) The movie grossed an additional $180 million in foreign markets for a combined worldwide gross of $252 million. It was also a hit on DVD, with U.S. DVD sales estimated at $43 million.
Beyond the box-office success, the movie helped Jackson's image because it showed him in action and in charge. And we haven't seen that side of him since his heyday. Since Bad came out in 1987, he was usually on the defensive, facing slipping sales, image problems, criminal charges, and all the rest. His life spun out of control. Here, he was seen as being in control again.
In the weeks following his death on June 25, Jackson toppled records that had stood for decades. In the week after he died, he had the three best-selling albums in the U.S.: Number Ones, The Essential Michael Jackson, and Thriller. Since 1963, when Billboard combined its separate stereo and mono charts into one comprehensive listing, no other act had accomplished that feat. (The Beatles came closest, nailing down three of the top four spots in May 1964.)
For two weeks in July, Jackson had six of the 10 best-selling albums in the U.S. This broke a record that had stood since April 1966, when Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass had four of the top 10.
As I noted last summer, this has a strong sense of déjà vu for me. I wrote a column for Billboard in 1983 and 1984, when Jackson was setting new records virtually every week. I never imagined that it would all happen again, and certainly not under these sad circumstances.
In the week after he died, Jackson became the first artist to sell more than 1 million digital tracks in one week. (He sold 2.6 million, obliterating the old record.) Combining solo hits with songs he recorded with his brothers, he had a staggering 49 of the top 200 titles on the Hot Digital Songs chart that week. He held down six of the top 10 spots.
In each of the first seven weeks after he died, Jackson had three of the five best-selling albums in the U.S.: His biggest seller throughout this period was Number Ones. The hit-studded collection sold more copies in the first 16 weeks after Jackson's death than it had in the five and half years between its release in November 2003 and his death. At its peak in July, Number Ones sold 349,000 copies in one week. That constituted the biggest one-week sales tally for a non-holiday catalog album in Nielsen/SoundScan history.
Number Ones logged six weeks as the best-selling album in the U.S. That was the longest that an artist who had died had the nation's top-seller since 1980-1981, when Double Fantasy, by John Lennon and his widow, Yoko Ono, topped The Billboard 200 for eight weeks. It was the longest that a greatest hits set was the best-selling album in the U.S. since 2000-2001, when the Beatles' 1 held the top spot for eight weeks. It was the longest that Jackson had the top-seller since 1987, when Bad held the top spot for six weeks.
Jackson's phenomenal posthumous success forced Billboard to change its long-time policy of excluding catalog albums from The Billboard 200. Beginning with the chart for the issue dated Dec. 5, 2009, catalog albums were able to compete alongside current product on the magazine's flagship chart. The move came too late for Jackson's albums to take their rightful places in the top 10, but it was welcome development nonetheless.
When Nielsen/SoundScan released its final sales tallies for 2009, Jackson had four of the year's top 20 albums: Number Ones at #3, Michael Jackson's This Is It at #12, Thriller at #14 and The Essential Michael Jackson at #20. This constituted a record for the SoundScan era. The old record was held by Garth Brooks, who had three of the top 20 albums of 1992. (In Brooks's case, however, all three made the year-end top 10.)
By coming in at #3 for the year, Number Ones ranked higher on Nielsen/SoundScan's year-end chart than any album ever had following the artist's death. 2Pac's All Eyez On Me was the #6 album of 1996. The Notorious B.I.G.'s Life After Death was the #6 album of 1997.
Number Ones sold 2,355,000 copies in the U.S. in 2009. It sold all but 117,000 of those copies after Jackson's death.
Jackson had seven of Nielsen/SoundScan's top 100 albums of 2009. In addition to his four albums that made the year-end top 20, Off The Wall was #66, Bad was #68 and Dangerous was #98.
Jackson had nine of the top 200 digital songs of 2009. His biggest hit was "Thriller," which sold 1,096,000 copies during the calendar year. His other top-selling songs for the year were, in descending order: "Billie Jean" (938,000), "Man In The Mirror" (890,000), "Beat It" (830,000), "The Way You Make Me Feel" (671,000), "Don't Stop ‘Til You Get Enough" (611,000), "Smooth Criminal" (605,000), "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (557,000), and "Black Or White" (511,000).
Since the digital era began, the song "Thriller" has sold 2,362,000 digital copies. Only one song from the ‘80s has outsold it. That's Journey's ubiquitous 1981 smash "Don't Stop Believin'," which has sold 3,819,000 copies. But Jackson tops the arena rock band in one respect: He has a second song on Nielsen/SoundScan's running list of the 200 best-selling digital songs in its history. "Billie Jean" has sold 1,898,000 copies in the digital era.
In the past year, Thriller has surpassed Dangerous as Jackson's best-selling album of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. Thriller has sold 5,816,000 copies since 1991. Dangerous has sold 5,786,000. This is remarkable because Thriller was released more than eight years before the start of the Nielsen/SoundScan era. By contrast, all Dangerous sales are contained in the SoundScan era.
Jackson topped charts all over the world after his death. Number Ones and The Essential Michael Jackson both reached #1 in the U.K. The latter album topped the U.K. chart for seven weeks, which was the longest run for an American artist since Justin Timberlake's Justified stayed on top for seven weeks in 2003.
Jackson also had a pair of #1 albums in Japan: King Of Pop (Japan Edition) and Michael Jackson's This Is It.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
The Blog Article
The Lynching of Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ..Friday, 26 June 2009 First published in 2003, Jeff Koopersmith not only warned about the power of FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly to foment hate but mustered a bold defense of Michael Jackson.
Feb. 20, 2003 -- NEW YORK (apj.us)- Bill O'Reilly, master hatemonger for Rupert Murdoch's/Roger Ailes' FOX News Channel, should be proud of himself this week.
His vicious, nonstop attacks on Michael Jackson have come to fruition in the massively frenzied media lynching of the once-innocent, now-trampled persona of the little boy who led the Jackson Five, and later lost himself to what I call "The American Nightmare": reaching the pinnacle of success only to be gunned down from the envy of it.
O'Reilly, who claims to be master of a "No Spin Zone," spent months gnawing away and grinding his gnashing teeth at Jackson -- almost certainly because O'Reilly was sentient that ABC, NBC and FOX were working on outsized pieces slamming Jackson, his regrettable childhood, his plastic surgery, and most notably his conspicuous and seemingly unwholesome empathy for children.
