Michael Jackson: A Life?
200 Responses
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...oh, and if you absolutely can't live another second without the extremely wonderful mp3 of the remix of 'I Want You Back' by Konishi Yasuharu (linked to in the fourfour blog) - and you don't have QuickTime Pro, you can download it from this blog - together with a bunch of other remixes I'm currently in the process of investigating...
<smallvoice>How do I embed a YouTube video on here? My preview's showing all the code and I don't want to press "Go" in case it all comes out wrong. Is there a trick to it? Should you maybe have a "help" page on the site to answer potentially dumb questions like this one, Russell?</smallvoice>
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webweaver, as long as it has a 'www' in it, you can just paste the YouTube url and it will automatically embed.
(I'm pleased people like Rich's writing on fourfour. He also does two of my favourite things on the internet: hilarious America's Next Top Model recaps, and Jezebel's fortnightly feature Pot Psychology, in which he and his friend Tracie get stoned and play agony aunts. He manages to float pretty seamlessly between the trivial and the thoughtful. And his screencapping talents are peerless.)
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Webweaver (and Danielle) I'll see that extremely wonderful 'I Want You Back' remix and raise you a truly gorgeous Frankie Knuckles remix of 'Rock With You'.
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I don't believe he was a child molester, I think he related to children as a child himself, and this way of being ...
I think that's a bit of a rosy view, although I certainly agree that his non-childhood (and weird and abusive father, etc) is responsible for the troubled man he became.
The court case properly ended in an acquittal (the children's family's testimony was all over the place), but it revealed a man you would not lightly leave with children. Who keeps pornography in a room set aside for visiting children? And not just porn -- lots and lots of it, everywhere in the room. It was not a good look.
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And to bring us from the sublime to the utterly, utterly ridiculous (which is perhaps a metaphor for Michael's life), here is Liza Minnelli singing 'You Are Not Alone' complete with wobbly voice, crazy pointing, and cheesy choir.
(I truly love poor old batshit Liza. When she goes I'm going to cry my eyes out. Cabaret is one of my favourite films ever.)
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My friend Dave has also posted this great breakdown of Michael's vocal technique in 'I Want You Back'. He argues that Michael's using vocal bits from Smokey, Levi Stubbs and Marvin Gaye, amongst others, to create a kind of uber-Motown synthesis which was irresistible. (I love these kinds of analyses, for I am a nerd.)
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The sublime Drew Friedman's Jacko.
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Who keeps pornography in a room set aside for visiting children?
Yeah, that's... not good. Did he also have an 'adults are coming' alarm, or was that just a rumour?
He was a hot mess, as they say.
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I'm starting to think Sony/BMG paid off the doctor.
Sony bought out BMG last year. it's back to plain old Sony Music again.
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The inevitable Iran-protests-and-Jacko-together-in-one-great-clip:
Shame 'They Don't Care About Us' is such a horrible song ...
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If Sony had paid off the doctor, you can bet they would have got the rights for the unreleased songs first. ;-)
Will be interesting, though, to see what label they are eventually released on.
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A few more thoughts:
1) Thanks for the Frankie Knuckles remix, Russell - it's gorgeous.
2) You are right, I do have a rosy view - I suppose I want to think the best of him - and his behaviour was certainly well outside "normal" in so many ways - but I just can't get past the fact that his completely unreal life - for almost his entire life - took him far away from reality and into a place that I don't think anyone could survive unscathed. Where that actually took him in terms of his relationships with children will always, I suppose, remain the subject of speculation.
3) Thanks also for the Iran/MJ mashup - very cool
4) What do you mean, 'They Don't Care About Us' is a horrible song? I think it's a great song! Damn! We're not going to agree on very much today, are we :) Personally I prefer the "Brazilian" version to the "Prison" version - but that's because I'm a Batucada drummer, so I'm ever-so-slightly biased...
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Elvis Presley's daughter responds to former husband Michael Jackson's death, on her MySpace blog ... freaky.
Excerpts:
I can't recall the exact subject matter but he may have been questioning me about the circumstances of my Fathers Death.
At some point he paused, he stared at me very intensely and he stated with an almost calm certainty, "I am afraid that I am going to end up like him, the way he did."
I promptly tried to deter him from the idea, at which point he just shrugged his shoulders and nodded almost matter of fact as if to let me know, he knew what he knew and that was kind of that.
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I am going to say now what I have never said before because I want the truth out there for once.
