whatsgoingon said:

There were 7 thousand people out there for that press conference and a million have already signed up for tickets before they've evn gone on sale. And you say it's because of Michael's PR. Wow, some people can talk themselves into anything.

suga10 said:

You forget when MJ did Off the wall & Thriller he was still with his brothers. Therefore even if he wasn't releasing solo albums every year he would release an album with his brothers. i.e Destiny, Off The Wall, Triumph, Thriller and Victory(although he contributed little to Victory) all that in a space of 5 to 6 years.

Now Michael solo without his brothers it is 4 albums, whole, new albums spread over 20 yrs and IMO they ain't even his best work.

And as for the hysteria we have now it is driven by hard-core fans getting hysterical outside his hotel and wanting the world to still know he is still relevant. Compare what you have now to the hysteria created when he went to London in 85 to unveil his wax model at Madam Tussand & he stands on top of the Limo, now that was complete natural hystreria, where every one got caught up in the craziness, not just hard-core fans chanting outside his hotel window.

As for him doing concerts & people wanting to see him, that is different from people just getting plain old hysterical. He was once hailed as the greatest performer ever, he has been around since he was 11 and he has done a lot of classic stuff, with & without his brothers so of course people will want to see him perform and see if he can still hack it. Some people, however, would like to see whether his nose will fall off with all that dancing
[Edited 3/7/09 16:51pm]

suga10 said:

Unbelievable! And this wasn't the 80s or 90s. And it's happening again in 2009. Absolutely amazing.

whatsgoingon said:

I think you are on to something here.

CandaceS said:

I don't. I think they're talking shit. Lots of over 30's in that crowd.

Not the most significant ever maybe, but the most popular without a shadow of a doubt. That's despite all his troubles, that amuses me no end.

whatsgoingon said:

So you think these are all hardcore Michael Jackson fans that just suddenly rushed over to MTV studios in New York City to see him? The cops had to come in and stop the traffic. This is definitely natural hysteria

http://www.youtube.com/wa...qEkCDYB-D0
[Edited 3/7/09 17:23pm]

bboy87 said:

O-M-G! Jackie....

whatsgoingon said:

Funny you should say that. There are quite a few fans who have been fans of Michael since the beginning. I've talked to many fans who have been there since The Jackson 5ive debuted on the Hollywood Palace

bboy87 said:

How about the Miss Black America pageant?

Timmy84 said:

You know there are fans who go back that far

Some of the fans on KOP remember the 1969 Ed Sullivan performance

bboy87 said:

It's cool to hear from fans like them.

bboy87 said:

Cool read. TK Carter is Tito's friend.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

But what is that necklace that Randy is wearing? Did he steal that out of Katherine's jewelry box?

this picture is so cute!!!!!





and so is this one

so cute!!!!

aww really little michael!!!

cdcgold said:

Awww how cute was he?[b]

We need the Quote Police in this thread, stat!!!

Please think twice about quoting posts that have a bunch of big images in them! I'm on DSL and it's still taking awhile to load...heaven help anyone on dial-up. Thanks for your consideration!

cdcgold said:

bboy87 said:

I am sure if you go to MJ forums the average age of the fans are probably in their early to mid 20s. I am not saying that he has no fans over the age of 35 anymore, but most of his hard-core fan-base are those who weren't even around when Thriller was released. Infact most of the people on the Prince Forum are probably older than those over at the King of Pop forum.

whatsgoingon said:

I agree. That's my impression as well, and I'm only 20 too (not 22!)
As I always say, most Mj die hard fans nowadays think the real Michael Jackson is the one from the HIStory cover, posing like a statue and stuff..

graecophilos said:

Exactly. The History and Dangerous periods are their favourite eras. They think he looked great and he was at his most creative. I can't imagine any fan over 35 who had been a fan since the post Off The Wall thinking he was at his best during these periods.

I mean the likes of myself and those older actually remember Michael when he was at his best, when he looked his best and when it was all about the music, not about hype and scandals.