O'Reilly wanted to cash in on it, take credit for it, and pretend that he actually has "The Power."
Yet what is loathsome about Bill O'Reilly is shared, in spades, by Stone Phillips, Barbara Walters, Josh Mankiewicz, and the producers of NBC's prime-time ersatz-news program "Dateline" and ABC's awful "20/20". To be honest, if I woke up as any of these so-called journalists, I would commit ritual suicide rather than look in the mirror.
Of course, television broadcasters excuse their near-pornographic slaughter of Jackson's reputation by playing up the sub-theme, "We must save the children" - specifically, "the children" with whom Jackson admits having sleepovers in his bedroom at the Santa Barbara ranch he has named "Neverland."
Under the guise of "policemen of the electronic age," these large corporate broadcasters offer and re-offer, over and over and over again, Michael Jackson's head on a bloody platter for viewers of all stripes to consume.
Now, it is true that Mr. Jackson settled litigation brought against him by the parents of a 13-year-old boy claiming to have been sexually seduced by the "King of Pop", but both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara District Attorneys declined to prosecute Mr. Jackson because of lack of evidence to do so.
And it is true that Jackson openly and oh-so-naively admits that he invites kids to sleep in his bedroom -- but claims he sleeps on the floor and bewails the sexual overtones that television plants.
This did not stop a retired detective from leading both NBC and ABC through a litany of "proof" that Jackson was an evil child molester who used his Disneyesque home-cum-theme-park as bait to bed young boys.
Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the "Michael Jackson scandals" and ask yourself a simple question: what is wrong with this picture?
That's not a tough question to answer. What is wrong is the same thing that is wrong with America in general these days.
We have forgotten about who we are, and what we stand for.
We have forgotten about the law.
We have forgotten about common decency.
And let me be the first to say that if Michael Jackson is indeed molesting children by the dozens, as powerful broadcasters would have us believe, then he should be arrested, perhaps jailed, and certainly treated for his mental illness.
But Michael Jackson has not been proved to be a child molester in a criminal or civil court. He has not even been charged with such an offense and one must believe, if we are truly a nation of laws, that he is, IS, innocent until PROVEN guilty by a jury of his peers.
Certainly he is altered, he is poles apart from you and I, but this doesn't prove that his love of children is not innocent or that his longing for his own mislaid-in-greed childhood results in perversion.
Perhaps the networks should spend as much time documenting proven pedophiles instead of "suspected" ones. That way they would less apt to be accused, as I am accusing them, of being nothing better than the Hitlers or Milosevics of this world who piled those they hated into mass graves much as the broadcast industry kills the reputations of celebrities gone off beam.
It's not enough for O'Reilly, Walters, Phillips, Mankiewicz, and the others working this celebrity "story" to trump up a case against Jackson. The power of network television has destroyed dozens of others -- only recently another black American superstar and her husband, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. And before that, we saw the virtual demonization of Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens. And let's not ever forget what they did to President Bill Clinton and his wife.
It was Bill O'Reilly, again, who led the charge against Ms. Houston when she admitted to a drug problem. It is as if O'Reilly is acting as a "special prosecutor" trying to wrest custody of Ms. Houston's children from her. To listen to this phony pseudo-intellectual moralizer one cannot help but wonder how American families would take in another 30 million kids whose parents might light up a joint after a tough day on the construction site.
On just one night earlier this week, television viewers across the nation were treated to four hours (three on ABC and one on NBC) of contemptible "revelations" concerning Michael Jackson's troubles with growing up and his increasing age. Last week FOX Television did a "Special" lynching of Jackson which seemed to whet the appetite of a viewing public with a near-insatiable desire to see the powerful crushed, no matter the expense, no matter the lack of substantiated evidence.
To say these were American networks' sorriest hours would be an understatement.
For three hours, ABC -- The "American" Broadcasting Network, owned largely and ironically by the Disney Corporation who created the Magic Kingdom upon which Mr. Jackson seems to have modeled his "ranch" -- exploited and abused the "King of Pop" so ferociously that one might think it was endeavoring to force the man who won't grow up toward suicide, much as the editorialists as the Wall Street Journal drove Vince Foster to snuff out his own life on a park bench.
On NBC, the "General Electric Network," the Jackson story was likewise presented in as revolting a manner as could be slipped by their increasingly lax "censors", with that network choosing to go nose to nose with ABC in a sordid contest to see who could capture more avaricious and covetous American viewers while torching a pitiable little man who gave us all such great musical pleasure for most of his life.
I don't think I have ever been quite so riveted by a display of insufferable heartlessness.
Many, from the e-mail these programs have generated, did not watch to learn about Jackson, but sought to gloat and rejoice over what at least appeared to be his psychological instability, the terror of his childhood, his loneliness, and his desolation.
All three networks featured ghastly interviews with plastic surgeons studying only photographs of Michael Jackson's face and giving their "expert" opinions on how many surgeries he'd undergone, and how botched they were in a contemptible flaunt of the Hippocratic Oath: "Do no harm."
Martin BashirAmerica was treated to hours of Martin Bashir, the British "journalist" who was fortunate enough to "get" Princess Diana to talk about how she cheated on her husband, Prince Charles -- himself "a little odd."
It seems Mr. Bashir is fond of ingratiating himself with the famous, and more so the super wealthy, so that he can use them and abuse them -- and of course, cash in.
Bashir was at his most repellent pretending to take Mr. Jackson into his confidence, feigning concern for the singer, protecting Jackson's children from the paparazzi, and then humiliating him repeatedly -- for nothing more than money.
ABC, in cahoots with REAL Video, is offering up video of the Bashir interview -- the only catch being that you have to subscribe -- again for more money -- in order to wallow in the heartbreak that is Jackson's life.
Dateline, at NBC.com, featured a ghostly Flash Film of Jackson's face morphing eerily using six pictures taken over 30 years of the singing star's life making him appear as a monster to excite its Web surfers.
After all is said, Mr. Bashir -- who seems not to be a journalist at all but merely a pig wallowing in the mud of another's broken life -- and the network executives who participated in this modern Anglo-American lynching should be put in stocks and mocked in Times Square.
Bill O'Reilly would shout me down if I were across from him on "The Factor." He would yell "What about the children, Mr. Koopersmith? What about the children?"
I might answer -- "Yes, what about the children?"
I must add that Barbara Walter's participation in this dreadfulness was deplorable. I thought at least she had reached a zenith, where she like the others could have just said "No!"
