Lovely Michael Jackson Trbute today

Scruffybot

My friend pointed this out to me... very sad day but let's remember the good times!

Michael Joseph Jackson, the greatest musical phenomenon of our time & the undisputed King of Pop, will be finally laid to rest today, Thursday 3rd September 2009, at 7:00 PM PST.

The private ceremony - at Holly Terrace in The Great Mausoleum at Glendale Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California - will be limited to family and close friends.

Glasswerk reflects on one of the most tragic events in music history, and also the unsurpassable legacy left behind by his creative genius.

What where you doing when you heard the news? I guess most people will remember: such a tragic event off the Richter scale, comparable to the death of Princess Diana & Elvis, the assassination of JFK and John Lennon. I was watching The Wire when my best mate called me - and I was infuriated that he phoned me again during the episode (I had previously warned him not to ring me back unless it was something important, it's a Wire thing you see).

"Michael Jackson's dead, check the news." he said.

Like many of our generation and before, I grew up & was inspired; hook line and sinker, by his moves, music & incredible videos. At first I didn't believe it & immediately switched to Sky News who at that point had yet to confirm it. I still had hope. When I read it was celebrity website TMZ.com who made the initial announcement it made me think that the unthinkable may not be true, that he would somehow recover - such are the nature of Hollywood gossip sites. I had prayed this was some 'National Enquirer' style proclamation, that would soon be dismissed as a misreport - and that in fact he had just fallen and knocked himself out and would be back on his magical feet again within days. Minor concussion, not full cardiac arrest. A coma with some chance of survival at least, anything, but please not DEATH.

But within 20 minutes or so - the LA Times had confirmed via the Police Authorities that Michael Jackson, after over an hour of brave attempts to save his life by medical staff, had in fact died. I sat up and watched the story as it progressed; I had to turn off my phone because some of my pals were calling me, who actually work in the music business (playing 'dance music' as their careers ironically), 'chuckling' about the news. I just felt numb - utter shock came over me. Like nothing I had ever felt before, this event, that happened to a person who I had never met in my life - left me feeling at first senseless, then as the News began showing the back catalogue of his incredible musical legacy - I felt bereaved, despondent & just incredibly… sad. As the videos and tunes were played across News channels - I kept watching, completely transfixed & my mind was not allowing it to sink in. I could barely sleep that night such were the rolling mixture of emotions.

I'm sure many of his fans around the world felt the same, as John Mayer put it ever so exquisitely: “A major strand of our cultural DNA has left us,” he said on his Twitter. “RIP MJ. I think we’ll mourn his loss as well as the loss of ourselves as children listening to Thriller on the record player. I truly hope he is memorialized as the ‘83 moonwalking, MTV owning, mesmerizing, unstoppable, invincible Michael Jackson.” John also performed a beautiful rendition of Human Nature at the Memorial event, one of many emotional moments that reached it's zenith when his daughter Paris proclaimed her love for him before stating "He was the best father in the world". I have no shame in admitting this - but an automatism of tears rolled down my cheeks at that point, as it probably did for the billion plus people that tuned into the event.

Michael Jackson’s behaviors as an adult, especially in his post 30 years, were under constant scrutiny. He preferred the company of children & made his dream come true when he built Neverland. But what many people tend to overlook, was that Michael was an old soul as a child – like a factual Benjamin Button if you will. At 8 years old he sang songs like Smokey Robinson’s ‘Who’s Lovin’ You’ with the soul and anguish of someone who knew the pain of a life lived, not just beginning. Michael Jackson, at the age of 10 years, was having meetings behind his manager’s back with Berry Gordy, the CEO of Motown Records. He was a child having an executive meeting with the boss of one of the biggest and commercially successful record labels in the world. He wasn’t happy with how Motown were managing The Jackson 5 – he was already developing his ‘perfectionist’ attitude to everything, though this was probably due to the various cracks and whips he would receive from his manager, who was of course also his father Joseph Jackson – who demanded perfection in the most punishable of ways. Michael was clearly the most talented in the family, but also the most unforgiving of his father. He would get twice the beatings as the other brothers, because he fought back. Although Joseph gets blamed an awful lot for abusing Michael as a kid – Michael himself credits him as a ‘genius’ when it came to work ethics and management. It’s true that Joe Jackson got The Jackson 5 freed from Motown and signed to CBS records, a career defining move for that had he not, The Jackson 5 could have eventually become a novelty act, back to touring the ‘old circuit’ and maybe a bit of Vegas - like many acts on the Motown roster eventually did.