Capital FM in the UK have said that Michael's UK dates will run from July through September. He spent yesterday doing press interviews, including one for NME

An interview from 1996 or 1997 with Adrian Grant. Featured in the Thriller Live programme

[img]
You have travelled to many countries all over the world. Can you tell me about your admiration for Brazil, and the experience that you had whilst filming the video ‘They Don’t Care About Us’?

Michael Jackson: I love the Brazilian people, I feel for them in the same way I feel for the Indians and Africans. There’s a lot of poverty in Brazil, and I remember leaving a part of my heart with them the first time that I went. The people are so sweet, they were so happy to see me. You know they were overwhelmed with excitement, and I was happy to be there for them. I wish I could do more – I just feel so bad that I don’t do enough, I really do.

Why did you choose Spike Lee to direct that video?

Michael Jackson: ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ has an edge, and Spike Lee had approached me. It’s a public awareness song, and that’s what he is all about. It’s a protest kind of song – it’s not a r@#%$ song, it’s an anti-r@#%$ song and I thought he was perfect for it.

You wrote a song called ‘Money’. Having been a millionaire sing you were a boy, how important is money to you?

Michael Jackson: I guess it gets things done...to fulfil some dreams you need to have financial backing. However I think everything starts with a thought, like if you plant a seed which then cultivates itself, everything comes out of that. I never really thought about it when I was little, I always felt that I was compelled to do the things I did.

Do you not find it difficult to relate to the needs and the pain of the suffering when you seemingly have everything you could desire?

Michael Jackson: No. No, not at all. Being a world traveller I’m touched and moved by everything that happens, especially to children. It gets me emotionally sick, and I go through a lot of pain when I see that type of thing. I can’t pretend as if I don’t see it. It affects me very much. For some reason there’s a certain part of my concert where I break down in every show and in that spot I get a certain thought – I think of the plight of the children and it gets me every time. I don’t know why in that place, it’s during ‘I’ll Be There’, the thoughts just come to me and I try hard to contain myself.

What is your favourite song on the HIStory album and why?

Michael Jackson: My favourite songs are ‘Earth Song’, ‘Childhood’ and ‘You Are Not Alone’ because I like songs with emotions and a message, and a sense of immortality. I like there to be some depth in the lyrics as well as a melodic simplicity that the whole world can sing along with them. That was my goal, to capture that on those songs and I think I came pretty close. Wherever we went on a tour, people just loved them, and I was pleased to have done that.

Would you say there is a concurrent theme running throughout the HIStory album?

Michael Jackson: It’s about people looking at their lives, and making something of themselves – creating a legacy so you can look back at what you have done. I always wanted that, and that’s why I like working very hard.

How did your collaboration with R. Kelly on ‘You Are Not Alone’ arise?

Michael Jackson: R. Kelly sent me this tape of the song and I liked what I heard. It had no harmonies or modulations, but I told him that he had written a great song, and was it OK if I just go in and add what I think it should have? He said ‘sure’, so I went in and produced it. I put a choir at the end and did a great modulation so the song had a sense of climax and structure.

Why did you include your cover of the Beatles song ‘Come Together’ on the HIStory album?

Michael Jackson: I was coming home from church and my engineer was fooling around with that song, which I hadn’t asked him to do, but when I heard it I said ‘WOW!’ This is my favourite Beatles song.’ So I just went and laid it down in one take. We kept it kind of raw and funky. It was just spontaneous , but I knew I wanted to do something with it.

You broke many records during your successful ‘HIStory Tour’. Is it hard to get motivated for each show, after more than 30 years of performing?

Michael Jackson: I usually come to the show not feeling like I really want to do it because of being overworked, but once I get there I feel the spirit of the entire audience before I even get on stage. And then the magic takes place – no matter how you feel, even dead sick and weary – suddenly you just go out and do it. The energy comes out of nowhere. It’s like the Gods are blessing you.

What personal satisfaction did you gain from the tour?

