dag said:

mookie said:

And speaking of TJ, Paris supposedly posted this on her Facebook.

tj: why don't you come socialize with the family ?
me: *sits with family*
me: *gets insulted by entire family*
me: *goes back to bedroom*

I hope that's not true.

Wow... I really hope that's not true, because those kids are going to suffer from this when they get older...

kibbles said:

Emancipation89 said:

...I look at this whole thing differently. One thing I know for sure is that no matter what these kids do, some fans are always going to be there to criticize the Jackson family for it. Like no matter what they do and you and I both know that's one thing that's never gonna change. I'm not saying I trust TJ or Katherine especially when it comes to MONEY but bottom line is I just don't think 16 is too young. Or Paris being in a movie at that age for that matter. I know I started my first part time job at 14? 15ish. Oh wait actually as far as making $$$ goes I think I started even before that, with baby-sitting and helping with my mom's close friend's online business, etc. I mean, I'm sure you have started making money around that age too, who hasn't, really. Basically my goal was to make as much money as possible so I didn't really mind even flipping burgers I was just grateful there were restaurants hiring a middle school kid. Lol. But boy looking back I think I would've definitely preferred a job that was more career-oriented that would've actually taught me something EVEN at that age. (well then again flipping burgers at a fast food restaurant did teach me why I shouldn't eat that garbage ever so LOL) And that's what I think Prince Michael is doing with this new gig. Like many other teenagers he's making money and starting to explore different opportunities. He just can't work at a local restaurant like a regular kid. I don't think he was pulled from his school to do this right? Michael said himself when he was alive, if, IF the kids want to be in this business at a very young age, if that's what they really want to do, then he will support and respect their decision. We just do NOT know what Prince Michael wants to do right now. Prince Michael might really genuinely want to do this for himself, you know? Soon they'll turn 18, 21 and they'll be able to hire their own financial advisor and until then they're just doing little bit of this little bit of that just like other hollywood kids and I just don't think that's such a bad thing. How long do you even think Prince Michael is going to last in ET, really.
I know Madonna's daughter started doing show-business related crap since she was a little girl and from some interviews I saw it was painfully obvious at least to me she doesn't give a shit about her mommy's clothing line. But then again what do I know. at the end of the day it's almost inevitable for these hollywood kids. If you're daddy is a movie star the chances are you're gonna make cameo appearances in random movies starting at a very young age, whether you really want it or not. and again I don't think that's such a bad thing either.

i don't think mj said if his kids want to be in the business at a very young age, etc. i believe his qualifier was simply that he wouldn't discourage them if the GREW UP and wanted to be involved in it. he would warn them of the pitfalls, however. moreover, as he talked about the kids toward the end of his life, i believe at the occasion of his 50th b-day, he talked about how happy he was just watching his kids play like kids.

yes, many of us had afterschool jobs and such, made our own little pocket money. however, mj's estate makes plenty of money for his kids, so it's really the fact that latoya's making deals to pimp prince out for her own ends which is distateful. if prince wants to learn the filmmaking business, he could be an intern on a film set. i bet if his father were alive, he might assist his son in getting a job like that working for one of his friends like spielberg or spike. something lowkey, and not exploitative. i doubt he'd be working for a tabloid like et. that sort of thing is right in latoya's lane and i don't think it's in prince's long term interests.

Exactly, had Prince shown MJ his love for filmmaking,all of the learning would have happened at home and not infront of millions of people espcially not as a damn correspondant Lets remember these kids were sheltered from the world and had all they needed was in Michaels home and there's a reason to that. He seriously just wanted his children to have a "normal" life that he could never have, and it's a shame that his mother and siblings can't respect that decision. They don't need to wear the masks but to be working and doing things (their father most likely wouldnt approve) is not OK... When they turn 18 they should be able to do whatever they want to, but as for now it's not cool to be doing all of this. I mean they are MJS kids not some damn Kardashian, who wants attention and money... Latoya is just

(sigh..)

okay.

granted: with Joe "do-what-I-say-or-I'll-BEAT-YO-ASS" Jackson at the helm,

the Jacksons (or, at least, the most-known of them) are a TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of a dysfunctional family;

granted: Michael Jackson - while a supremely & uniquely talented pop performer,

he lost contact with "reality" a LONG time ago. this manifests itself - yet again - through his "children."

& granted: I - like most of us - have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what it means to live under the microscope & scrutiny that most of the Jacksons have lived under for so many years.

that said,

have a look (if you haven't already) at the article below :

http://www.nypost.com/p/p...blhVnhs80M

it should come as a surprise to NO ONE that this TEENAGED girl - when all the smoke clears, that's what we have here - is going through this.. "phase" that she's presently going through.

this is Michael's responsibility.

first, whatever his motivation was - being naive, being selfish, whatever it was - Michael was

WRONG

to impose upon his children a life without the presence of their mother.

that was the first bad decision.

maybe having a "normal parent" might have offset (some?/any of?) Michael's "alternate universe" side of the scenario.. maybe it wouldn't have..

but a price cannot be put on the value of growing up with a loving, nurturing mother.

then, the craziness to conceal his "children's" faces in public. how can any child - any person, for that matter - function in a "normal" way??