Sadly, she chose to participate in this high-tech lynching.
She -- and all the other pilers-on -- should hang their heads in shame.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
The Blog Article
The Lynching of Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ..Friday, 26 June 2009 First published in 2003, Jeff Koopersmith not only warned about the power of FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly to foment hate but mustered a bold defense of Michael Jackson.
Feb. 20, 2003 -- NEW YORK (apj.us)- Bill O'Reilly, master hatemonger for Rupert Murdoch's/Roger Ailes' FOX News Channel, should be proud of himself this week.
His vicious, nonstop attacks on Michael Jackson have come to fruition in the massively frenzied media lynching of the once-innocent, now-trampled persona of the little boy who led the Jackson Five, and later lost himself to what I call "The American Nightmare": reaching the pinnacle of success only to be gunned down from the envy of it.
O'Reilly, who claims to be master of a "No Spin Zone," spent months gnawing away and grinding his gnashing teeth at Jackson -- almost certainly because O'Reilly was sentient that ABC, NBC and FOX were working on outsized pieces slamming Jackson, his regrettable childhood, his plastic surgery, and most notably his conspicuous and seemingly unwholesome empathy for children.
O'Reilly wanted to cash in on it, take credit for it, and pretend that he actually has "The Power."
Yet what is loathsome about Bill O'Reilly is shared, in spades, by Stone Phillips, Barbara Walters, Josh Mankiewicz, and the producers of NBC's prime-time ersatz-news program "Dateline" and ABC's awful "20/20". To be honest, if I woke up as any of these so-called journalists, I would commit ritual suicide rather than look in the mirror.
Of course, television broadcasters excuse their near-pornographic slaughter of Jackson's reputation by playing up the sub-theme, "We must save the children" - specifically, "the children" with whom Jackson admits having sleepovers in his bedroom at the Santa Barbara ranch he has named "Neverland."
Under the guise of "policemen of the electronic age," these large corporate broadcasters offer and re-offer, over and over and over again, Michael Jackson's head on a bloody platter for viewers of all stripes to consume.
Now, it is true that Mr. Jackson settled litigation brought against him by the parents of a 13-year-old boy claiming to have been sexually seduced by the "King of Pop", but both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara District Attorneys declined to prosecute Mr. Jackson because of lack of evidence to do so.
And it is true that Jackson openly and oh-so-naively admits that he invites kids to sleep in his bedroom -- but claims he sleeps on the floor and bewails the sexual overtones that television plants.
This did not stop a retired detective from leading both NBC and ABC through a litany of "proof" that Jackson was an evil child molester who used his Disneyesque home-cum-theme-park as bait to bed young boys.
Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the "Michael Jackson scandals" and ask yourself a simple question: what is wrong with this picture?
That's not a tough question to answer. What is wrong is the same thing that is wrong with America in general these days.
We have forgotten about who we are, and what we stand for.
We have forgotten about the law.
We have forgotten about common decency.
And let me be the first to say that if Michael Jackson is indeed molesting children by the dozens, as powerful broadcasters would have us believe, then he should be arrested, perhaps jailed, and certainly treated for his mental illness.
But Michael Jackson has not been proved to be a child molester in a criminal or civil court. He has not even been charged with such an offense and one must believe, if we are truly a nation of laws, that he is, IS, innocent until PROVEN guilty by a jury of his peers.
Certainly he is altered, he is poles apart from you and I, but this doesn't prove that his love of children is not innocent or that his longing for his own mislaid-in-greed childhood results in perversion.
Perhaps the networks should spend as much time documenting proven pedophiles instead of "suspected" ones. That way they would less apt to be accused, as I am accusing them, of being nothing better than the Hitlers or Milosevics of this world who piled those they hated into mass graves much as the broadcast industry kills the reputations of celebrities gone off beam.
It's not enough for O'Reilly, Walters, Phillips, Mankiewicz, and the others working this celebrity "story" to trump up a case against Jackson. The power of network television has destroyed dozens of others -- only recently another black American superstar and her husband, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. And before that, we saw the virtual demonization of Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens. And let's not ever forget what they did to President Bill Clinton and his wife.
It was Bill O'Reilly, again, who led the charge against Ms. Houston when she admitted to a drug problem. It is as if O'Reilly is acting as a "special prosecutor" trying to wrest custody of Ms. Houston's children from her. To listen to this phony pseudo-intellectual moralizer one cannot help but wonder how American families would take in another 30 million kids whose parents might light up a joint after a tough day on the construction site.
On just one night earlier this week, television viewers across the nation were treated to four hours (three on ABC and one on NBC) of contemptible "revelations" concerning Michael Jackson's troubles with growing up and his increasing age. Last week FOX Television did a "Special" lynching of Jackson which seemed to whet the appetite of a viewing public with a near-insatiable desire to see the powerful crushed, no matter the expense, no matter the lack of substantiated evidence.
To say these were American networks' sorriest hours would be an understatement.
For three hours, ABC -- The "American" Broadcasting Network, owned largely and ironically by the Disney Corporation who created the Magic Kingdom upon which Mr. Jackson seems to have modeled his "ranch" -- exploited and abused the "King of Pop" so ferociously that one might think it was endeavoring to force the man who won't grow up toward suicide, much as the editorialists as the Wall Street Journal drove Vince Foster to snuff out his own life on a park bench.
On NBC, the "General Electric Network," the Jackson story was likewise presented in as revolting a manner as could be slipped by their increasingly lax "censors", with that network choosing to go nose to nose with ABC in a sordid contest to see who could capture more avaricious and covetous American viewers while torching a pitiable little man who gave us all such great musical pleasure for most of his life.
I don't think I have ever been quite so riveted by a display of insufferable heartlessness.
Many, from the e-mail these programs have generated, did not watch to learn about Jackson, but sought to gloat and rejoice over what at least appeared to be his psychological instability, the terror of his childhood, his loneliness, and his desolation.
All three networks featured ghastly interviews with plastic surgeons studying only photographs of Michael Jackson's face and giving their "expert" opinions on how many surgeries he'd undergone, and how botched they were in a contemptible flaunt of the Hippocratic Oath: "Do no harm."
Martin BashirAmerica was treated to hours of Martin Bashir, the British "journalist" who was fortunate enough to "get" Princess Diana to talk about how she cheated on her husband, Prince Charles -- himself "a little odd."
It seems Mr. Bashir is fond of ingratiating himself with the famous, and more so the super wealthy, so that he can use them and abuse them -- and of course, cash in.
