suga10 said:

Co-sign.

suga10 said:

yeah I was born in 87

Timmy84 said:

I can remember the D and H era. I can remember how I loved Black Or White, it was huuuge and Heal The World one year later (I didn't have the album, so for me HTW came one year after BOW).

HIStory Michael was huge in Germany, two #1s, Earth Song was his first #1. Also he performed it on our biggest show and 18 mio people did watch it /18 mio out of 80 mio Germans!!)

Black or White was my jam as a kid. Same with Jam and Give in to me.

I loved Smooth Criminal too!
[Edited 7/4/09 15:05pm]

babybugz said:

I was born in 1979, the same year that OffTheWall was released. I feel fortunate to have lived through a good deal of MJ's adult output.

Images of Joe Jackson grieving over the loss of his son, Michael.
[Edited 7/4/09 15:32pm]

Copycat said:

Copycat said:

Some of you just love feeding vultures, huh?

midiscover said:

They don't give a damn.

I can't believe he's gone



Sorry guys, I just can't help it at times.

I'm so heartbroken thinking about how he could never make his comeback that he dreamed about
[Edited 7/4/09 15:40pm]

suga10 said:

=/ I understand but we going to have to move on eventually ..it's a HUGE loss but that's life*sighs*

babybugz said:

Remembering Michael Jackson
By Rob Sheffield
06/09
Link


The night Michael Jackson died: a street corner in Brooklyn, Bedford Avenue at North 5th, 1 a.m., a car with the windows down, blasting "Wanna Be Starting Something."

Another car pulls up to the intersection, same song, a minute or so further in. For a moment, interlocking "mama-say mama-sah ma-ma koo-sahs." It was a moment that summed up everything we loved about Michael Jackson, as every car, every bar, every open window seemed to throb with the same beat, as if Jackson had successfully syncopated the whole world to his own breathy, intimate, insistent rhythmic tics.

Of the many weird things about Michael Jackson, the weirdest will always be the music.

Tragic wages-of-fame stories and celebrity disasters are a dime a dozen, but there has never been anyone who wrote or sang like this man. For a few years, from 1969 to 1973 or so, he was the child-star singer of the Jackson 5, and he already had that voice, soaring over the fast songs ("I Want You Back," "The Love You Save") and piercing in the ballads ("I'll Be There," "Got To Be There"). If he'd never done anything beyond this — if he'd settled into the respectable career groove of a Gladys Knight — he still would have been mourned and remembered today, as these songs have never left the radio. You could make a killer playlist merely out of the hip-hop bangers that sampled the J5 hits, from Naughty By Nature's "OPP" and Kris Kross's "Jump" to Jay-Z's "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" and Ghostface Killah's "All That I Got Is You."

But in 1979, with Off The Wall, he invented modern pop as we know it. He'd been around for years, making the occasional solo record, but for literally millions of us, it was a de facto debut album from a kid — a kid! Like us! — we were hearing for the first time. It was an unabashed disco record, with an anthem called "Burn This Disco Out" at a time when "disco" was the most polarizing word in pop music.

But it was a disco record that imagined the entirety of pop in disco terms, and it sounded universal on a level nobody had imagined possible before — even Donna Summer's Bad Girls, which had dominated 1979 radio, sounded a bit narrow in comparison. Off The Wall had more hits than the radio had time to play: When "Rock With You" crashed the radio, it was time for "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" to go home, but the radio just kept right on playing it — because none of us had gotten enough. His voice had that sad, lonely, vulnerable twitch, just as his songs felt haunted by something otherworldly and beautiful. He was as personal and eccentric as any crackpot singer-songwriter could be — yet he was also the most famous guy in the world.

The only reason Off The Wall isn't remembered as the greatest pop record ever is that Thriller was even bigger and even better.

People love to argue Off The Wall vs. Thriller, but there will never be any loser in that fight. Everybody who heard Thriller wanted a piece of it, and every pop musician out there spent the next few years trying to catch up with it — even Michael, who didn't even get close with Bad. The obvious plan was for "Beat It" to crack rock radio, but it failed, just because rock radio had already cracked and played the hell out of "Billie Jean." And "Human Nature." And "P.Y.T." and "Somebody's Watching Me" and "State of Shock" and "Farewell My Summer Love."