I understand that he thought he was "protecting" his "children" by masking them before going out anywhere in public..

in the end, however, it looks like it's simply one more weird twist in this sad, slow, trainwreck of a story. yes, most teens go through some sort of "rebellion" phase..

but something about this..

eh..

I cannot type fast enough all the thoughts running through my head right now about these children. for the moment, I can only go back to my initial point:

no one should be surprised at the actions of these children.

to paraphrase that well-known expression:

the (dysfunctional) apple doesn't fall far from the (dysfunctional) tree.

the best that can be done for them is:

pray.

mltijchr said:

(sigh..)

okay.

granted: with Joe "do-what-I-say-or-I'll-BEAT-YO-ASS" Jackson at the helm,

the Jacksons (or, at least, the most-known of them) are a TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of a dysfunctional family;

granted: Michael Jackson - while a supremely & uniquely talented pop performer,

he lost contact with "reality" a LONG time ago. this manifests itself - yet again - through his "children."

& granted: I - like most of us - have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what it means to live under the microscope & scrutiny that most of the Jacksons have lived under for so many years.

that said,

have a look (if you haven't already) at the article below :

http://www.nypost.com/p/p...blhVnhs80M

it should come as a surprise to NO ONE that this TEENAGED girl - when all the smoke clears, that's what we have here - is going through this.. "phase" that she's presently going through.

this is Michael's responsibility.

first, whatever his motivation was - being naive, being selfish, whatever it was - Michael was

WRONG

to impose upon his children a life without the presence of their mother.

that was the first bad decision.

maybe having a "normal parent" might have offset (some?/any of?) Michael's "alternate universe" side of the scenario.. maybe it wouldn't have..

but a price cannot be put on the value of growing up with a loving, nurturing mother.

then, the craziness to conceal his "children's" faces in public. how can any child - any person, for that matter - function in a "normal" way??

I understand that he thought he was "protecting" his "children" by masking them before going out anywhere in public..

in the end, however, it looks like it's simply one more weird twist in this sad, slow, trainwreck of a story. yes, most teens go through some sort of "rebellion" phase..

but something about this..

eh..

I cannot type fast enough all the thoughts running through my head right now about these children. for the moment, I can only go back to my initial point:

no one should be surprised at the actions of these children.

to paraphrase that well-known expression:

the (dysfunctional) apple doesn't fall far from the (dysfunctional) tree.

the best that can be done for them is:

pray.

Because they've turned out to be such disfunctional, out of control, bad mannered, mentally challenged kids right? gimme a break - they've turned out very well considering the pressures that the public put them under whilst out and about with their father. He was very clever I think in how he gave them option of going out unknown without him hence the masks when in his presence & how many people grow up in a single parent family ............

kremlinshadow said:

mltijchr said:

(sigh..)

okay.

granted: with Joe "do-what-I-say-or-I'll-BEAT-YO-ASS" Jackson at the helm,

the Jacksons (or, at least, the most-known of them) are a TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of a dysfunctional family;

granted: Michael Jackson - while a supremely & uniquely talented pop performer,

he lost contact with "reality" a LONG time ago. this manifests itself - yet again - through his "children."

& granted: I - like most of us - have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what it means to live under the microscope & scrutiny that most of the Jacksons have lived under for so many years.

that said,

have a look (if you haven't already) at the article below :

http://www.nypost.com/p/p...blhVnhs80M

it should come as a surprise to NO ONE that this TEENAGED girl - when all the smoke clears, that's what we have here - is going through this.. "phase" that she's presently going through.

this is Michael's responsibility.

first, whatever his motivation was - being naive, being selfish, whatever it was - Michael was

WRONG

to impose upon his children a life without the presence of their mother.

that was the first bad decision.

maybe having a "normal parent" might have offset (some?/any of?) Michael's "alternate universe" side of the scenario.. maybe it wouldn't have..

but a price cannot be put on the value of growing up with a loving, nurturing mother.

then, the craziness to conceal his "children's" faces in public. how can any child - any person, for that matter - function in a "normal" way??

I understand that he thought he was "protecting" his "children" by masking them before going out anywhere in public..

in the end, however, it looks like it's simply one more weird twist in this sad, slow, trainwreck of a story. yes, most teens go through some sort of "rebellion" phase..

but something about this..

eh..