Although it wasn’t as straight forward as that – Jermaine Jackson remained loyal to Motown (he was married to Berry Gordy’s daughter after all) and because Joseph eagerly (but unwittingly) signed a 5 page contract with Motown without realising that Motown would own the full rights to the name of The Jackson 5 forever & that they would only receive a very small quantity of royalties (that were used to pay for the studio recording time anyway). In the end he got a bum deal for not reading the small print, Motown may have produced Jackson 5 mania at the beginning, 4 no.1 record-breaking singles (‘I Want You Back’, ‘ABC’, ‘The Love You Save,’ and ‘I'll Be There’) that were knocking the Beatles off the number one spots across the world – their captivating TV appearances & even their own cartoon was testament to the Jackson 5 empire Berry Gordy produced, but like most of his acts in his view, they had a short shelf life. Joe Jackson lost out in the short term and pretty much fell out with Berry Gordy, who at that point was turning his interest to movies anyway.

But what emerged from Motown was an incredibly marketable and talented boy band, with a standout cute little boy that was remarkably talented that many of the older generation like Diana Ross, predictably knew he would become “the biggest star in the world”. Michael released solo albums with Motown: ‘Got to be There’ – the lead single that further ensued him as an incredible soul singer. ‘Ben’ - which was released the following year & gave Michael his first number one single. The dainty but sweet ‘Music & Me’ followed but after the disappointing sales of his ‘Forever Michael’ album, Michael & The Jackson’s relationship with Motown was over.

With CBS/Epic Records the newly renamed The Jacksons had greater creative control over their material, something they always wished, in particular Michael. They endured a successful Victory tour & were back in the charts with ‘Dancing Machine’ – a track they produced themselves along with hits such as ‘Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)’ and ‘Can You Feel It’ (with Michael the lead songwriter).

Michael was growing up, he sprouted into a gangly young adult with a huge Afro and when he developed acne during his late teens his tortured soul demeanor was further aggrandised by his deep insecurity, born possibly from a disaffectionate & emotionally distant father, who constantly teased him about his looks. Michael was the ultimate Beta male – he adored his Mother & began to hate his father. Joe wasn’t faithful to Katherine Jackson, nor did he try to hide it much – and Michael never forgave him for it. While touring during The Jackson 5 mania Michael even hated his older brothers’ taking advantage of groupies, and at one point tried to intervene when a young lady was invited to Jermaine’s hotel room. He tipped the groupie on the shoulder and pleaded with her not to go near him, “because my older brothers don’t treat girls good.” She went anyway, and because Michael shared the room – he had to play ‘sleep’. Now I’m no psychologist, but to go through that at such a young age must have had a deep affect on his view of sex. He was repulsed by it then, and never seemed to change his attitude towards it as he got older.

Strong diva like women – like Diana Ross & Liz Taylor always appealed to Michael, and he loved their company. This may have been because of how he saw Katherine let Joseph treat her, but in the case of Diana Ross, just like James Brown; he was heavily influenced by her stage presence. Diana Ross has always publicly claimed to have discovered Michael (in fact it was a man called Bobby Taylor from Michael’s hometown in Gary, Indiana). But Michael didn’t mind, he already understood the importance of PR, plus he adored Diana Ross. And when in 1978 he joined her as part of the acting cast for the Afro-American remake of the Wizard of Oz, Michael met someone else on the set. The man was producing the movie’s score: Mr. Quincy Jones.

Michael got on very well with Quincy, so he asked him to produce his next solo album. And thus began Pop’s perfect partnership: over the next decade, ‘Off The Wall’ ‘Thriller’ & ‘Bad’ were the results of this meeting of minds – with Michael’s artistry finally being encouraged (rather than controlled by his father who by now had a lot less control as his manager) and it was these years that Michael went from superstar teenager to out-of-this-world megastar, more recognised than Jesus Christ, the biggest selling artist of all time, the best performer of all time, the most famous man on the planet & astonishingly one of the greatest humanitarians of all time too. He co-wrote ‘We Are The World’ with Lionel Richie, selling 20 million copies, inspiring Band Aid & raised over $35million for the famine in East Africa, he won as many awards for his charity work as for his music, which is quite frankly astonishing.

In music alone, Michael has been awarded:

(Awarding Body) – (amount won)

American Music Awards – 22

Billboard Awards – 40

BRIT Awards – 7

Golden Globe Awards - 1

Grammy Awards - 26

Guinness World Records -13

MTV Awards - 13

NAACP Image Awards - 14

RIAA Awards - 56

World Music Awards - 15

Through his group, solo, and family work, he became one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. Jackson's 13 Guinness World Records include one for "Most Successful Entertainer of All Time” with a sales tally of over 750 million units worldwide (which is constantly rising as a result of his untimely passing).