You could make another killer playlist out of all the brilliant "Billie Jean" knockoffs of the mid Eighties: Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," Madonna's "Like A Virgin," John Waite's "Missing You," Lionel Richie's "All Night Long."


Even then, anyone could hear how weird and wounded he was, yet there was something heroic in the way he turned his psychosexual agonies into such intensely emotional, impossibly exuberant music. Whether you were a metal kid, a disco kid, or a new wave synth-pop kid, Thriller had what you wanted. According to the reports at the time, it sold even more copies in the first six months of 1984 than it did in the first six months of 1983. He was the most famous, pampered star in the world, yet you rooted for him, because he came on like an underdog, a very ordinary kid oppressed by extraordinary gifts, renouncing the privileges of machismo, a shy boy dreaming of the street. As he memorably put it in the "Thriller" video, "I'm not like other guys."

That was putting it mildly, and you could hear it in the irreplicable whoops and hiccups and glides of his voice, and you could see it in the irreplicable dance moves (not that we didn't all try to replicate them). That "Beat It" video — he's a sad kid alone in his room, wearing that spacey powder-blue T-shirt, then he slips on a glittery red jacket (he just had one of those hanging up?) and dances out of his shabby, solitary apartment (as unforgettably poignant a sight as Ducky's bachelor pad in Pretty In Pink) to go stop the rumble.

I remember the night MTV gave that video its world premiere, in March 1983. It was scheduled for 10 o'clock on a Friday night. I went to a high school dance, drove home to watch the "Beat It" premiere, then drove back to the dance so I could tell everyone how awesome it was and make my first attempts to copy that dance at the end. He was so fragile and tormented in that song, in that video, all over his music. As if he'd float away.

He ended up not floating away — as he got older, his music got heavy and ordinary, and his voice lost that wiggle and bounce, though he did his best to adapt with the grown-and-sexy R&B lilt of the crazily underrated Dangerous. But by the time he started calling himself the King of Pop in 1991, it was a kingdom that didn't exist anymore, and he seemed like the only one who didn't realize it.

Yet no matter how depressing his celebrity spectacle got, those old records of his remained full of life, and it's the musician Michael Jackson that I am grieving and remembering today.

Last night I couldn't stay home and listen to his records — I needed to be out in a crowd, walking the city streets, hearing the songs blasting out loud. I felt like the kid Michael sang about in "Human Nature" ("Four walls won't hold me tonight?") There was an old man in a tank top sitting alone under a tree in McCarren Park, talking out loud to himself: "It was the drugs, Michael. It was the drugs." I heard the same songs cranking every place I walked past, as I knew they would be, and ended up at a table full of friends at a bar on Grand Street.

The crowd was demanding Michael, so the bartender commandeered an iPod from a sad-looking indie kid in a green shirt who was drinking alone at the end of the bar. "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough" was first (maybe the fifth time I'd heard it that night), then "Wanna Be Starting Something, then "Billie Jean." But I beat it before "Human Nature" came on — the lonely ache in that song was more than I could face right then, and I was dreaming of the street.

Timmy84 said:

Timmy84 said:

, when it first happen I couldn't listen to his music but I can listen now and they played the jackson movie earlier I couldn't watch it =/

Copycat said:

I wonder if anyone has got into Joe's ass yet about the amount of glee he seems to be displaying in public

Copycat said:

I don't believe for a second this man isn't hurting. His SON for christ's sake only God knows what's in his heart so let's not judge. people do grieve in strange ways sometimes.

CalhounSq said:

Some in the media is trying to cover up for Joe if you saw what bboy posted about Joe from someone who thinks they should "cut Joe some slack".

wow@this video just released by News of the world. You can tell he is in so much distress, but I thought he defended himself well.

matthewgrant said:

It's hard to figure him out because I never really see people "grieve" the way he does. Even Marvin Sr. had more compassion after he took out his son even those that's a more harsher comparison.

suga10 said:

Woow Mike, I miss you.

Copycat said:

Cinnamon234 said:

MJ was shocked by the nature of the questions, Stupid questions

Cinnamon234 said:

Ah! I wish I can read his thoughts

midiscover said:

I know right!
It hasn't hit Joe yet
Just wait till the funeral...

Unbreakable: Michael Jackson Vibe Magazine Q&A
Link


After more than 30 years as one of the biggest stars in the world, Michael Jackson remains an enigma.