I cannot type fast enough all the thoughts running through my head right now about these children. for the moment, I can only go back to my initial point:

no one should be surprised at the actions of these children.

to paraphrase that well-known expression:

the (dysfunctional) apple doesn't fall far from the (dysfunctional) tree.

the best that can be done for them is:

pray.

Because they've turned out to be such disfunctional, out of control, bad mannered, mentally challenged kids right? gimme a break - they've turned out very well considering the pressures that the public put them under whilst out and about with their father. He was very clever I think in how he gave them option of going out unknown without him hence the masks when in his presence & how many people grow up in a single parent family ............

Exactly. There are many kids who DID have a mother and turned out much worse. Take for example already mentioned LMP who had a very similar life story (also lost her father at a similar age) and she was doing drugs and had no purpose in life. Look at Ozzy Osbourne's kids who had both parents and in their teens very pretty wild, experimenting with drugs and also with no purpose in life. Compared to them, PPB are the sanest kids. It's not THEM I worry about. They seem pretty well-balanced, intelligent kids who know what they want. It's what SURROUNDS them NOW, I worry about. Obviously what Mike did (as crazy as it may have seem to some from the outside) was actually good for the kids. Mike knew what he was doing and as far as what he instilled in them, he did a great job.

[Edited 3/1/13 0:34am]

mltijchr said:

(sigh..)

okay.

granted: with Joe "do-what-I-say-or-I'll-BEAT-YO-ASS" Jackson at the helm,

the Jacksons (or, at least, the most-known of them) are a TEXTBOOK DEFINITION of a dysfunctional family;

granted: Michael Jackson - while a supremely & uniquely talented pop performer,

he lost contact with "reality" a LONG time ago. this manifests itself - yet again - through his "children."

& granted: I - like most of us - have absolutely no idea whatsoever of what it means to live under the microscope & scrutiny that most of the Jacksons have lived under for so many years.

that said,

have a look (if you haven't already) at the article below :

http://www.nypost.com/p/p...blhVnhs80M

it should come as a surprise to NO ONE that this TEENAGED girl - when all the smoke clears, that's what we have here - is going through this.. "phase" that she's presently going through.

this is Michael's responsibility.

first, whatever his motivation was - being naive, being selfish, whatever it was - Michael was

WRONG

to impose upon his children a life without the presence of their mother.

that was the first bad decision.

maybe having a "normal parent" might have offset (some?/any of?) Michael's "alternate universe" side of the scenario.. maybe it wouldn't have..

but a price cannot be put on the value of growing up with a loving, nurturing mother.

then, the craziness to conceal his "children's" faces in public. how can any child - any person, for that matter - function in a "normal" way??

I understand that he thought he was "protecting" his "children" by masking them before going out anywhere in public..

in the end, however, it looks like it's simply one more weird twist in this sad, slow, trainwreck of a story. yes, most teens go through some sort of "rebellion" phase..

but something about this..

eh..

I cannot type fast enough all the thoughts running through my head right now about these children. for the moment, I can only go back to my initial point:

no one should be surprised at the actions of these children.

to paraphrase that well-known expression:

the (dysfunctional) apple doesn't fall far from the (dysfunctional) tree.

the best that can be done for them is:

pray.

First off we need to establish what "normal" is, and that's very individual. Knowing that Michael was an artist and lived an artistic life, no different from other artists in previous decades or even eras of music, I think he has done a pretty decent job. Most musician fathers, don't really participate in their childrens lives, there are countless to name. The interest the children have for individuality and being themselves, comes from their father. Just because they didn't have a mother doesn't really mean anything because they had a loving father and many women who were in their lives. Having a mother or father is not a requirment to be a "sane" person. Many teens who have two parents have a rebellious "phase" because according to pscyhology, that's when teens try to establish themselves from their parents and try to discover who they want to be, for many teens this is a depressing period in their lives and espcially for those who have lost a father at a young age. You fail to mention the dysfunctionality in these kids though? Because they're artistic like their father - they somehow are strange? It's not strange that they want to express themselves through music, art, film and clothes when their father was involved in those fields. I would say they are quite mature children and are doing the best out of a situation that should never have happened, had Conrad Murray done his job. They had one of the most famous fathers in music history, if not the most famous and they were exposed to a world that nobody will ever understand, so we can sit here infront of our laptops/iphones etc and look at them with judgment when we will never know how it is to be them. The Jackson family who are taking care of them are the dysfunctional ones, who only care about money and not the best interest of the children. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree and that's true, because they are all very mature,intelligent, aware of things (politics such as global warming, poverty etc) and artistic children.

mltijchr said:

the best that can be done for them is:

pray.

Oh yes, that will help, praying to fictional guy in the sky... lol and you say Michael has lost contact with reality.