Bashir was at his most repellent pretending to take Mr. Jackson into his confidence, feigning concern for the singer, protecting Jackson's children from the paparazzi, and then humiliating him repeatedly -- for nothing more than money.
ABC, in cahoots with REAL Video, is offering up video of the Bashir interview -- the only catch being that you have to subscribe -- again for more money -- in order to wallow in the heartbreak that is Jackson's life.
Dateline, at NBC.com, featured a ghostly Flash Film of Jackson's face morphing eerily using six pictures taken over 30 years of the singing star's life making him appear as a monster to excite its Web surfers.
After all is said, Mr. Bashir -- who seems not to be a journalist at all but merely a pig wallowing in the mud of another's broken life -- and the network executives who participated in this modern Anglo-American lynching should be put in stocks and mocked in Times Square.
Bill O'Reilly would shout me down if I were across from him on "The Factor." He would yell "What about the children, Mr. Koopersmith? What about the children?"
I might answer -- "Yes, what about the children?"
I must add that Barbara Walter's participation in this dreadfulness was deplorable. I thought at least she had reached a zenith, where she like the others could have just said "No!"
Sadly, she chose to participate in this high-tech lynching.
She -- and all the other pilers-on -- should hang their heads in shame.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
The Blog Article
The Lynching of Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ..Friday, 26 June 2009 First published in 2003, Jeff Koopersmith not only warned about the power of FOX News Channel's Bill O'Reilly to foment hate but mustered a bold defense of Michael Jackson.
Feb. 20, 2003 -- NEW YORK (apj.us)- Bill O'Reilly, master hatemonger for Rupert Murdoch's/Roger Ailes' FOX News Channel, should be proud of himself this week.
His vicious, nonstop attacks on Michael Jackson have come to fruition in the massively frenzied media lynching of the once-innocent, now-trampled persona of the little boy who led the Jackson Five, and later lost himself to what I call "The American Nightmare": reaching the pinnacle of success only to be gunned down from the envy of it.
O'Reilly, who claims to be master of a "No Spin Zone," spent months gnawing away and grinding his gnashing teeth at Jackson -- almost certainly because O'Reilly was sentient that ABC, NBC and FOX were working on outsized pieces slamming Jackson, his regrettable childhood, his plastic surgery, and most notably his conspicuous and seemingly unwholesome empathy for children.
O'Reilly wanted to cash in on it, take credit for it, and pretend that he actually has "The Power."
Yet what is loathsome about Bill O'Reilly is shared, in spades, by Stone Phillips, Barbara Walters, Josh Mankiewicz, and the producers of NBC's prime-time ersatz-news program "Dateline" and ABC's awful "20/20". To be honest, if I woke up as any of these so-called journalists, I would commit ritual suicide rather than look in the mirror.
Of course, television broadcasters excuse their near-pornographic slaughter of Jackson's reputation by playing up the sub-theme, "We must save the children" - specifically, "the children" with whom Jackson admits having sleepovers in his bedroom at the Santa Barbara ranch he has named "Neverland."
Under the guise of "policemen of the electronic age," these large corporate broadcasters offer and re-offer, over and over and over again, Michael Jackson's head on a bloody platter for viewers of all stripes to consume.
Now, it is true that Mr. Jackson settled litigation brought against him by the parents of a 13-year-old boy claiming to have been sexually seduced by the "King of Pop", but both Los Angeles and Santa Barbara District Attorneys declined to prosecute Mr. Jackson because of lack of evidence to do so.
And it is true that Jackson openly and oh-so-naively admits that he invites kids to sleep in his bedroom -- but claims he sleeps on the floor and bewails the sexual overtones that television plants.
This did not stop a retired detective from leading both NBC and ABC through a litany of "proof" that Jackson was an evil child molester who used his Disneyesque home-cum-theme-park as bait to bed young boys.
Put aside any preconceptions you may have about the "Michael Jackson scandals" and ask yourself a simple question: what is wrong with this picture?
That's not a tough question to answer. What is wrong is the same thing that is wrong with America in general these days.
We have forgotten about who we are, and what we stand for.
We have forgotten about the law.
We have forgotten about common decency.
And let me be the first to say that if Michael Jackson is indeed molesting children by the dozens, as powerful broadcasters would have us believe, then he should be arrested, perhaps jailed, and certainly treated for his mental illness.
But Michael Jackson has not been proved to be a child molester in a criminal or civil court. He has not even been charged with such an offense and one must believe, if we are truly a nation of laws, that he is, IS, innocent until PROVEN guilty by a jury of his peers.
Certainly he is altered, he is poles apart from you and I, but this doesn't prove that his love of children is not innocent or that his longing for his own mislaid-in-greed childhood results in perversion.
Perhaps the networks should spend as much time documenting proven pedophiles instead of "suspected" ones. That way they would less apt to be accused, as I am accusing them, of being nothing better than the Hitlers or Milosevics of this world who piled those they hated into mass graves much as the broadcast industry kills the reputations of celebrities gone off beam.
It's not enough for O'Reilly, Walters, Phillips, Mankiewicz, and the others working this celebrity "story" to trump up a case against Jackson. The power of network television has destroyed dozens of others -- only recently another black American superstar and her husband, Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown. And before that, we saw the virtual demonization of Robert Downey Jr., Nick Nolte and Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens. And let's not ever forget what they did to President Bill Clinton and his wife.
It was Bill O'Reilly, again, who led the charge against Ms. Houston when she admitted to a drug problem. It is as if O'Reilly is acting as a "special prosecutor" trying to wrest custody of Ms. Houston's children from her. To listen to this phony pseudo-intellectual moralizer one cannot help but wonder how American families would take in another 30 million kids whose parents might light up a joint after a tough day on the construction site.
On just one night earlier this week, television viewers across the nation were treated to four hours (three on ABC and one on NBC) of contemptible "revelations" concerning Michael Jackson's troubles with growing up and his increasing age. Last week FOX Television did a "Special" lynching of Jackson which seemed to whet the appetite of a viewing public with a near-insatiable desire to see the powerful crushed, no matter the expense, no matter the lack of substantiated evidence.
To say these were American networks' sorriest hours would be an understatement.
For three hours, ABC -- The "American" Broadcasting Network, owned largely and ironically by the Disney Corporation who created the Magic Kingdom upon which Mr. Jackson seems to have modeled his "ranch" -- exploited and abused the "King of Pop" so ferociously that one might think it was endeavoring to force the man who won't grow up toward suicide, much as the editorialists as the Wall Street Journal drove Vince Foster to snuff out his own life on a park bench.