When the mysterious legend appeared on VIBE’s cover for the second time, he agreed to a rare interview. Asking the questions was Regina Jones, who had covered Michael as a child star for Soul magazine, the black music journal she founded with her husband in the 1970s. The King of Pop felt safe enough with Jones to open up about hip hop, life as a single parent, and the mysterious joys of an all-out water-balloon fight.


I first met Michael Jackson some 33 years ago when Diana Ross introduced the Jackson 5—then a brand-new Motown act—to 350 music and media folk at the Daisy Club in Beverly Hills. My husband, Ken, and I were then publishing Soul, one of the first national black entertainment magazines.

Ten-year-old Michael already knew how to charm a crowd. Acknowledging Diana’s support, he said, “After singing for four years and not becoming a star, I thought I would never be discovered—that is, until Miss Ross came along to save my career.

Just four months later, the Jackson 5’s first single, “I Want You Back,” soared to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 charts, followed two months later by “ABC.” Thousands of letters from across the country poured into our mailbox. Responding to the Jackson’s first tour, one reader wrote: “Those youngsters performed in a manner that could be harmful to one’s health. The heart can only stand so much soul, and their performance was definitely an overdose.”

Over the next decade, Soul kept up with the Jackson family as a guest at parties, weddings, and concerts. We were also regular visitors to the family home, where Michael—soft-spoken, polite, curious, and quiet—was usually off by himself, drawing or playing with his snakes and other pets, while his older brothers, cousins, and visitors played basketball. But when Soul stopped publishing in 1980, I lost touch with the family.

And then Michael became a pop-culture superstar, changing the face of music, dance, fashion, and music video with hit after hit. He was idolized and chased by fans and media wherever he went. He took an art form, refined and packaged it, and became an international icon. The American Music Awards recently named him the Artist of the Century. When it comes to the King of Pop, the world is insatiable.

When we sat down for this VIBE cover story, Michael reminded me of the last time I’d interviewed him—long before the barrage of negative publicity he has received in recent years. He was 13 or 14 at the time and he had his younger sister Janet sitting with him and doing much of the talking. “I felt afraid,” he explained. “I felt that if my sister was there to give me the questions they would go easier with me.”


How does it feel to be re-entering the market and competing in sales with likes of ‘N Sync and Britney, kids who were being born at the height of your fame?

It’s a rarity I think. I had No. 1 records in 1969 and ‘70 and still entered the charts in 2001 at No. 1. I don’t think any other artist has that range. It’s a great honor. I’m happy, I don’t what else to say. I’m glad people accept what I do.

What are your thoughts on the current state of R&B?

I don’t categorize music. Music is music. They change the word R&B to rock ‘n’ roll. It’s always been, from Fats Domino to Little Richard, to Chuck Berry. How can we discriminate? It is what it is—it’s great music, you know.

What are your feelings about hip hop?

I like a lot of it, a lot of it. I like the music. I don’t like the dancing that much. It looks like you’re doing aerobics.

What made you put Biggie on your album Invincible?

It wasn’t my idea, actually it was Rodney Jerkins, one of the writer/producers working on the album. It was my idea to put a rap part on the song. And he said, I know just the perfect one–Biggie Smalls. He put it in and it worked perfectly. It was a rap that was never heard before.

Why did you choose Jay-Z on the remix of the first single “You Rock My World”?

Because he’s the new thing. He’s hip, he’s with kids today. They like his work. He tapped into the nerve of popular culture. It just made good sense.

What was it like for you to appear at New York’s hip hop concert Summer Jam as Jay-Z’s guest?

I just showed up and gave him a hug. It was a tumultuous explosion of applause and stomping. It was a lovely, lovely welcome and I was happy about that. It was a great feeling–the love, the love.

Does it bother you to see people who emulate you, such as Usher, Sisqo, Ginuwine, and even Destiny’s Child?

I don’t mind at all. Because, these are artists who grew up on my music. When you grow up listening to somebody you admire you tend to become them. You emulate them, to look like them, to dress like them. When I was little I was James Brown, I was Sammy Davis Jr., so I understand it, it’s a compliment.

Did you know that you were creating classics while recording Thriller and Off The Wall, both classics that hold up today?