And really, what is the fuss about? Getting a new haircut?? Yeah, she's the first teenager ever getting a new haircut. And whatever blame you try to put on what Michael has done. I'm sure it wasn't his plan to die while his children where 7, 11 and 12. So really, that must have a more profound effect on them, than any wearing-a-mask-while-getting-from-the-elevator-to-the-car-when-he-is-with-them could have. It's not like they where wearing masks when they were out and about all the time, as pictures show, they only wore them when a big public was expected.

mjscarousal said:

I am just happy MJ is finally at peace and he does not have to go through any pain anymore

Happy? Really? He is lying in a box. Dead! And that is better than living his life?? There is nothing to be happy about.

As for the kids, obviously things would be different would he still be around. But to really claim to know what he would want under these cirumstances or what would have happened with his children, had he to deal with 15 and 16 years olds is bit much.

HOT!

MJ always looked so damn hot when he wore those sunglasses.

mltijchr said:

no need to establish what “normal” is – society (in all their various configurations over the years & generations) has already done that. you & I – we can have the same, or similar, or completely different ideas of what “normal” is.. in the end, society at large is a better indicator. within the strict confines of his most unique world that he created for himself.. okay.. begrudgingly he could get some credit for having raised his children decently. as we already know, however : the world Michael Jackson inhabited on this earth is/was unlike any world any “normal” person would know (which is still the point..) for you, apparently, it doesn’t mean anything to not have a mother in a child’s life. if that’s what you believe, that’s what you believe. having a group of women – be they blood relatives or distant cousins or close family friends – in a child’s life, attempting to “fill the void” of there not being a mother.. it’s not the same thing as having a mother – the woman who carried that child for 9 months, who released (for lack of a better expression) that child into the world & immediately bonded with that child. true: a good number of musician/singer fathers don’t actively participate in their children’s lives. that’s a choice they make; most of them (like Lionel Ritchie) come to regret that later in life. also true: having a mother or a father is not a requirement or guaranty to being a “sane person”.. but having a loving and invested and responsible mother and father in the child’s life exponentially increases those odds. but hey. In today’s “modern society” where many people live by “I want what I want and HOW DARE YOU tell me I can’t have it”.. who has the time or inclination to be all those things to a child? to finish (back on topic): as long as these “Jackson children” do their thing – rebellion and all the rest – within the context of the very exclusive world MJ created for them.. there should not be too much collateral damage. heaven help them (and us?) if they do that stuff in the “real world” where the rest of us live.

What are you talking about? That they couldn¨t deal with a "normal" world if they had to? Well, as far as I know they are going to a normal school and they seem to be doing just fine. Of course, I don't know what their life really is like at school, but when I see them, they seem much normal or saner that Osbourne kids, Nicole Richie or any other celebrity kids.

mookie said:

MJ always looked so damn hot when he wore those sunglasses.

Yeah, these are much better than the other ones. But nothing compares to seeing those eyes.

mltijchr said:

no need to establish what “normal” is – society (in all their various configurations over the years & generations) has already done that. you & I – we can have the same, or similar, or completely different ideas of what “normal” is.. in the end, society at large is a better indicator. within the strict confines of his most unique world that he created for himself.. okay.. begrudgingly he could get some credit for having raised his children decently. as we already know, however : the world Michael Jackson inhabited on this earth is/was unlike any world any “normal” person would know (which is still the point..) for you, apparently, it doesn’t mean anything to not have a mother in a child’s life. if that’s what you believe, that’s what you believe. having a group of women – be they blood relatives or distant cousins or close family friends – in a child’s life, attempting to “fill the void” of there not being a mother.. it’s not the same thing as having a mother – the woman who carried that child for 9 months, who released (for lack of a better expression) that child into the world & immediately bonded with that child. true: a good number of musician/singer fathers don’t actively participate in their children’s lives. that’s a choice they make; most of them (like Lionel Ritchie) come to regret that later in life. also true: having a mother or a father is not a requirement or guaranty to being a “sane person”.. but having a loving and invested and responsible mother and father in the child’s life exponentially increases those odds. but hey. In today’s “modern society” where many people live by “I want what I want and HOW DARE YOU tell me I can’t have it”.. who has the time or inclination to be all those things to a child? to finish (back on topic): as long as these “Jackson children” do their thing – rebellion and all the rest – within the context of the very exclusive world MJ created for them.. there should not be too much collateral damage. heaven help them (and us?) if they do that stuff in the “real world” where the rest of us live.