Winning numerous awards for his humanitarian endeavors, the singer has been honoured by two Presidents of the United States. He has also been named as the artist of "The Decade", "Generation", and "Century" and was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. Thriller has remained the biggest selling album of all time with reported current worldwide sales exceeding 130 million. Due to the late star’s passing, this will definitely be the best selling album in music forever – even if he had lived on this fact would probably still remain, such is the direction of music sales and the current environment.

His Dangerous LP (1991) & and HIStory (1995) albums also broke records despite Michael & Quincy departing as co-producers (although they remained great friends). After ‘Thriller’, ‘Dangerous’ (co-produced by Teddy Riley) is his second most successful album, outselling ‘Bad’. It was the first album ever to spawn eight consecutive UK Top 20 hits. It was also Jackson's fastest-selling album ever in the United States with four million shipped in less than two months. Like his other albums, it won countless awards, burying any cynics’ belief that Michael Jackson’s career achievements were underplayed by the co-production work by Quincy Jones. He then recorded ‘HIStory’ in 1995, which broke further records and became the biggest selling multiple disc album ever, with worldwide sales of over 20 million. Invincible was then released in 2001, and although considered a flop (it ‘only’ sold 13 million copies) this was more due to the circumstances with Michael’s contract with Sony, and lack of a tour or promotion for the album. And although critically the reviews were less favourable than his previous work, Bernard Zuel of The Sydney Morning Herald stated:

"Holly Valance or Delta Goodrem would think their Christmases’ had come at once if they sold five or six million copies of their albums worldwide. Michael Jackson did something similar in the past two years with his solo album, Invincible, and he's been branded a failure in the industry and the media. Unfair? Yes, of course, because his Invincible figures are better than those for 95 per cent of the thousands of artists released each year and would provide a healthy retirement fund for anyone. What's more, that failure tag is consistently applied by comparisons with his 1982 album, Thriller, which has sold about 100 million copies and its follow-ups, Bad, that sold about 30 million copies. However, selling 10 million copies is still phenomenal compared to the album sales of most artists."

Reviews of Invincible were generally favorable, but there was a consensus that it was one of Jackson's least impressive records, mostly because of its long length (nearly 80 minutes). Allmusic gave the record three out of five stars saying, "Ultimately, the record runs too long, losing steam halfway through... It's not enough to make Invincible the comeback Jackson needed... but it does offer a reminder that he can really craft good pop".

So ‘This Is It’ as we all know was to be the biggest comeback concert ever. Over one million people would have attended in total over the 50 shows. Randy Phillips, president and chief executive of AEG Live, stated that the first 10 dates alone would have earned the singer approximately £50 million. Originally 10 concerts were announced, however public demand resulted in a 50 date sold out residency. Ticket sales broke several records (again) and AEG Live stated that Jackson could have sold more dates. Jackson's album sales increased following the announcement. They were scheduled to begin in July 2009 and continue through March 2010.

Less than three weeks before the first show was due to begin and with all concerts being sold out, Jackson died of cardiac arrest. In his death he continues to break records, too many to mention. He’s already sold over 10 million since the 25th June 2009 as people like myself rediscover the magic that some of us may have taken for granted the last 10 years or so. Michael was a tortured soul too sensitive for this world & was certainly a lonely man. And while millions of tributes have come from stars like Stevie Wonder, Quincy Jones, Q-Tip, Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy, Justin Timberlake, Steven Spielberg etc... it's actually Ireland's own Mick Pyro from Republic of Loose, one of the few Irish artists who has been influenced by Michael Jackson that sums it up perfectly for me. He stated in HotPress magazine last month:

"The calibre of his artistry I don't think will be recognised for hundreds of years, even though he was being perceived as being great in his time: the levels of achievement in terms of what he did with his singing and dancing - it's my belief he's the best singer who ever sang on record. I would have loved to hear him make an album with another cutting edge producer, someone like Timbaland or that kind of calibre, 'cos the only people you can compare Michael with in the 20th century were people like Louis Armstrong, James Brown & Miles Davis. He was far beyond Elvis".

And that is it - we don't know what is more upsetting, the fact that he is gone or the blunt realisation that there will never be anyone like him again. Michael Jackson was one-of-a-kind. Thank you for your legacy and your wonderful moves & music; you have influenced just about everybody in contemporary popular culture & through that you are forever immortal.

Michael, May you finally Rest in Peace X

Dublinproud

Thanks for posting.His music will always live on.RIP Michael.

Gone but never forgotten.