On NBC, the "General Electric Network," the Jackson story was likewise presented in as revolting a manner as could be slipped by their increasingly lax "censors", with that network choosing to go nose to nose with ABC in a sordid contest to see who could capture more avaricious and covetous American viewers while torching a pitiable little man who gave us all such great musical pleasure for most of his life.
I don't think I have ever been quite so riveted by a display of insufferable heartlessness.
Many, from the e-mail these programs have generated, did not watch to learn about Jackson, but sought to gloat and rejoice over what at least appeared to be his psychological instability, the terror of his childhood, his loneliness, and his desolation.
All three networks featured ghastly interviews with plastic surgeons studying only photographs of Michael Jackson's face and giving their "expert" opinions on how many surgeries he'd undergone, and how botched they were in a contemptible flaunt of the Hippocratic Oath: "Do no harm."
Martin BashirAmerica was treated to hours of Martin Bashir, the British "journalist" who was fortunate enough to "get" Princess Diana to talk about how she cheated on her husband, Prince Charles -- himself "a little odd."
It seems Mr. Bashir is fond of ingratiating himself with the famous, and more so the super wealthy, so that he can use them and abuse them -- and of course, cash in.
Bashir was at his most repellent pretending to take Mr. Jackson into his confidence, feigning concern for the singer, protecting Jackson's children from the paparazzi, and then humiliating him repeatedly -- for nothing more than money.
ABC, in cahoots with REAL Video, is offering up video of the Bashir interview -- the only catch being that you have to subscribe -- again for more money -- in order to wallow in the heartbreak that is Jackson's life.
Dateline, at NBC.com, featured a ghostly Flash Film of Jackson's face morphing eerily using six pictures taken over 30 years of the singing star's life making him appear as a monster to excite its Web surfers.
After all is said, Mr. Bashir -- who seems not to be a journalist at all but merely a pig wallowing in the mud of another's broken life -- and the network executives who participated in this modern Anglo-American lynching should be put in stocks and mocked in Times Square.
Bill O'Reilly would shout me down if I were across from him on "The Factor." He would yell "What about the children, Mr. Koopersmith? What about the children?"
I might answer -- "Yes, what about the children?"
I must add that Barbara Walter's participation in this dreadfulness was deplorable. I thought at least she had reached a zenith, where she like the others could have just said "No!"
Sadly, she chose to participate in this high-tech lynching.
She -- and all the other pilers-on -- should hang their heads in shame.
<a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg/'><img src='http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5054/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg' border='0'/></a>
The Blog Article
Wow 'Em in Heaven, Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ...Sunday, 28 June 2009
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted. But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Jeff Koopersmith, one of the few opinion journalists to defend Michael Jackson during his tabloid-driven scandals, has plenty to say about the phenomenal and influential performer and his shocking death at the age of 50.
June 26, 2009 – Geneva (apj.us) – I woke this morning at five to hear the BBC news reader reporting that Michael Jackson, at 50, had died of a heart attack at his temporary Holmby Hills home where he was preparing for a sold-out tour in Britain. I wept like child.
When Jackson, a severely misunderstood genius, was charged with hideous and false accusations, I was one of the few who defended him during that ordeal.
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted.
But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Now he is gone, and all I gave him was my courage that he was just as he said: a man who loved children, and a childhood that was robbed from him by us. Michael Jackson was one of the most talented performing artists of the 20th century.
This morning, scanning the news, I see that the media are up to our old tricks.
Instead of simply celebrating the joy Jackson broought a worldwide audience, dead-tree outlets and cable bobbleheads obsess over the more tawdry and seemingly inexplicable facets of his too-short lifetime.
I once claimed that we had lynched Michael Jackson. I stand by that opinion. As surely as others close to him sucked him dry, stole his treasure, and accused him with vicious malice, we lynched him. I will miss him. We will all miss him.
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
<a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg/'><img src='http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5054/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg' border='0'/></a>
The Blog Article
Wow 'Em in Heaven, Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ...Sunday, 28 June 2009
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted. But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Jeff Koopersmith, one of the few opinion journalists to defend Michael Jackson during his tabloid-driven scandals, has plenty to say about the phenomenal and influential performer and his shocking death at the age of 50.
June 26, 2009 – Geneva (apj.us) – I woke this morning at five to hear the BBC news reader reporting that Michael Jackson, at 50, had died of a heart attack at his temporary Holmby Hills home where he was preparing for a sold-out tour in Britain. I wept like child.
When Jackson, a severely misunderstood genius, was charged with hideous and false accusations, I was one of the few who defended him during that ordeal.
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted.
But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Now he is gone, and all I gave him was my courage that he was just as he said: a man who loved children, and a childhood that was robbed from him by us. Michael Jackson was one of the most talented performing artists of the 20th century.
This morning, scanning the news, I see that the media are up to our old tricks.
Instead of simply celebrating the joy Jackson broought a worldwide audience, dead-tree outlets and cable bobbleheads obsess over the more tawdry and seemingly inexplicable facets of his too-short lifetime.
I once claimed that we had lynched Michael Jackson. I stand by that opinion. As surely as others close to him sucked him dry, stole his treasure, and accused him with vicious malice, we lynched him. I will miss him. We will all miss him.
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
<a target='_blank' title='ImageShack - Image And Video Hosting' href='http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/401/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg/'><img src='http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/5054/inheavenmichaeljackson1.jpg' border='0'/></a>
The Blog Article
Wow 'Em in Heaven, Michael Jackson
Written by Jeff Koopersmith ...Sunday, 28 June 2009
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted. But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Jeff Koopersmith, one of the few opinion journalists to defend Michael Jackson during his tabloid-driven scandals, has plenty to say about the phenomenal and influential performer and his shocking death at the age of 50.
June 26, 2009 – Geneva (apj.us) – I woke this morning at five to hear the BBC news reader reporting that Michael Jackson, at 50, had died of a heart attack at his temporary Holmby Hills home where he was preparing for a sold-out tour in Britain. I wept like child.
When Jackson, a severely misunderstood genius, was charged with hideous and false accusations, I was one of the few who defended him during that ordeal.
I never believed that Michael Jackson did what the publicity-seeking Los Angeles Police Department and a twisted, fame-grabbing district attorney crammed down the insensitive, sycophantic media's throats. Of course, Jackson was acquitted.
