Comments (13)

• Really? How much work has Michael Jackson done since his death?

  Comment by RC1 — October 26, 2009 @ 11:14 am  Reply to this post

• The This Is It album is a greatest hits compilation, with the exception of the (weak) title track. No live versions or film performances will be on there. So just about every human being on the planet has “sampled one or more songs” from it. I do wonder about that 48% number. If these are new fans, are they under 20’s, who barely ever experienced Michael Jackson as a hitmaking musician during his lifetime? If so, that’s pretty interesting.

  Comment by Sini — October 26, 2009 @ 12:29 pm  Reply to this post

• What’s the difference between a dead michael jackson and a dead cow? You can’t milk a dead cow.

  Comment by Yer Mama — October 26, 2009 @ 4:38 pm  Reply to this post

• @RC1: what are you, a grammarian, lol?

  @Sini: correction – THIS IS IT cd has 3 unreleased demos (She’s Out of My Life, Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’, Beat It) + poem Planet Earth, as well as 2 versions of This Is It (the stripped down version is better).

  I read the “60% sampling” comment to mean sampling the orchestral This Is It version since that was the only one released fm. the album that was new. Why would any sample the tracks which were released long ago?

  Comment by Ligaya — October 26, 2009 @ 9:23 pm  Reply to this post

• That 48% stat may not be off the mark: MTV/VH1/BET & like tv/radio stations played MJ videos/music 24/7 virtually non-stop 4 at least a week. Media/internet coverage, memorial, tributes galore, awards shows, pop culture has been saturated w/MJ. First few weeks after he died, I was on Amtrak & kids were listening to him on their iPods; I couldn’t go into a store w/o hearing him. PEOPLE WHO’VE NEVER HEARD OF MJ now know who he is, heard his music, probably went to YouTube & saw his videos.

  Anecdotal: Daughter says MJ’s really popular @ college. Hubby & I (late 50s) went to all MJ night @ Boz Scaggs’ club in SF, *most* of the people there were 20-somethings! 20-something barista liked my MJ- profile-silhouette tee; she was looking for an MJ design 4 a tattoo. @ post office, woman next to me talking @ 5 y.o. son crazed w/MJ’s music, dancing to it all the time, postal clerk said same w/his 9 y.o. daughter, she MJ 4 Halloween. Whole new *YOUNG* generation discovering MJ.

  Comment by Ligaya — October 26, 2009 @ 10:01 pm  Reply to this post

• You are an idiot if you think 48% is an exaggerated number; really clown 48% does not tell the true story of what will happen the next two weeks. You losers haven’t figured it out yet that MJ’s Fan base of millions never left him and MJ had meetings and parties with his fan bases all over the world for the last ten years. You uninformed folks will learn the power of MJ starting tomorrow. You the best kept secret is the fact that MJ sold each month as many CDs as the folks who currently have new music on the chart and he has only release one new album in 2001 and complilation CD’s in 2002, 2003 and 2005! MJ had an income of millions that came in every year-so while you haters and media thought he was gone, washed up and done-MJ was recording new music, doing videos, working with some of his favorite producer, and most importantly he was raising his children which was his highest priority. I love our intimate time with MJ when the media was looking because you alll thought he was done after 2005 verdict and your label phedophile!

  Please sit back Sini as* and learn a few things because you are ignorant of the WAYS OF THE WORLD! MJ rule the music business and you will learn what the other entertainer already know if you cross a MJ fan, life in the music business and entertainment is not going to be pleasant for you. Tag you are it Paul Anka!

  Comment by KissMJbackside — October 26, 2009 @ 11:16 pm  Reply to this post

• i cant wait to see michael jacskons movie… r.i.p. king of pop

  Comment by dievie — October 27, 2009 @ 6:08 am  Reply to this post

• Well, they’re great songs. I’m just happy people are hearing them. Speaking of great songs, you HAVE to watch this new video for “They Don’t Care About Us” – http://www.yeahoyeah.com/mjvideo.aspx?id=2348

  Comment by Lu Galasso — October 27, 2009 @ 10:43 am  Reply to this post

• I am happy a whole group of fans are discovering the magic of Michael Jackson. The media tried to bring him down with all their witch hunts, yet in death, he is bigger than he has ever been.

  I have bought my ticket for tomorrow and I am looking forward to seeing it.

  Comment by Indie — October 27, 2009 @ 11:52 am  Reply to this post

• Agreed. If anything good can be said, it’s that a new generation of fans are falling in love with MJ. I’m sure his legacy will be comparable to Elvis or John Lennon’s. I’m so excited to watch the film on Friday and I’m going to get the concert film’s album.

  Comment by Debut.com — October 27, 2009 @ 4:40 pm  Reply to this post

• I still don’t care.

  Comment by Anonymous — October 27, 2009 @ 11:05 pm  Reply to this post

  • Then why are you on here, “Anonymous.”

    Ignorant a**.

    Comment by Kela — November 10, 2009 @ 2:57 pm  Reply to this post

• While it is undoubtedly important that Michael’s achievements are celebrated, I believe it is also important we should not forget why we are speaking about him in the past tense. His early death was not a given. It was hastened into being by the calculated and systematic erosion and degradation of his vitality, career and spirit, by the Tom Sneddon’s punitive legal pursuit of him and the sustained media attacks he endured from 1993 onwards. No other modern artist has ever been so mistreated or dehumanized to the extent Michael Jackson was – and it is important that those responsible are held accountable.
  Something rotten has been happening in the heart of our media for a while now, but it has taken the death of one of its ‘favourite page-fillers’ to expose the reality of what the cumulative effects of a sustained mental and emotional attack on a person actually looks like. This is our media and it is we, not ‘they’ or ‘the government’ who must now sound the alarm and attempt to tame the beast that the media has – without doubt,become. It must surely now be apparent that the existing regulatory checks and balances within the media are totally inadequate,and further, that those monitoring capabilities are unable to prevent the now standard ‘take aim’ and ‘destroy’ default position the media now typically seems to operate from, in relation to the subjects it impunes. What I am calling for is more than the vindication of Michael Jackson’s name and an end to the implicit and explicit innuendos which accompany any mention of him in the press. What I am calling for is bigger than that – it is about a greater, more responsible and humane treatement of all people in the media regardless of who they are. It is a call for greater observance of fact within the media, and an understanding of the effects the media as a whole has on our psyche – and on those it ‘goes after.’ We are participating in the growth of the destructive elements in the media whether we know it or not, and I believe it is not only within our power to now be asking questions about what we expect and demand from our media, but that is now vital we begin the process of redefining and revisualizing what our media can – and should be.