Michael Jackson: Seeing all the races together, which I love so much. All the colours in the audience loving one another, getting on with each other and enjoying the music – a unified field!

Would you say that your music is written from a more personal viewpoint now, compared to the pure disco of your earlier material?

Michael Jackson: I never categorise the music because I never sit down and say I’m going to write a disco, pop or rock song. I just write according to the emotion, according to what I’m going through in the moment. I create out of that and I almost feel guilty putting my name on the songs that I write because they are from another source. I’m just a funnel through which they come, I really do believe that. They are from above. They choose me, I don’t choose them.

Blood On The Dance Floor is a very striking title. Is the song about AIDS?

Michael Jackson: No it isn’t, not at all. Actually I didn’t create the title, my engineer (Teddy Riley) thought of the title, which I thought was cool, so I wrote the song around the title. And then I made a mistake, for which I apologised, but they didn’t show it on TV. I was hiding out in England sometime in 1993, and Elton John let me use his house. He was so sweet and kind, and I thought I had never thanked him. So I decided to dedicate ‘Blood On The Dance Floor’ to him. But after it came out I said ‘Why did I dedicate that one, of all the songs it could have been, like ‘You Are Not Alone’ or something else. So I always thought that I wanted to apologise to him for that – it was just out of him being kind. He’s a wonderful person.

Do you feel a connection with the late Princess Diana, given that many of your songs on the HIStory album talk about your personal torment and persecution from others?

Michael Jackson: Yes I do, very much. I think I understood her. In the moments that we had together, that were very intimate and personal, we talked on such subjects. I think it’s a tragic, tragic loss. I feel that people like myself and other artists should carry the torch of what her mission was and I think I have that understanding – it’s what I do. I thought she was brilliant.

Do you feel that the song ‘Tabloid Junkie’ highlights at all the tragic circumstances in which Princess Diana died?

Michael Jackson: Yes, the tabloids are a bunch of trash. It’s such an intrusion. It’s a horrible thing. The way they hunt you and invade your privacy, it’s terrible. It creates such ugliness, they never think about how the person may feel with the things that they write.

When and how did the idea for the fabulous short film, ‘Ghosts’, arise?

Michael Jackson: It started with the ‘Addam’s family’, they wanted a theme song (‘Is It Scary’) for their film, but in the end I didn’t want to do it, so we got out of it. I decided instead to make my own short film. I love films, I love movies and that’s what I want the next chapter in my life to be – movies and records. There’s no other place to go. I’ll do film, records and direct, because I love it very much.

Which people and events in world history have played a significant part in your own life and why?

Michael Jackson: I would say John F. Kennedy, because that smacks of my generation when I was little. I think he was America’s greatest President. I saw some of the civil rights movement on television but I never experienced it personally, but that affected everybody.

Throughout your career you have constantly taken your art form to another level. How do you see your live performances taking place in the future?

Michael Jackson: I don’t want to do any more world tours, or at least I don’t think I will. I want to spend the rest of my life doing records and films. I’ll do some special shows here and there, because I do love performing, but I’ve been doing it since I was five. Now I want to create something memorable for the next 100 years, and that’s in the movies.

How would you like History to portray Michael Jackson?
Michael Jackson: I think as someone who has been given the ability and talent to do what I do, to heighten the awareness of peace and love, and the plight of children worldwide on to a universal level. It’s been created through song, dance and film – I guess that’s my mission and I’m happy to have been chosen.
[/img]

Michael Jackson: A life in reviews
As the troubled superstar announces plans for comeback concerts in London this summer, Katy Guest charts an extraordinary career through the critics' reports of his UK tours

Sunday, 8 March 2009

November 1972

'The Times' reports on the Jackson 5's concert in Britain

"Shrill teenage squeals echoed round the cavernous hall as skinny, yellow-suited Michael Jackson launched into the show's first ballad. 'Let me fill your heart with joy and laughter,' he sang in that inimitably sexy and provocative voice... Fourteen-year-old Michael has an astonishing command of gesture, and his twinkling feet scarcely seemed to touch the stage... The Empire Pool is a menace, although groups are queuing up to prove they are big enough to fill it. But £2.50 for a front arena is pushing the price too far.