It took me a while to put my thoughts together, but basically what you are saying that regardless of MJ's childraising results, the buttom line is, he was not normal. And it's ok for all the other "normal" families to suck at being a parent, because at least they are normal. I am sorry, but if I could choose between having a loving, yet excentric father or two "normal" parents who don¨t give a damn about me, I'd choose that freak. You know it seems to me that in general, when people criticise MJ, what they are saying is basically, we don't care how good you are or what you've done, you're weird. We may have not done half the good in the world you did, may not be as good as you are at what you did, may not have tried as hard as you did, but at least we are normal. That excuses all our imperfections and automatically makes us better than you are. You know, that's what Mike was trying to tell us with GHOSTS. People are screaming: "MJ didn't give his kids a mother! He made them wear masks! They are gonna be so f***d up when they grow up!" Yet, his kids turned out better than 90% of all the Hollywood kids and maybe (being a teacher and seeing today's kids), better than most kids in general.

[Edited 3/3/13 0:59am]

mjforever said:

^^ Aww~ I love any picture of him with his kids. and I always liked his hands lol! You just know those hands could never ever hit anyone

http://www.billboard.com/...all-at-nyu

Backbeat: Professor ?uestlove Teaches Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’ at NYU ‘Classic Albums’ Class

To a certain type of music obsessive, a tutorial on classic albums with ?uestlove sounds more like a fantasy date than something you might actually get college credit for. Yet such a course exists at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music – and there, at the institute’s SoHo headquarters, 20-odd students and several journalists crammed into the recording studio’s control room on Monday morning.

Students in the program learn about recorded music from multiple angles – essentially the business, the studio and the criticism – and while part of the course’s objective is to help students understand what makes an album a classic (not to mention what the concept of “classic” means), it also is intended to develop their critical thinking around a selection of recordings that the instructors admit are “subjective” and “slanted toward post-1965 African-American expressions.”

Instructors ?uestlove and Harry Weinger teaching the "Classic Albums" course at New York University on Monday (Photo: Jem Aswad)

Jason King, director of history and criticism studies, said the course was inspired by ?uestlove’s response to a blog written by an NPR intern that dismissed Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” (which, not coincidentally, is one of the albums covered by the class).

“I challenged them, ‘I want you to go meta, to make students think about the canon [of classic albums] and what that means,’ ” King said. “Students need to think and communicate in more sophisticated ways about music, and they need to be able to articulate clearly.”

And in?uestlove (Roots drummer, musical director of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and, as the syllabus states with no exaggeration, “a potent musical archivist and informal scholar”) and Harry Weinger (a former Billboardcontributor whose day job is as a VP and Grammy-winning reissue producer at Universal, where he’s helmed many a classic James Brown reissue over the years), the program could have found few better instructors.

For the class’s fourth session, the subject is Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” pivotal not just because it’s a groundbreaking album, but because it was the then 21-year-old Jackson’s declaration of independence after having spent his entire life mostly within the confines of the Jackson 5, and under the domineering tutelage of his manager/father, Joe.

The formidable wisdom and perspective of ?uestlove and Weinger are what make the class fascinating – but so is their access to multitracks of many of the albums (which also include Aretha Franklin’s “Lady Soul,” Prince’s “Dirty Mind,” Marvin Gaye’s “Here, My Dear,” Mary J. Blige’s “My Life,” Sly & the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising” and the Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique”). Outside of recording studios, multitracks – aka “stems,” the individual instrumental and vocal tracks that make up the recordings – are usually the domain of “Classic Album” documentaries and multi-disc boxed sets, and in this kind of study, they’re unusually revealing for a number of reasons.

?uestlove cued up several unused instrumental tracks to illustrate the genius of Quincy Jones’ production oversight on “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough.”

“My observation of this record was not what went into but what was taken away from it,” he says. “This is universally regarded as a very timeless record … When I’m working with a client, I might have an idea of where I think the song should go, but just for good solidarity, so they don’t think you're a dictator, you might want to let them exhaust all their ideas. ‘A/B-ing’ means you try every idea under the sun and then you sit on it and come back to it, and if it sticks you use it; if it doesn’t, you do away with it. On these [unused] tracks are a lot of ideas that I’m shocked they even attempted: There’s theramin tracks, cheesy sirens, overdone disco string arrangements, overdone percussion.”

He plays rejected examples of all of the above, which would have carbon-dated the recording in the late 1970s as vividly as a bushy mustache or a rugby shirt.

“Michael Jackson had a lot of ideas and he probably wanted to use all of them. … I would like to have been there to see Quincy Jones talk Michael Jackson off the ledge. And sometimes Michael did win – Quincy to this day will say that he hated ‘Billie Jean.’ But clearly, underdoing it is the key to success here – understatement is the magic of it.”

A playful moment occurs during a demo recording of “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” where you hear teenaged Randy Jackson and a 10-year-old Janet yelling at Michael because the music is too loud in the headphones. That demo wasn’t just played for entertainment value: The rough version of the song illustrates Jackson’s rigorous preparation and work ethic, and shows how complete many of the titles from “Off the Wall” were before the final recordings even began.

