Do NOT get me started.
I really can’t think of a single song of his, except Beat It. I really hated that one, still do. So much for his so-called legacy. I’m sorry he died, but he doesn’t warrant all the hoopla.
It’s sort of humorous reading people here attempting to downplay Jackson’s standing in the entertainment industry. His accomplishments in the music industry speak for themselves, really.
You obviously have not learned your pop culture lessons yet. Sentence yourself to 100 hours of MSM watching until cured or insane, whichever comes first...
Sammy Davis did this, back when there was REAL discrimination, when black people weren't even allowed to watch at the same Vegas shows as white people. He went from sleeping in segregated hotel rooms to sleeping in the main buildings with everybody else, and he did it 40 years ago in the face of actual violence and bigotry. By the time he was in his heyday and most popular, the hard-core bigotry in the US was history.
Bill Cosby went from small time venues to TV, to big theaters to being a multimillionaire who has the political capital to turn right around and lecture the "black community" that they need to stop blaming the Man and start condemning their own druggy ways and moral-less rap music, but of course, that never even blips on Sharpton's radar, because that is a call to work hard and gain respect of everyone not because of the color of your skin but because you make your own way in the world by your own hard work. And Sharpton lives off the dispair of others.
Both these men came though the hard times by showing us that black people were just...people. They destroyed the false gods of race hate by being the best they could be, not by rhyming fancy words and grabbing their crotch. They won fame by hard work, not by being flat out crazy and wearing one glove. They were performers; Micheal Jackson was far less...he was only a celebrity.
Do NOT get me started.
Never bought a single record of his, and never even felt tempted to go to one of his concerts. I did enjoy watching the thriller video at the time though, and thought moon walking was a pretty neat invention of his (at least until I learned later that he just stole the technique from mimes and actors on stage)
“Am I the only person in the world not moved by or concerned with the death of Michael Jackson?”
No, you’re not. Everybody I’ve heard discussing it feels the same.
Genius didn’t apply to Jackson. Great did, in regards to certain things - his dancing and his music. He was a great dancer and his music pretty much defined the 80’s.
Other than that, the man was a pervert who was a physical and mental wreck.
All these people talking about how MJ’s sales are the greatest ever when they don’t realize he isn’t even in the top THREE in total albums sold! 1) Beatles, 2) Elvis Presley, 3) George Strait!
But, beyond that, let’s not limit our view to thinking that sales are what makes you great! Debbie Gibson was the number one selling “artist” in one year, does that make her the GREATEST for that year? No, it meant she had a great PR team and was pushed like no other!
Don’t get me wrong, I like MJ. I grew up on some of his music, and I own several of his albums (yes, those round things you play with a needle). BUT, I own more albums and CDs of each of the following entertainers: Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Sammy Davis, Jr. and Charlie Pride!
Want to talk about barriers - Charlie Pride won COUNTRY Music Entertainer of the Year in 1971! And Top Male Country Vocalist 1971 & 1972! From, I think, 1969 through 1972 he had eight straight number one country singles! THAT was a barrier! First black entertainer at the Grand Ole Opry since 1925!
Was he good, yes. Was he great, some people think so. Was he the greatest, not even close!
Michael Jackson was a great entertainer, up until the release of his album “Thriller”, which in my opinion, wasn’t nearly as good as his previous album, “Off The Wall”.
“Thiller” was where he made the turn from actually singing (which he could do ably), to all of the cooing, screaming, and whining that characterized his later “style”.
Much of what MJ was, was a wholly manufactured publicity creation. In my view, his later public persona mirrored the freakish twist in his vocal styling.
His 2001 album (I forget the title) had some of the old MJ magic on it, though I felt the songwriting and arrangements fell short of being up to the level of the Quincy Jones production on “Off The Wall”.
I’ve got mixed feelings about the guy, much as I do about most Hollywood personalities. I love the output of most of the bigger-than-life stars, but can’t stomach their opinions or the way they conduct their lives.
Artists in general are known to have weirder lives than normal people, and their opinions, publicly expressed, often tend to cast ugly shadows over them.
Even though Jackson attempted to live reclusively, his strangeness and perversion couldn’t be contained. His high profile court cases, and the Martin Bashir documentary broke the last remaining veil of secrecy on his bizarre private life.
For what it’s worth, he was utterly damaged goods in most people’s minds after all that. Mine included.
I believe that Al was misquoted; what he really said that it was acceptable for a black entertainer to rise to the top as a white woman.
B-!! S5!T
Most telling to me is that Michael Jackson didn’t want his Father to have custody of his kids.
I think old Joe Jackson was a total SOB, who rode a very BIG gravy train for a number of years.
At the ages of both Joe and Katherine, why should they get control of those kids and the money?
I sure hope Michael had a will. It might make the legal wrangling get cut short.
Wonder how soon after Joe is gone that LaToya and Janet will tell all in their books?
Joe strikes me as a common grifter...
Sharpton is talking about jumping on any vehicle that has a camera at one end and will accept his "quotes" at the other. Publicity whore?
Jacko is a pop music icon, but pop music is the bush leagues of music. The king of pop still doesn’t measure up to a gifted serious musician..
Pop, popular, populist, all these words are synonymous with easy, obvious, shallow, weak and trivial.