American groups are notorious for asking for too much money, but this is the kind of avarice which gives the music business a bad name."

The Jacksons claimed that Michael was two years younger than he was, to cash in on his childlike appeal. Shows at the Liverpool Empire broke the attendance records set by the Beatles.

July 1984

Miles Kington, writing in 'The Times'

"Just who is Michael Jackson anyway? Just about the greatest genius in the history of the world, that's who... Yes, Michael Jackson is so rich that he could afford to have his own nuclear deterrent. He could retire five years ago and never have to work again. Yes, for a kid who can dance and sing a bit, he hasn't done badly. But he is still ambitious... Next year he could be vice-president of the US and after that – who knows? A singing, dancing black man has never been President yet, but then they said a Hollywood bit actor would never make it either."

By the time he was 24, Jackson had already made Thriller, the first album to have seven Billboard Hot 100 top 10 singles. He had also broken his nose while dancing and had his first rhinoplasty surgery.

March 1985

'The Times' on Michael's appearance at Madame Tussauds

"Michael Jackson mania brought part of London to a standstill yesterday when thousands of fans turned up to see him live at Madame Tussauds waxworks. The recording star, 26, was attending an unveiling of his effigy in wax and twice ran the gauntlet of screaming fans. Crash barriers were sent flying as mounted police tried to contain the crowd."

At the peak of his fame, Jackson had just unveiled the "moonwalk", been called by Time magazine "a one-man rescue team for the music business", received eight Grammys at the 1984 awards – and burned his hair during a Pepsi commercial, resulting in huge public sympathy but a lingering paranoia about his looks. Starting in the early 1980s, his skin began to grow paler.

July 1988

The Independent on the Bad tour

"Nobody is laughing at Michael Jackson any more... There is a sense in which the way [he] has been pilloried gives him an extra purchase on the fascination of his followers, and when his fragile, sculpted face first appeared on the giant screens panting like a show pony in a paddock, it was greeted with howls of mirth as well as squeals of delight... The word 'wimp' died on a thousand lips... Jackson seemed to shoulder the whole weight of rumour and expectation surrounding him, and turn its destructive potential to his own advantage."

By 1988 he had told the press that he slept in an oxygen tank, bought the Elephant Man's skeleton and owned a pet chimpanzee, Bubbles. He'd had four new noses and a dimple put in his chin.

August 1992

'The Mail on Sunday' on the Dangerous tour

"At Wembley on Thursday night, Jackson delivered the real goods. He presented the fanciest of packages... He performs for the audience as if it were a bedroom mirror. For this, we must love every strange inch of his body. By the time Jacko's circus heads off into the distance 365,000 people will have yelled, gasped and gawped their way through the circus spectaculars. The tickets from Wembley Stadium have grossed £8,200,000. This alone gives credence to the view that Jackson's macabre travelling circus is – in the words of the ringmasters of old – the Greatest Show on Earth."

The album Bad and his autobiography, Moonwalk, confirmed Jackson as a musical genius and an officially odd fish. In the book he talked about his abusive childhood and the changes in his face, some of which he put down to hairstyle and stage lighting.

February 1996

The New York 'Daily News' on the Brit Awards

"A young British pop star said he disrupted a London performance by Michael Jackson because what he called the American superstar's 'Jesus act' made him feel ill. Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of the pop band Pulp, was arrested after invading the stage during Jackson's performance of 'Earth Song' at the Brit Awards. Cocker, 32, strongly denied he had punched and kicked three children taking part in Jackson's stage show. 'I sat there watching and feeling a bit ill because he was doing his Jesus act,' Jarvis said Friday. 'It seemed to me a lot of other people found it quite distasteful as well.'"

In 1993, Jackson was accused of molesting Jordan Chandler, 13. A civil lawsuit gave Chandler $22m (£15m) but criminal proceedings were halted. Addicted to painkillers, his reputation suffered. In 1994 he married Lisa Marie Presley. They divorced in 1996.