Yet most fascinating was hearing four different takes of Jackson’s lead vocal on “She’s Out of My Life.” ?uest told the story that Jackson had recently broken up with Tatum O’Neill and was hurting at the time he recorded the song – and emphasized that he used that emotion for his art. Indeed, you hear Jackson weeping during a couple of the takes, one of them – the master – so much that he says, “I’m sorry I messed that up” at the end.

“When I see [videos of] the song on the ‘Bad’ tour or wherever he does it, it’s theater, but for this one moment, [you] see him as a human being," ?uestlove says. "I’m curious to see if the caricature that Michael Jackson morphed into is still in your head when you hear this record, or do these moments where he allows his human side to come through … do you feel differently now that you’ve heard him in this way?”

And with that, Weinger concludes the class and moves on to their, ahem, homework assignment: “Catch up with your Public Enemy reading, and watch the videos…”

Professor? Are you kidding me? That dude is such a damn poser. Ostentatious as hell.

today looking through the article "List of unreleased Michael Jackson songs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_Michael_Jackson_songs

"Crack Kills", writer - Michael Jackson... Planned to have been recorded with rappers Run-DMC for Jackson's Bad album, but was shelved due to the group's negative attitude toward the singer

What is the story? and who dared to offend our overage kid?

Okay, I found ... but it was just showing off on their part http://www.rollingstone.c...p-19861204

[Edited 3/4/13 4:49am]

The story is in the J Randy Taraborrelli book IIRC. Did anyone see the Jacksons last night in London?, they did an awesome show in my opinion and their band is great too. The opening act was very good too.

LiLi1992 said:

today looking through the article "List of unreleased Michael Jackson songs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_Michael_Jackson_songs

"Crack Kills", writer - Michael Jackson... Planned to have been recorded with rappers Run-DMC for Jackson's Bad album, but was shelved due to the group's negative attitude toward the singer

What is the story? and who dared to offend our overage kid?

Okay, I found ... but it was just showing off on their part http://www.rollingstone.c...p-19861204

That's funny you found an original 1986 archived Rolling Stone article.

Did you find their demo for Michael?

It was on the remastered edition of Run DMC's 1988 album. The reel said "Crack (for Michael Jackson)" and Run says because they originally tried singing like Michael on this demo like Cold Crush Brothers used to, and it wasn't really to offer to Michael. Riiiiiight. I am thinking Michael turned them down.

[Edited 3/4/13 6:28am]

Alleged 'smoking gun' e-mail revealed in Michael Jackson death suit

[Edited 3/4/13 8:01am]

Musicslave said:

A cornerstone of the Jacksons' case is an e-mail AEG Live Co-CEO Paul Gongaware wrote 11 days before Jackson's June 25, 2009, death. The e-mail to show director Kenny Ortega addressed concerns that Murray had kept Jackson from a rehearsal the day before: "We want to remind (Murray) that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him."

All this time, I thought MJ was paying Murray! This changes even *my* opinion on this tragedy.

Cinny said:

Musicslave said:

A cornerstone of the Jacksons' case is an e-mail AEG Live Co-CEO Paul Gongaware wrote 11 days before Jackson's June 25, 2009, death. The e-mail to show director Kenny Ortega addressed concerns that Murray had kept Jackson from a rehearsal the day before: "We want to remind (Murray) that it is AEG, not MJ, who is paying his salary. We want to remind him what is expected of him."

All this time, I thought MJ was paying Murray! This changes even *my* opinion on this tragedy.

Yeah, I would imagine it will be kind of hard to dispute the CEO of AEG accepting responsibility for Conrad's salary. I'm sure they'll try but it will be intresting to see how....

If said statement isn't voicing responsibility, I don't know what is...

Cinny said:

That's funny you found an original 1986 archived Rolling Stone article.

Did you find their demo for Michael?

never heard this song ...
found only manuscript with lyrics

but I know which of the unreleased songs would like to hear the most.
"Halloween Night"
writer - Michael Jackson
Written and recorded around 2004
Features with Marilyn Manson
Guitar performed by Slash

"D.I.E." with Slipknot - close second

God. Not looking forward to that court case.

Emancipation89 said:

^^ Aww~ I love any picture of him with his kids. and I always liked his hands lol! You just know those hands could never ever hit anyone

http://www.billboard.com/...all-at-nyu

Backbeat: Professor ?uestlove Teaches Michael Jackson’s ‘Off the Wall’ at NYU ‘Classic Albums’ Class

To a certain type of music obsessive, a tutorial on classic albums with ?uestlove sounds more like a fantasy date than something you might actually get college credit for. Yet such a course exists at New York University’s Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music – and there, at the institute’s SoHo headquarters, 20-odd students and several journalists crammed into the recording studio’s control room on Monday morning.