  Would I be be fighting for this, if it was just about the music Michael made? Of course not. It is important that anyone who reads this understands that. The worldwide vindication movement isn’t about excusing serious crimes because of Michael’s talent – no matter how extraordinary that talent was – such an idea is abhorrent. No, the reason why I am part of the worldwide movement for the vindication of Michael’s name is simply this: Michael Jackson committed no crimes against children, yet for many his name is synonymous with this. I am not denying that Michael had sleepovers or entertained children or even that he cuddled them or showed them platonic affection – he, himself has said he did this. What he refuted and what I believe and know, was that this ‘affection’ was not in any way sexually toned, initiated or conceived; but instead, was an extension and natural expression of Michael’s empathy with children and his innate generosity and child-like personality. The realities of Evan Chandler’s and Janet Arviso’s abuse of their children’s innocence and their blatant deceit as to the nature of their children’s relationship with Michael Jackson, were distorted and manipulated by Tom Sneddon and certain key individuals, namely, Diane Dimond, lawyers Mr Rothman and Feldman, Maureen Orth and the Smoking Gun online tabloid magazine; each of whom asked no questions as to the motives of Michael’s accusers, or allocated any meaningful copy to investigating the actual facts of either accusation. This would be done, years later, after irrevocable damage had already been set in motion and sustained by Michael Jackson, by Aphrodite Jones, Geraldine Hughes and Thomas Meseraeu – amongst others. It is worth nothing that several objective Attorneys and monitoring bodies within the American Criminal Justice system, observing the prosecutorial pursuit of Mr Jackson have gone on record to comment on the substantial abuse and overstepping of position, process and law by Tom Sneddon and his department – not least of which the millions of public money spent searching for other so-called ‘victims’ of Michael Jackson, and the harassment of parents who refused to ‘co-operate’ with the heavy handed tactics of Sneddon’s investigation team – who, many of the parents have said – used highly coercive and intimidatory methods to get their children to say they had been abused by Mr Jackson – when they had clearly not been. The statements I am making are visible, readable and are a matter of public record. I agree, that at first glance, the descriptions of the relentless careerism of the ex-District Attorney – Tom Sneddon, the attorneys – Feldman and Rothman who were consulted by both the Chandler’s and the Arviso’s, the collusion of ‘journalists’ Diane Dimond, Maureen Orth, Nancy Grace and The Smoking Gun online magazine with Sneddon’s department and the larger than life personas of Evan Chandler and Janet Arviso’s; – can, to cynical minds – seem more like characters in some wishful melodrama concocted by partisan fans who refuse to see any wrongdoing or guile on the part of Michael Jackson – but this is not the case. What I am asking people to do is not just accept the hand-feeding of hearsay, distortion and innunedo which has, for years, been doled out by television networks, newspapers, tabloids and online sites – who, are by the way, all sourcing the same information and simply repeating it ad infinitum. I am asking people to read the actual court and trial transcripts – not just the selected quotes that appeared on ‘The Smoking Gun’; I am asking people to read the background of the accusers and their previous ‘history’ of alleging sexual abuse in legal cases, which – again, are publicly available. Read for yourself the non-publicity of the testimony of numerous social workers and abuse specialists who denied that Michael Jackson fitted any known profile of an abuser. Please read Mary A Fischer’s award winning article ‘Was Michael Jackson Framed?’ and read the archives of the trial reporting in the American Law Journal People v Jackson 2005; please also read Aphrodite Jones’s book ‘ The Michael Jackson Conspiracy’ – and make up your own mind about Michael Jackson.

  If people are so sure of Michael Jackson’s guilt (and I dispute that many people do believe that) – what harm can there be in asking the difficult questions, in trying to unravel for yourself the reasons why a supernovic talent and proven humanitarian – albeit one with a undoubtedly hard-to-relate-to personality and glaring body-dysmorphic issues which served to objectify him further in the mind of the American public; was systematically and willfilly humiliated, tortured and stripped of his human rights for over 15 years – and more importantly, why this was actively encouraged. The life this gentlest of souls endured, unimaginable by most people’s standards, was a life of unmitigated trauma and agonizing pain. If he had endured only this, and not made the incredibly, beautiful music he made, Michael Jackson would be a hero, but to have endured what he did and still to have ‘given’ what he did on a humanitarian level – is nothing short of remarkable. But I don’t want to get caught up in adjectives. What I write here isn’t about making heroes out of dead men, but about asking why the right questions weren’t asked by the people the American taxpayer pays to ask those questions.

  One day Michael’s children will ask the questions their family are dreading. They will ask why their father died and what led him there. They will ask what their father did that made an entire country not only turn their back on him, but take away his rights as a human being. His children will deserve to know those answers. I believe those answers should amount to more than the gossip and corrupted copy that has for so long been perpetrated by the media.

  I believe those answers should be the truth.

  Comment by Deborah Ffrench — November 11, 2009 @ 8:19 am  Reply to this post