July 1997

'The Times' on the HIStory tour in Sheffield

"He has been married twice, divorced once, ensnared in a child abuse scandal and become a father since he last toured in Britain. But the intervening years dissolved like snow in the sun as soon as [he] burst on to the stage of the 50,000-capacity Don Valley Stadium, Sheffield... But for all the slickness of its presentation and attention to detail, there was a lack of emotional engagement at the heart of the show. Jackson is a consummate performer... but he has become a distant and isolated figure, a predicament which this show, for all its theatrical skill, did little to address."

In 1995, "Earth Song" had become Jackson's most successful UK single, selling a million copies. But his marriage to his nurse, Deborah Rowe, and the birth of their children, Prince and Paris, were treated with suspicion.

November 2006

The 'Daily Star' on the World Music Awards

"Pop weirdo Michael Jackson's music career was in meltdown last night after he lost his famous voice. Wacko Jacko, 48, looked finished following his pathetic comeback performance at the World Music Awards. Music insiders... said traumatic child abuse allegations, disfiguring plastic surgery and financial struggles have finally caught up with him. Experts fear the pressure of trying to resurrect his flagging career after living as a virtual recluse has left the hitmaker's voice as ravaged as his face... Sources close to Jacko fear he has never fully recovered from... being accused of abusing teenage cancer victim Gavin Arvizo – even though he was later cleared."

After Jackson fell out with Sony, sales of Invincible were disappointing. Dangling his son Blanket off a balcony in 2002 did not endear him to fans. But Jackson was by now considered a freak.

March 2009

Last week's papers seemed relatively measured about Jackson's announcement of a residency this summer at London's O2. "This is it?" read one headline. One paper called it "Jacko's final thriller". But another said he was "Off the wall and down the drain".

Tickets are expected to cost between £50 and £75, but some seats could exceed £500 – prices that would doubtless incense the 1972 reviewer who called £2.50 "the kind of avarice which gives the music business a bad name".

Who knows which nose Jackson will be on by the summer? But there is little doubt his shows will sell out. As one man outside the O2, who has the King of Pop tattooed across his stomach and chest, said last week: "I know it might sound strange to you, but I like to have him near me wherever I go."

whatsgoingon said:

Im just trying to figure out what is the point of your comments and posts, what is the point? Mj has fans from every era, its no sicencerocket to understand this , we know that you still want that Mj from the thriler or off the wall era but MJ moved on, so other people, things will never be the same for any artist during their career, there are ups and downs for any artist.

whatsgoingon said:

History and dangerous are their favorite eras? OK ..SO what? as i have said, Mj has fans from any era, you talking like its a Blasphemy to like or listen to any stuff post thriller, ist really bewildering that you want people to like stuff that you like, no dude, people have different taste, some people like "thriller" and "off the wall" others like "history" and "dangerous" , i know its sad for you but you have to deal with it, people have different tastes.

MJ still has fans from "off the all" era, "thriller" era,"bad" era , "dangerous "era , "history" era, "Invinicble " era and he will still gain new fans from the "new album "era .....isn't this the path of every artist? don't single MJ out for you own personal reasons.
[Edited 3/8/09 5:03am]

whatsgoingon said:

my reality seeing friend, your posts have been spot on.

seeingvoices12 said:[quote]

whatsgoingon said:

Here, here! My observations are that amongst the many fans, old and new, there are many different reasons that people were or are drawn to MJ. I think we should just celebrate that there are fans old and new, who may most appreciate the same or different MJ eras.
[Edited 3/8/09 6:24am]

WetDream said:

If you first remember Michael when he was about 16, you can understand the reality of his situation now. He has become a shell of his former self.

I think the best thing to happen to Michael, musically, is that he started so young and therefore he managed to build up such a large catalogue of songs with & without his brothers before he was 25.

If he were to depend on the last 20 yrs, he would have no musical legacy whats so ever.