Students in the program learn about recorded music from multiple angles – essentially the business, the studio and the criticism – and while part of the course’s objective is to help students understand what makes an album a classic (not to mention what the concept of “classic” means), it also is intended to develop their critical thinking around a selection of recordings that the instructors admit are “subjective” and “slanted toward post-1965 African-American expressions.”

Instructors ?uestlove and Harry Weinger teaching the "Classic Albums" course at New York University on Monday (Photo: Jem Aswad)

Jason King, director of history and criticism studies, said the course was inspired by ?uestlove’s response to a blog written by an NPR intern that dismissed Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” (which, not coincidentally, is one of the albums covered by the class).

“I challenged them, ‘I want you to go meta, to make students think about the canon [of classic albums] and what that means,’ ” King said. “Students need to think and communicate in more sophisticated ways about music, and they need to be able to articulate clearly.”

And in?uestlove (Roots drummer, musical director of Late Night With Jimmy Fallon and, as the syllabus states with no exaggeration, “a potent musical archivist and informal scholar”) and Harry Weinger (a former Billboardcontributor whose day job is as a VP and Grammy-winning reissue producer at Universal, where he’s helmed many a classic James Brown reissue over the years), the program could have found few better instructors.

For the class’s fourth session, the subject is Michael Jackson’s “Off the Wall,” pivotal not just because it’s a groundbreaking album, but because it was the then 21-year-old Jackson’s declaration of independence after having spent his entire life mostly within the confines of the Jackson 5, and under the domineering tutelage of his manager/father, Joe.

The formidable wisdom and perspective of ?uestlove and Weinger are what make the class fascinating – but so is their access to multitracks of many of the albums (which also include Aretha Franklin’s “Lady Soul,” Prince’s “Dirty Mind,” Marvin Gaye’s “Here, My Dear,” Mary J. Blige’s “My Life,” Sly & the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” De La Soul’s “3 Feet High and Rising” and the Beastie Boys’ “Paul’s Boutique”). Outside of recording studios, multitracks – aka “stems,” the individual instrumental and vocal tracks that make up the recordings – are usually the domain of “Classic Album” documentaries and multi-disc boxed sets, and in this kind of study, they’re unusually revealing for a number of reasons.

?uestlove cued up several unused instrumental tracks to illustrate the genius of Quincy Jones’ production oversight on “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough.”

“My observation of this record was not what went into but what was taken away from it,” he says. “This is universally regarded as a very timeless record … When I’m working with a client, I might have an idea of where I think the song should go, but just for good solidarity, so they don’t think you're a dictator, you might want to let them exhaust all their ideas. ‘A/B-ing’ means you try every idea under the sun and then you sit on it and come back to it, and if it sticks you use it; if it doesn’t, you do away with it. On these [unused] tracks are a lot of ideas that I’m shocked they even attempted: There’s theramin tracks, cheesy sirens, overdone disco string arrangements, overdone percussion.”

He plays rejected examples of all of the above, which would have carbon-dated the recording in the late 1970s as vividly as a bushy mustache or a rugby shirt.

“Michael Jackson had a lot of ideas and he probably wanted to use all of them. … I would like to have been there to see Quincy Jones talk Michael Jackson off the ledge. And sometimes Michael did win – Quincy to this day will say that he hated ‘Billie Jean.’ But clearly, underdoing it is the key to success here – understatement is the magic of it.”

A playful moment occurs during a demo recording of “Don’t Stop Till You Get Enough,” where you hear teenaged Randy Jackson and a 10-year-old Janet yelling at Michael because the music is too loud in the headphones. That demo wasn’t just played for entertainment value: The rough version of the song illustrates Jackson’s rigorous preparation and work ethic, and shows how complete many of the titles from “Off the Wall” were before the final recordings even began.

Yet most fascinating was hearing four different takes of Jackson’s lead vocal on “She’s Out of My Life.” ?uest told the story that Jackson had recently broken up with Tatum O’Neill and was hurting at the time he recorded the song – and emphasized that he used that emotion for his art. Indeed, you hear Jackson weeping during a couple of the takes, one of them – the master – so much that he says, “I’m sorry I messed that up” at the end.

“When I see [videos of] the song on the ‘Bad’ tour or wherever he does it, it’s theater, but for this one moment, [you] see him as a human being," ?uestlove says. "I’m curious to see if the caricature that Michael Jackson morphed into is still in your head when you hear this record, or do these moments where he allows his human side to come through … do you feel differently now that you’ve heard him in this way?”