Our relationship was not "a sham" as is being reported in the press. It was an unusual relationship yes, where two unusual people who did not live or know a "Normal life" found a connection, perhaps with some suspect timing on his part. Nonetheless, I do believe he loved me as much as he could love anyone and I loved him very much.
I wanted to "save him" I wanted to save him from the inevitable which is what has just happened.
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At that time, In trying to save him, I almost lost myself.
He was an incredibly dynamic force and power that was not to be underestimated.When he used it for something good, It was the best and when he used it for something bad, It was really, REALLY bad.
Mediocrity was not a concept that would even for a second enter Michael Jackson's being or actions.
I became very ill and emotionally/ spiritually exhausted in my quest to save him from certain self-destructive behavior and from the awful vampires and leeches he would always manage to magnetize around him.
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Wow - that's pretty heartfelt.
Here's an interesting perspective from Paul Morley in the Guardian:
The untimely, shady death of Michael Jackson
You could take your pick as to which Jackson you want to remember, which version of the monster, or the genius, or the dissolving man behind the mask. He was everywhere, but now that death had returned his full transfixing powers as a spinning, gliding master of self-publicity, any truth about who he really was and what he'd been up to was shattered into a thousand glittering pieces. Once we stayed up late to watch the exciting premier of the Thriller video. Now we stayed up late to watch another form of extraordinary choreography intended to turn one fascinating, paranoid, fiendishly otherworldly entertainer into an immortal.
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It was immediately clear that the nature and timing of this end had been coming for such a long time. Even while the whole thing was disconcerting and in the middle of it all someone had actually died, it was also the most obvious thing in the world. Now that it had arrived, this punchline to all the scintillating music and living, seedy chaos, everyone knew their place, as if Jackson's final mortal act as extreme self-obsessed entertainment illusionist was to ensure that the news of his death was itself a kind of glittering if slightly tawdry spectacle.
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Joe Jackson takes this very special opportunity to plug some Blu-Ray discs. What an absolute peach of a man.
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And am I the only person who, finding it hard to miss the wall-to-off the wall Jackson videos, found a lot of them deeply creepy? As he gold older the blend of infantilism, awkward attempts at adult sexuality and the cocktail of persecution mania and megalomania was the psychosexual equivalent of a Michael Bay film -- you get a sugar rush from high-end pyrotechnics but the after taste isn't very pleasant.
Joe Jackson takes this very special opportunity to plug some Blu-Ray discs. What an absolute peach of a man.
Not so much a father as a corporate pimp.
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The weirdest thing I found out about Jackson after his demise is that he had a patent for shoes that allowed him to tilt on stage.
I've posted details here.
I want me some of them shoes.
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Reports are AEG have a full live rehearsal 'concert' for the London dates shot in HD and in the can...
Michael Jackson's final rehearsal for his London concert tour was recorded in high definition video and audio on the eve of his death -- and could be released as the King of Pop's final album, sources said Sunday.
The rehearsals at the Staples Center in Los Angeles were taped by concert promotion company AEG Live to produce an album and DVD of what Jackson had billed his "final performance" tour called "This Is It," according to Sharon Waxman of the Hollywood blog TheWrap.com.
One AEG official boasted to a colleague this weekend, "We have a live album in the can," Waxman writes.
Jackson had failed to appear at many of the scheduled rehearsals in Los Angeles over the past two months, but he was there for an "electric" full rehearsal on the night before his death. -
Not so much a father as a corporate pimp.
And a violent abuser with it.
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but he was there for an "electric" full rehearsal on the night before his death.
OK, I want proof that he's actually dead, how do we know that Lisa Marie hasn't persuaded her dad to billet him while the coffers fill.
Took me months to decide Princess Di hadn't done a runner actually.
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Did anyone else see this?
Seems the first two kids at least, aren't biologically Jackson's.
Or, uh... did everyone else know this?
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Hey, I just watched The Odessa File. I know how easy it is to get a new passport. Somewhere in Argentina, there are a couple of terrifyingly old Nazi war criminals, Elvis P., Diana, and MJ.
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Meanwhile, the French media remain tactful and restrained.
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Meanwhile, the French media remain tactful and restrained.
Superb.
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Somewhere in Argentina, there are a couple of terrifyingly old Nazi war criminals, Elvis P., Diana, and MJ.
I'll cruise Foxton Beach to check they're not all cribbing with Lord Lucan.
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