Michael Jackson: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Michael Jackson...

The GOOD

Since his sudden and surprising death, I have gone back and listened to The Jackson 5, The Jacksons, and Michael's solo work. I had not bothered to listen to most of these tracks in many years. Michael was many things, but first and foremost he was a brilliant singer. His voice makes the early Jackson 5 tracks stand out and transcend a lot of other pop music of the same period. Michael's young voice cuts through the mix and truly inspires the listener. His voice had the energy, pitch control, phrasing and all those qualities that define a superstar vocalist. These Jackson 5 recordings are so full of hooks that once you rediscover these tracks, warning... you may become addicted to the recordings... they are that powerful. Why is this good? Well, that's the magic of music... it moves the soul and words cannot adequately describe the sensations you feel.

Michael continued to achieve greater and greater heights in dance music expression. Culminating with the album heard 'round the world... a work of genius by producer Quincy Jones and performer Michael... THRILLER... Michael made sure he would have a permanent place in the history of popular music. He made it into the top level of pop music legends and in doing so, brought joy and happiness to hundreds of millions and perhaps one to two billion people. Only The Beatles and Elvis are in that category. If you think it is easy enough to get there... you try it.

WE ARE THE WORLD was perhaps the greatest moment of all, for Michael. He was at the top of his form, the top of the pop music game, and he led this project with Lionel Richie and his beloved producer Quincy Jones, who famously instructed all the pop superstars in attendance "leave your ego at the door". This message... put your ego aside... and the charitable giving of the project made it like the angelic shining light of Jackson's heart sending waves of love around the world. This was like The Beatles doing "All You Need Is Love" for the largest satellite TV audience of their day, but on an even more spectacular scale and producing untold millions of dollars for charity.

THE BAD

Obviously, from news reports, Jackson was troubled from many angles by the smiling faces, the backstabbers, every financial parasite, leech and opportunist imaginable. Anyone would go a little crazy with the unbelievable pressure of defending oneself against all the social climbing predators who continually came out of the woodwork like monsters in THRILLER. Many of them were wolves in sheep's clothing. If Michael failed to see through them, they would take a piece of his pie sometimes in the tens of millions.

The insane contract for 50 concerts would place a level of anxiety on any performer that would be one hell of a cross to bear and simply too much for anyone to attempt. Ask any Broadway performer if a string of 50 show dates would be grueling and I think I know the answer. That's a level of pressure I don't think any of us can comprehend. He was bound to have some if not all of the critics of his London shows sharking for negatives... adding to the pressure of living up to legendary standards.

The allegations of child molestation were and are still very troubling. We may never know how true or false the allegations were. It's a dark mystery that tarnishes his place in history.

Plastic surgery that went too far, ruining Jackson's popularity among the worldwide African descent community. Reshaping his nose, the artficial cleft in the chin, the anglo skin lightening and all the other reshaping in order to appear more like Peter Pan... poor decision-making, vanity, ego, insecurity... another tarnish on Michael's place in history. The creepiest thing about all the plastic surgery was that in his final rehearsals, Michael looked more and more like Heath Ledger's The Joker. Sad fate that Michael apparently died from an accidental overdose of prescription drug just like Ledger. A dark coincidence.

Erratic behavior... hanging his child over an upper story balcony railing... jumping on stage to collect an award before being introduced... doing a lifetime achievement award acceptance speech not realizing he was not the one being awarded... spending sprees that sinfully turn a back on the world's poor... prescription drug addiction... the poor choice of acquiring a hospital setting only anaesthetic for home use, an act that in retrospect was like a 'soft suicide', a pushing of the edge of the envelope to the boundary of life and death where one so foolishly daring might never come back... a sad end to a brilliant career.

THE UGLY

News reports have put Michael's debts at around $400 million. He was once worth an estimated $700 million. How can someone blow that much money when most of the world suffers in poverty?

Buying into the "king" thing and putting that royalty nonsense onto his kids, naming them Prince this and Prince that. C'mon now, this "king of pop" thing was a marketing tag used to sell magazines and stuff... it was not something to be taken seriously, yet it seems that Michael took it very seriously, making the pure narcissism and vanity aspect of Michael's twisted celebrity status add to the mental case picture towards the end. Ego can get in the way of almost everything and bring down an otherwise good person. Was it ego that motivated Michael to use surrogates and donors to have intentionally motherless children?