Yes, not to be arrogant, but yes. Because I knew great material when I hear it and it just melodically and sonically and musically is so moving. It keeps the promise.

Do you feel that there is a larger acceptance of black artists these days?

Of course, I think people have always admired black music since the beginning of time, if you want to go back to singing Negro spirituals. Today the market is just accepting the fact that that’s the sound, international, from Britney to ‘N Sync, they are all doing the R&B thing. Even Barry Gibb of the Bee Gees, he’d always tell me, [imitating a British accent] “Man, we do R&B.” I said Barry, I don’t categorize it but it’s great music. I understand where he’s coming from. I love great music, it has no color, it has no boundaries; it’s all wonderful music. I love from the Beatles to the Bee Gee’s to the Mamas and the Papas to the Temptations, to Diana Ross and the Supremes, I love all of it. I love Queen, “Bohemian Rhapsody.” It’s a killer, I love it.

What’s life like as a single parent?

I never had so much fun in all my life. That’s the truth. Because I’m this big kid and now I get to see the world from the eyes of the really young ones. I learn more from them then they learn from me. I’m constantly trying things and testing things on them to see what works and what doesn’t work. Children are always the best judges to monitor something, especially in my field or any other field. If you can get the kids, you’ve got it. That’s why Harry Potter is so successful, it’s just a family-oriented movie. You can’t go wrong there, you just can’t. That’s why I write lyrics when I write a song I try not to say things that offend parents because we want a wide demographic. I don’t want to be like that. We weren’t raised to be like that. No way, you know [my parents] Mother and Joseph wouldn’t say stuff like that.

Do the pressures of your celebrity status affect your children?

Yes, absolutely, from the day that they were born.

What music do Prince and Paris listen to?

They listen to all my music and they love classical that plays all around the ranch. They like any good dance music.

How would you feel about your children becoming pop icons at 13 and 14 based upon your experience?

I don’t know how they would handle that. It would be tough. I really don’t know. It’s hard because most celebrity children end up becoming self-destructive because they can’t live up to the talent of the parent. It’s hard. Fred Astaire Jr., people used to say to him all the time, “Can you dance?” And he couldn’t dance. He didn’t have any rhythm. But his father was this genius dancer. It doesn’t mean that it has to be passed on. The competition is hard, it’s hard. I always tell my children, you don’t have to sing, you don’t have to dance, be who you want to be as long as you are not hurting anybody. That’s the main thing. Don’t you think?


I wasn’t involved at all.

How were you able to let go of something so big and so special?

Trust.

What was your experience on September 11?

I was in New York [after performing at Madison Square Garden on September 10] and I got a call from friends in Saudi Arabia that America was being attacked. I said no way. I turned on the news and saw the twin towers coming down and I said, “Oh my God.” I screamed down the hallway to all our people. “Everybody get out, let’s leave now. Marlon Brando was on one end, our security was on the other end, we were all up there but Elizabeth [Taylor] was at another hotel. We all got out of there as quickly as we could. We didn’t know if our building was next. We jumped in the car, but there were these girls that had been at the show the night before, and they were banging on the windows, running down the street screaming. Fans are so loyal. We hid in New Jersey. It was unbelievable—I was scared to death.

What artists past and present inspire you?

Stevie Wonder is a musical prophet. All of the early Motown. All the Beatles, I’m crazy about Sammy Davis Jr., Charlie Chaplain, Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Bill Bojangles Robinson. The real entertainers, the real thing, not just gimmicks. Showstoppers. When James Brown was with the Famous Flames was unbelievable. There are so many wonderful singers. Whitney Houston, Barbara Streisand, to Johnny Mathis, real stylists, you hear one line and know who it is. Nat King Cole, great stuff. Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, they are all ridiculous.

What do you do for fun, for recreation?

I like water-balloon fights. We have a water-balloon fort here, there’s the red team and the blue team. We have slings and cannons and you are drenched by the time the game is over. There is a timer and whoever gets the most points in is the winner. I don’t do anything like basketball or golf. If I’m going to do some kind of sport, if you want to call that a sport, you have to laugh. I want to laugh. Basketball you get very competitive and so is tennis, makes you angry. I’m not into that I like to laugh, have fun, laugh with it. That’s what it should be, fun, therapeutic. I love that. I also like to go to amusement parks, animals, things like that.

Is there still a fantasy that you maintain of something that you’d like to do in your career?