But the theater of celebrity justice killed him then, and he disappeared, feeling humiliated and unrecovered.
Now he is gone, and all I gave him was my courage that he was just as he said: a man who loved children, and a childhood that was robbed from him by us. Michael Jackson was one of the most talented performing artists of the 20th century.
This morning, scanning the news, I see that the media are up to our old tricks.
Instead of simply celebrating the joy Jackson broought a worldwide audience, dead-tree outlets and cable bobbleheads obsess over the more tawdry and seemingly inexplicable facets of his too-short lifetime.
I once claimed that we had lynched Michael Jackson. I stand by that opinion. As surely as others close to him sucked him dry, stole his treasure, and accused him with vicious malice, we lynched him. I will miss him. We will all miss him.
Jeff Koopersmith is an internationally renowned political consultant, opinion research authority and policy analyst. He has lobbied for causes including the alternative fuel sector and women's health, and is an expert on the international real estate market. He lives in Philadelphia, Washington and Geneva.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
(Michael Jackson giving it his all in concert around 1995)
The Blog Article:
TO WALK A LIFETIME IN MICHAEL JACKSON'S MOCCASINS
June 26, 2009, 12:56 pm - by Aberjhani
You probably can't read the words in the note next to the accompanying photo of Michael Jackson, but they were handwritten by the singer himself during the mid 1990s when he was constantly on tour and just as constantly a subject of much public ridicule and condemnation. This note was composed on hotel stationery and, complete with original spellings, grammar, and format, reads as follows:
"like the old Indian proverb says do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in wich most is not true, I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now." -Michael Jackson (circa 1995)
It's hard to think of Michael Joseph Jackson as having been a baby boomer because nothing defined him quite so much as his music, and his music possesses the eternal quality of genius that makes all superior art timeless, ageless, and endlessly compelling. But a baby boomer he was, born August 29, 1958, and now gone so soon to his rest June 25, 2009.
Reporting on Jackson's death just hours after it was confirmed, NBC News anchorman Lester Holt noted, "We were the same age. I remember being a ten-year-old watching this ten-year-old kid on television." A familiar feeling. I arrived on the planet one year before either of them but like Holt I also watched the young Michael Jackson on stage on television. My attention was fully captured with no desire to be released because there he was: a cultural mirror image of myself who was not the watermelon-eyed "Buckwheat" (all due respect to the actor who played that role) or a stereotypical barefoot "pickaninny" movie extra in some Gone With the Wind spin-off, but a little black boy musical genius so charged with the lightning of his talent and confidence that he could take the lead singer position with his four brothers behind him and an audience of thousands in front of him--and perform with all the grace, skill, and maturity of someone three times his age.
How did that kid do that? Living as I did in a southern region where black skin and a male anatomy often reduced one's life expectancy by decades, the answer of how that kid did what he did was important to this future author.
Years later I considered the greater scope of what he had achieved. While the vast majority of those in our peer group at age eleven or twelve were at home evenings studying for a quiz in school the next day or building up nerve to steal a first kiss, Michael Jackson was working--working in clubs, working in theaters, working on television, working in concert halls, working working working his ass off. On how many continents, and in how many countries, was that child a stranger in a strange land? Yet one who repeatedly channeled gifts of song and dance and love to bring respites of celebrated joy to the lives of others? His labors as a child played no small role in laying a foundation of lasting wealth for what has been called America's "preeminent family of pop music." Later on, those labors would pull a lagging recording industry out of its deathbed slump, and jump-start a new industry art form known as video while trashing racial barriers on TV and radio in the process. Did that make him a saint? No. Does it make his memory one worthy of respect? Most definitely.
Not all "child prodigies" who exhibit the level of talent that Jackson did as a child tend to fulfill the promise of those gifts in their adulthood. He was one of those who did. Once his ambition led him to pursue and establish with phenomenal results a solo career, each year thereafter when birthdays came around (his in August, mine in July) I started studying what he had accomplished to date and would challenge myself to do better in my own career. That's not to say I ever did, or even that I thought I could or should match him; only that his accomplishments motivated me to reach for some of my own.
The judgments of different critics aside, he outdid himself repeatedly: with the flawless album Off the Wall in 1979; the all-time bestselling Thriller in 1982; Bad in 1987; and Dangerous in 1991. By the time Jackson's HIStory-Past, Present and Future, Book I was released in 1995, I was managing a multi-media book, video, software and music store, which allowed me to indulge the pleasure of dancing along to the album's combination of anthology and new music while shelving and selling books. True, I was dancing to his life's soundtrack rather than my own and another three years would pass before my first book would get published. But: I celebrated this last album (not the last of his career) in particular because it was the first one released after the singer had descended into the tar-thick shadow-side of celebrity-hood: constant hounding by the paparazzi, reportedly "bizarre" behavior bordering on insanity, and allegations of pedophilia. The fact that his fame had become his cross made me less envious that he had achieved it so early.
Yet in the album HIStory, the purity of the music declared that whatever might or might not be the truth behind the scandalous headlines, all had somehow remained well with his soul. Whereas madness attempted to take over his life--and for a time possibly did--he fought and won his battle to turn it into superlative art. The new songs on HIStory presented his defense of himself even while going beyond that to champion the environment and level substantial social criticism of his own. It was around the time of HIStory's release that he wrote the above note and the photo that accompanies it was taken (my apologies for failing to track down the exact date or the photographer's name). When I saw them published in People Magazine, I cut the page out and placed it in a photo album, then said a prayer for this man whose voice had helped awaken my voice.
We human beings tend to demand that our heroes fulfill many fantasies, but one fantasy no hero can fulfill is perfection while in this world. They can make the effort to give as much of themselves to the global community as they can, and then beg forgiveness when the gifting isn't enough and the less appealing aromas of their humanity dim the air with the funky truth of their flesh and blood limitations. It was good that "the King of Pop" had been tested and learned something about his limitations in one major battle because he would need whatever strength he gained from it for other confrontations down the road. In the end, it was strength he was reaching for once again to begin his journey anew and do the one thing he did better than anybody else.