And with that, Weinger concludes the class and moves on to their, ahem, homework assignment: “Catch up with your Public Enemy reading, and watch the videos…”

Wow! He's a professor now? This offends me as a music student, I mean just because you are a good drummer in a hiphop group and loves being an attention whore, doesn't make you a damn expert on music. I'm sorry that's why there are people such as myself and others who study the theory on music , to explore music as an art and not just his opinion. This is why it's been so hard for music to be taken seriously as an art form because it's constantly having people who have no education talking about it, you wouldn't have a sound "expert" talk instead of a sound engineer would you? If they wanted to talk about the Off the wall album, they should have had Quincy Jones, Bruce Swedien and the people who worked on it or a professor that has studied the album and MJs music profoundly in a non-bias academical way. Yet another reason for me to not like this guy...

LiLi1992 said:

today looking through the article "List of unreleased Michael Jackson songs"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unreleased_Michael_Jackson_songs

"Crack Kills", writer - Michael Jackson... Planned to have been recorded with rappers Run-DMC for Jackson's Bad album, but was shelved due to the group's negative attitude toward the singer

What is the story? and who dared to offend our overage kid?

Okay, I found ... but it was just showing off on their part http://www.rollingstone.c...p-19861204

[Edited 3/4/13 4:49am]

La Toya Jackson seizes ca... TV series

• By STACY BROWN
• Last Updated: 12:22 PM, March 3, 2013

La Toya Jackson was noticeably quiet when the Jackson family feud erupted in public last summer.

But while her siblings battled executors over Michael Jackson’s $2 billion estate, and her niece Paris battled Aunt Janet in the driveway, estranged La Toya, 56, slyly moved in on the heirs to the fortune.

She gathered Jacko’s three children and took sanctuary in the family’s Calabasas, Calif., mansion with Prince, 16, Paris, 15, and Blanket, 10.

The get-togethers included “lots of ice cream and cookies,” said a family insider.

“They needed comfort with everyone showing their wild side, so they watched television together, they listened to music and they talked about what Mike would want. Mostly, it was Toya doing all the talking.”

WireImage

AUNT SHE SLY: Jackson insiders say La Toya won over Michael’s three kids and signed them to her talent agency, which has no other clients.

Before long, the gold-digging diva had signed all three of his kids to her Ja-Tail Enterprises talent agency, which boasts no other clients.

Prince recently signed with “Entertainment Tonight” through Ja-Tail to be a correspondent. La Toya, who has named her two poodles after Prince and Paris, stood with a watchful eye in the “ET” studios last week as Prince made his debut.

La Toya also signed Prince to appear on the CW’s remake of “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Paris inked a movie deal that will have her shooting later this year in London.

The coup de grâce for La Toya, who gets a standard 15 percent commission on each deal, would be a reality TV show deal she’s negotiating. Insiders said bidding has approached $10 million.

OWN, Oprah Winfrey’s network, is thought to be the front-runner to land the series that would feature Jacko’s children, La Toya and cameos by family matriarch Katherine.

“Toya’s working it. It’s because [Katherine] can’t say no to her,” one person close to the family said.

She was able to use the sympathy card because most of her siblings were legally barred from the mansion following the videotaped fight between Paris and her aunt Janet, the failed coup on Jacko’s will and the alleged kidnapping of Katherine.

“She pounced while everyone else was making a lot of useless noise. It was her smoke screen, and she got it done,” the insider said.

“She told them how she knew [Michael] better than anybody else, and she knew he’d want them to follow their dreams; and because they were his children, they could be media and entertainment moguls.

“She had a blueprint. She sold it, and they bought it.”

It was La Toya who prompted Paris to speak publicly for the first time at Jacko’s memorial, proclaiming him “the best daddy ever.” The speech ended with Paris in La Toya’s arms.

The fifth of nine children, La Toya has long been considered as wacko as Jacko.

She twice posed for Playboy, ran a psychic hot line, and publicly accused her famous brother of being a pedophile.

She accused patriarch Joseph Jackson of child abuse, and alleged her ex-husband, the late businessman Jack Gordon, tried to pimp her out for $100,000 to boxer Mike Tyson for a night.

Since Jacko’s 2009 death, his big sister has claimed Jacko’s pet chimp Bubbles has spoken to her and that a psychic contacted the “Thriller” singer on her behalf.

One potential hang up to the OWN deal is Paris’s refusal to do a reality show, but insiders caution not to underestimate Latoya’s power of persuasion.

“Prince wasn’t exactly eager to do ET, but could you tell? When the money is on the line, Toya is going to cash in. I wouldn’t bet against her,” the insider said.

Latoya also doesn’t have to worry about potential backlash from cousin T.J., who shares guardianship of the children with Katherine.

“The guardianship really comes down to what [Katherine] will or won’t approve and TJ only steps in when [Katherine] can’t or refuses to make a decision,” a family member said. “Toya is smart, she has her mother eating out of her hand.”

Stacy Brown is a reporter and longtime friend of the Jackson family.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/la_toya_wins_tug_wards_rlZ8WF9lkdYFlHN4ODkudI