I’d like to see an international children’s holiday when we honor our children, because the family bond has been broken. There’s a Mother’s Day and a Father’s Day but there’s no children’s day. I really would I would mean a lot. It really would. World peace, I hope that our next generation will get to see a peaceful world, not the way it’s going now.

At what point in your life did you realize that you were different, a visionary?
I never thought about it, I just always accepted it from the heavens and said on my knees, “Thank you.” Whenever I write a song and I know that it is musically correct, there are no laws to music, but when it feels right, I get on my knees and I say, “Thank you.” I really do, I mean it. Because it drops into your lap just easy and magical with no effort.

Did singing ever stop being fun and become work?

It’s always been fun, unless I get physically sick, it’s always fun. I still love it.

What is your financial status?

I’m taken care of fine.

Michael, don’t be embarrassed, but you are an innovator who has set a standard that still stands in music. Where does Michael Jackson go from here?

Thank you, thank you. I have deep love for film, and I want to pioneer and innovate in the medium of film—to write and direct and produce movies, to bring incredible entertainment.

What kind of movies? Are you looking at scripts?

Yes, but nothing has been finalized yet.

Are you ever lonely?

Of course. If I’m on stage, I’m fine there. You can have a house full of people and still be lonely from within. I’m not complaining because I think it’s a good thing for my work.

Tell me about the inspiration for your new song “Speechless.” It’s very loving.

You’ll be surprised. I had a big water-balloon fight, I’m serious, in Germany. And what inspires me is fun. I was with these kids and we had big water-balloon fight, and I was so happy after the fight that I ran upstairs in their house and wrote “Speechless.” That’s what inspired the song. I hate to say that because it’s such a romantic song. But, it was the fight that did it. I’d had fun, I was happy, and I wrote it in its entirety right there. I felt it would be good enough for the album. Out of this bliss comes magic, comes wonderment, comes creativity. It’s about having fun, it really is.

Tell me about how you channel your creativity.

You don’t force it. Let nature take its course. I don’t sit at the piano and think, “I’m going to write the greatest song of all time.” It doesn’t happen. It has to be given to you. I believe it’s already up there before you are born and then it drops right into your lap. It really does. It’s the most spiritual thing in the world. If people could witness what it feels like… When it comes it comes with all of the accompaniments, the strings, the bass, the drums, the lyrics and you’re just the source through which it comes, the channel—really, honestly. Sometimes I feel guilty putting my name on the songs written by Michael Jackson because it’s as if the heavens have done it already, I mean it. Like Michelangelo would have this huge piece of marble from the quarries of Italy and he’d say, “Inside is a sleeping form.” And he takes hammer and chisel and he’s just freeing it. It’s already in there. It’s already there.

What do you collect?

I like anything Shirley Temple, babies, children, Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple, lots of Shirley Temple. Little Rascals, Three Stooges, a lot of Three Stooges. I love Curly, he kills me. My brothers we love Curly, we just love him. I love Curly so much that I did a book on Curly. I got his daughter and she and I wrote a book on him. Women have a hard time with all the slapping and poking and stuff, guys love that stuff. My mother loved Abbott and Costello, but we would say, “We want the Three Stooges.”

Tell me about your fashion selections.

It isn’t conscious, it happens that way.

Is there anything that you would like to say to VIBE readers?

I love Quincy. I mean, I really do. I think he is wonderful soul and a beautiful person. And I think you should tell the readers, don’t judge a person by what they hear or even what they read unless they heard from the person. There is so much tabloid, sensationalism going on that’s totally false. Don’t fall prey to it, it’s ugly. I hate the tabloids. I’d like to take them all and burn them. I want you to print it, don’t believe tabloid press, tell them that. Don’t believe tabloid press. Some of them try to disguise themselves but they are still tabloid press.

They want to know about the plastic surgery that you’ve done.

Who is they?

VIBE’s editors.

Tell VIBE, you know, that’s a stupid question. Put it just like that. You should be embarrassed to ask that. That’s why I don’t do interviews for this very reason. That’s why for years I didn’t do them for that very reason.
[Edited 7/4/09 16:36pm]

Ronnuz said:

[Edited 7/4/09 16:46pm]

trueiopian said:

Yea, b/c by then they will have pounded it into his head to quit grinnin'