A lot of tabloids, magazines, websites, radio stations, entertainment personalities, and retail chains made tons of good hard cash peddling before the world what they presented as Michael Jackson's eccentricities and possible moral failings. Perhaps now that he has left the stage for the last time, they can pay a bit of that forward by leaning in the opposite direction and honoring the brilliance of his dynamic artistry, the beauty of his dazzling creative passion, and the simple sincerity--however wounded it may have been--of his love for his fellow human beings.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
(Michael Jackson giving it his all in concert around 1995)
The Blog Article:
TO WALK A LIFETIME IN MICHAEL JACKSON'S MOCCASINS
June 26, 2009, 12:56 pm - by Aberjhani
You probably can't read the words in the note next to the accompanying photo of Michael Jackson, but they were handwritten by the singer himself during the mid 1990s when he was constantly on tour and just as constantly a subject of much public ridicule and condemnation. This note was composed on hotel stationery and, complete with original spellings, grammar, and format, reads as follows:
"like the old Indian proverb says do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in wich most is not true, I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now." -Michael Jackson (circa 1995)
It's hard to think of Michael Joseph Jackson as having been a baby boomer because nothing defined him quite so much as his music, and his music possesses the eternal quality of genius that makes all superior art timeless, ageless, and endlessly compelling. But a baby boomer he was, born August 29, 1958, and now gone so soon to his rest June 25, 2009.
Reporting on Jackson's death just hours after it was confirmed, NBC News anchorman Lester Holt noted, "We were the same age. I remember being a ten-year-old watching this ten-year-old kid on television." A familiar feeling. I arrived on the planet one year before either of them but like Holt I also watched the young Michael Jackson on stage on television. My attention was fully captured with no desire to be released because there he was: a cultural mirror image of myself who was not the watermelon-eyed "Buckwheat" (all due respect to the actor who played that role) or a stereotypical barefoot "pickaninny" movie extra in some Gone With the Wind spin-off, but a little black boy musical genius so charged with the lightning of his talent and confidence that he could take the lead singer position with his four brothers behind him and an audience of thousands in front of him--and perform with all the grace, skill, and maturity of someone three times his age.
How did that kid do that? Living as I did in a southern region where black skin and a male anatomy often reduced one's life expectancy by decades, the answer of how that kid did what he did was important to this future author.
Years later I considered the greater scope of what he had achieved. While the vast majority of those in our peer group at age eleven or twelve were at home evenings studying for a quiz in school the next day or building up nerve to steal a first kiss, Michael Jackson was working--working in clubs, working in theaters, working on television, working in concert halls, working working working his ass off. On how many continents, and in how many countries, was that child a stranger in a strange land? Yet one who repeatedly channeled gifts of song and dance and love to bring respites of celebrated joy to the lives of others? His labors as a child played no small role in laying a foundation of lasting wealth for what has been called America's "preeminent family of pop music." Later on, those labors would pull a lagging recording industry out of its deathbed slump, and jump-start a new industry art form known as video while trashing racial barriers on TV and radio in the process. Did that make him a saint? No. Does it make his memory one worthy of respect? Most definitely.
Not all "child prodigies" who exhibit the level of talent that Jackson did as a child tend to fulfill the promise of those gifts in their adulthood. He was one of those who did. Once his ambition led him to pursue and establish with phenomenal results a solo career, each year thereafter when birthdays came around (his in August, mine in July) I started studying what he had accomplished to date and would challenge myself to do better in my own career. That's not to say I ever did, or even that I thought I could or should match him; only that his accomplishments motivated me to reach for some of my own.
The judgments of different critics aside, he outdid himself repeatedly: with the flawless album Off the Wall in 1979; the all-time bestselling Thriller in 1982; Bad in 1987; and Dangerous in 1991. By the time Jackson's HIStory-Past, Present and Future, Book I was released in 1995, I was managing a multi-media book, video, software and music store, which allowed me to indulge the pleasure of dancing along to the album's combination of anthology and new music while shelving and selling books. True, I was dancing to his life's soundtrack rather than my own and another three years would pass before my first book would get published. But: I celebrated this last album (not the last of his career) in particular because it was the first one released after the singer had descended into the tar-thick shadow-side of celebrity-hood: constant hounding by the paparazzi, reportedly "bizarre" behavior bordering on insanity, and allegations of pedophilia. The fact that his fame had become his cross made me less envious that he had achieved it so early.
Yet in the album HIStory, the purity of the music declared that whatever might or might not be the truth behind the scandalous headlines, all had somehow remained well with his soul. Whereas madness attempted to take over his life--and for a time possibly did--he fought and won his battle to turn it into superlative art. The new songs on HIStory presented his defense of himself even while going beyond that to champion the environment and level substantial social criticism of his own. It was around the time of HIStory's release that he wrote the above note and the photo that accompanies it was taken (my apologies for failing to track down the exact date or the photographer's name). When I saw them published in People Magazine, I cut the page out and placed it in a photo album, then said a prayer for this man whose voice had helped awaken my voice.
We human beings tend to demand that our heroes fulfill many fantasies, but one fantasy no hero can fulfill is perfection while in this world. They can make the effort to give as much of themselves to the global community as they can, and then beg forgiveness when the gifting isn't enough and the less appealing aromas of their humanity dim the air with the funky truth of their flesh and blood limitations. It was good that "the King of Pop" had been tested and learned something about his limitations in one major battle because he would need whatever strength he gained from it for other confrontations down the road. In the end, it was strength he was reaching for once again to begin his journey anew and do the one thing he did better than anybody else.
A lot of tabloids, magazines, websites, radio stations, entertainment personalities, and retail chains made tons of good hard cash peddling before the world what they presented as Michael Jackson's eccentricities and possible moral failings. Perhaps now that he has left the stage for the last time, they can pay a bit of that forward by leaning in the opposite direction and honoring the brilliance of his dynamic artistry, the beauty of his dazzling creative passion, and the simple sincerity--however wounded it may have been--of his love for his fellow human beings.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
(Michael Jackson giving it his all in concert around 1995)
The Blog Article:
TO WALK A LIFETIME IN MICHAEL JACKSON'S MOCCASINS
June 26, 2009, 12:56 pm - by Aberjhani
You probably can't read the words in the note next to the accompanying photo of Michael Jackson, but they were handwritten by the singer himself during the mid 1990s when he was constantly on tour and just as constantly a subject of much public ridicule and condemnation. This note was composed on hotel stationery and, complete with original spellings, grammar, and format, reads as follows:
"like the old Indian proverb says do not judge a man until you've walked 2 moons in his moccasins.