The crass commercialization of the Michael Jackson myth is now well underway. Scrambles and grabs for money made by marketing, merchandising and so forth will feed the greed of materialists. It will somehow get ugly... and in the next couple of years, we will see how greedy companies and individuals can be.

REST IN PEACE

Michael... thanks for all the great, great lead vocals. Man, you made so many pop music recordings touch our hearts. Thank you for getting us out there on the dance floor... no one danced better than you, but we were moved to dance to your music at one time or another in our lives and it was fun. We are grateful for your inspiring messages of love that were the heart of many of your songs. When you helped produce WE ARE THE WORLD, you came into the circle of Gandhi, MLK, and other legends of world peace.

For all the love generated by you around the world, Michael Jackson, rest in peace with our love lifting you up.

[edit on 7-7-2009 by switching yard]

[edit on 7-7-2009 by switching yard]

This has been so over done in the media and is still the main focus of the media which I think many are very sick of hearing about. Ok he had a tremendous impact on pop music...Great...and now he is dead just like every other celebrity that died as well. Now let it go already!!!!!! this has gotten completly out of hand already for gods sake!!!! HES DEAD!!!!! MOVE ON!!!!

[edit on 7/7/2009 by CaptGizmo]

You take MJ way too seriously. Bottom line he was just another stupid entertainer who got rich off all the idiots in america.

reply to post by Make Speed Limit 45


Dont you mean idiots around the world? I hardly think that America has the only hand in providing the financial means to this man. In fact, if im not mistaken a HUGE portion of his tours and sales came from outside the U.S

BOOOO

I thought about this the other day and I guess I might compare him to Howard Hughes. MJ was driven......insane or eccentric by his own pop_u_larity and life experiences. Kinda like the Phantom of the Opera too.

That recent video the news stations has been showing for some reason reminds me of the elite and a cryptic message. I thought it was terrible anyway.

Not exactly a promotion of his last great works. The die hard fans will still likely suck it up and buy it anyway. I'd sooner listen to the message or read the lyrics to understand what he might have been thinking lately.

Thinking about it, corporate Pepsi has apparently now ruined two lives in some way, Michael J. Fox with diet soda (parkinsons?) and Michael Jackson with the fire and pain killers.

Not that that either of these wouldn't have happened anyway. Just somewhat ironic with the two first names........sorta. And they were both white....sorta and played a wolfman?

Yes, I agree that Howard Hughes comes to mind, as well as The Phantom of the Opera. Heath Ledger's The Joker.

And in a way, think of Boris Karloff in FRANKENSTEIN. In a weird way, Michael was Dr. Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster all in one.

What do all those figures have in common? Loneliness.

Owner of a lonely heart... as YES would say.

Oh nevermind,I thought there was going to be pictures of him through the years...

naturalnews.com...

I am still trying to find out if there is any truth in the fact that he was bank rolling paranormal investigations and the journalist that is bringing charges against the UN and WHO.

According to some news sources he is to be buried without his brain....

No that isn't a joke, there is no punchline.

www.guardian.co.uk...

The memorial service went very well, although I think it was too long.

I hope that after today's saturated media coverage, the whole Michael Jackson phenomenon can begin to be put into perspective.

Maybe a true picture of him will emerge. Right now, the show business hype is in full force.

I don't know about bankrolling paranormal studies, maybe that's true, but I did see the CNN clip on the other thread showing the shadow run across the hallway. Creepy. Probably the best ghost video I've ever seen. That's Michael for you, trying to be the best even as a ghost!

Does anyone know if that clip has been explained or debunked?

Seems like all kinds of strangeness surround the MJ myth.

Difficult to watch... his daughter Paris put in front of a microphone kind of like MJ being pushed out on stage in the early days. I didn't feel too good about that. I wonder what a child psychologist would say about that. Was it a good thing or not, I don't know, mixed feelings.

reply to post by switching yard


When I first saw Paris on stage just before she spoke, she was fiddling around with her purse. So, when she finally spoke it made me wonder if she was acting. Well done, either way. She looks like she might be latino. Whatever. I'm glad the whole thing went off without incident though. Too bad the state of California couldn't afford it. Maybe the taxpayers should sent Arnold an IOU?

I can't f**ng wait till we move on to WW3 already. All this "we are the world" and a person can be larger than life stuff is really starting to irritate my mortality. When are nukes gonna blast the cattle to dust uh? When will the NWO finally seal their plan? When will the sun beat the flare sh*t out of this earth so the galactic federation can move on..geeez!