Most people don't know me, that is why they write such things in wich most is not true, I cry very very often because it hurts and I worry about the children all my children all over the world, I live for them.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Animals strike, not from malice, but because they want to live, it is the same with those who criticize, they desire our blood, not our pain. But still I must achieve I must seek truth in all things. I must endure for the power I was sent forth, for the world for the children.
But have mercy, for I've been bleeding a long time now." -Michael Jackson (circa 1995)
It's hard to think of Michael Joseph Jackson as having been a baby boomer because nothing defined him quite so much as his music, and his music possesses the eternal quality of genius that makes all superior art timeless, ageless, and endlessly compelling. But a baby boomer he was, born August 29, 1958, and now gone so soon to his rest June 25, 2009.
Reporting on Jackson's death just hours after it was confirmed, NBC News anchorman Lester Holt noted, "We were the same age. I remember being a ten-year-old watching this ten-year-old kid on television." A familiar feeling. I arrived on the planet one year before either of them but like Holt I also watched the young Michael Jackson on stage on television. My attention was fully captured with no desire to be released because there he was: a cultural mirror image of myself who was not the watermelon-eyed "Buckwheat" (all due respect to the actor who played that role) or a stereotypical barefoot "pickaninny" movie extra in some Gone With the Wind spin-off, but a little black boy musical genius so charged with the lightning of his talent and confidence that he could take the lead singer position with his four brothers behind him and an audience of thousands in front of him--and perform with all the grace, skill, and maturity of someone three times his age.
How did that kid do that? Living as I did in a southern region where black skin and a male anatomy often reduced one's life expectancy by decades, the answer of how that kid did what he did was important to this future author.
Years later I considered the greater scope of what he had achieved. While the vast majority of those in our peer group at age eleven or twelve were at home evenings studying for a quiz in school the next day or building up nerve to steal a first kiss, Michael Jackson was working--working in clubs, working in theaters, working on television, working in concert halls, working working working his ass off. On how many continents, and in how many countries, was that child a stranger in a strange land? Yet one who repeatedly channeled gifts of song and dance and love to bring respites of celebrated joy to the lives of others? His labors as a child played no small role in laying a foundation of lasting wealth for what has been called America's "preeminent family of pop music." Later on, those labors would pull a lagging recording industry out of its deathbed slump, and jump-start a new industry art form known as video while trashing racial barriers on TV and radio in the process. Did that make him a saint? No. Does it make his memory one worthy of respect? Most definitely.
Not all "child prodigies" who exhibit the level of talent that Jackson did as a child tend to fulfill the promise of those gifts in their adulthood. He was one of those who did. Once his ambition led him to pursue and establish with phenomenal results a solo career, each year thereafter when birthdays came around (his in August, mine in July) I started studying what he had accomplished to date and would challenge myself to do better in my own career. That's not to say I ever did, or even that I thought I could or should match him; only that his accomplishments motivated me to reach for some of my own.
The judgments of different critics aside, he outdid himself repeatedly: with the flawless album Off the Wall in 1979; the all-time bestselling Thriller in 1982; Bad in 1987; and Dangerous in 1991. By the time Jackson's HIStory-Past, Present and Future, Book I was released in 1995, I was managing a multi-media book, video, software and music store, which allowed me to indulge the pleasure of dancing along to the album's combination of anthology and new music while shelving and selling books. True, I was dancing to his life's soundtrack rather than my own and another three years would pass before my first book would get published. But: I celebrated this last album (not the last of his career) in particular because it was the first one released after the singer had descended into the tar-thick shadow-side of celebrity-hood: constant hounding by the paparazzi, reportedly "bizarre" behavior bordering on insanity, and allegations of pedophilia. The fact that his fame had become his cross made me less envious that he had achieved it so early.
Yet in the album HIStory, the purity of the music declared that whatever might or might not be the truth behind the scandalous headlines, all had somehow remained well with his soul. Whereas madness attempted to take over his life--and for a time possibly did--he fought and won his battle to turn it into superlative art. The new songs on HIStory presented his defense of himself even while going beyond that to champion the environment and level substantial social criticism of his own. It was around the time of HIStory's release that he wrote the above note and the photo that accompanies it was taken (my apologies for failing to track down the exact date or the photographer's name). When I saw them published in People Magazine, I cut the page out and placed it in a photo album, then said a prayer for this man whose voice had helped awaken my voice.
We human beings tend to demand that our heroes fulfill many fantasies, but one fantasy no hero can fulfill is perfection while in this world. They can make the effort to give as much of themselves to the global community as they can, and then beg forgiveness when the gifting isn't enough and the less appealing aromas of their humanity dim the air with the funky truth of their flesh and blood limitations. It was good that "the King of Pop" had been tested and learned something about his limitations in one major battle because he would need whatever strength he gained from it for other confrontations down the road. In the end, it was strength he was reaching for once again to begin his journey anew and do the one thing he did better than anybody else.
A lot of tabloids, magazines, websites, radio stations, entertainment personalities, and retail chains made tons of good hard cash peddling before the world what they presented as Michael Jackson's eccentricities and possible moral failings. Perhaps now that he has left the stage for the last time, they can pay a bit of that forward by leaning in the opposite direction and honoring the brilliance of his dynamic artistry, the beauty of his dazzling creative passion, and the simple sincerity--however wounded it may have been--of his love for his fellow human beings.
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
:ciao: qbee :give_rose:
This Thread is now UPDATED and can now be REPLACED with for the old one. I re-Posted stories on the first page so no other Posts have to be moved to insert the first page :agree::clapping::wild:
:ciao: No worries lovely no one is concerned about WHO's name remains on the Thread, but thanks for noting itk: Just wanted to replace the information is all that was asked i do believe and thanks :agree:
Note
The original thread is still in Legacy forum - Rather than MOVE good content and projects from legacy while you revamp. I have just brought a COPY in to revamp _ then it can be replaced when you are done.
For this thread an update is probably best rather then revamping the whole thing Its is evident The content and contributions of others above doesnt need to be removed or revamped
So in this thread - you can add your content to update it or edit you own posts in it. The original thread
should remain in Chosen Ones name
Re: The NEW Reflections of Michael Jackson : Articles, Blogs & Stories Thread
Bree if you need any action taken on a thread plase post the link in my MOVE MERGE ECT thread in the Stickies
That is the only place I will use .. to take any actions on a thread from now on ... That makes it easier for all
It seem you want to meerge but you dont make thet clear above .. so please type the link to this thread
in my Take action threads and exlain what you want me to do .. Merge with another link move etc etc
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