People are forgetting what made Michael Jackson a star.

[Blazer]

So as a reminder...


Nevermind his strange behavior and all the controversy, you just can't deny how good he is as a performer.

Also watch Mike McKinley pumping out that never ending groove. Talk about an underrated player.

[uwe]

There is no doubt that MJ is a talented singer, songwriter and performer. Thriller brought black music into white households big time, so he was also a cultural envoy.

It's tragic how he was/is at odds with his identity as a (once handsome) black man - all that cutting up of what was once a goodlooking face for that inhuman "Diana Ross meets Peter Pan" look. And of course he's deeply disturbed in his sexuality, any grown man cuddling up with teenagers in his bed on a regular basis without thinking about the implications is.

That said, I found the witchhunt against him despicable.

I prefer Prince as a guitar player and songwriter plus he is also psychologically derailed in a less conspicious way, but his voice is no match for MJ at the top of his game.

Does he still live in Oman?

Uwe

   

[Dave W]

I don't think his fans have forgotten his talent, but sometimes a person's other actions lead people to say "okay, no more." The man is just divorced from reality in many ways.

[gweimer]

What Michael Jackson did best in his early years was know where to leave holes.  Some righteous grooves back then.  And credit Quincy Jones for the song that broke him wide open.  What better way to do it than get some hot white kid on guitar, and give him free reign on the song.  Michael may be a freak show now, but he got where he is for good reason.  Ever see that old clip of him when he was about 9 years old, doing a wicked great blues?

[eb2]

Beat It and Billie Jean were huge.  Considering how long he went between Dancing Machine and those, really remarkable.  But he was also a product of payola and hype, so he has fallen a lot further than anyone could have fathomed at that time.  That HIStory period was just icing on the kook cake.

I can't agree on the witch-hunt tag though.  He wasn't sleeping with teenagers.  He was bedding down with pre-teens, and the charges against him haven't been baseless either.  He settled with the first parents - if someone who would accept money to pull their child's statements about their rape could be called a parent - so the case could not go to trial.  The second family seemed to be selected specifically for their vulnerability and criminal background.  Not unheard of in child abuse circles.  Which seems to have been his real story, and pedophile abuse is the gift that really keeps on giving.  Money does fix a lot.  The stories of what he was exposed to, and what his sister suggested happened to them are horrible.  I do have pity for victims of that, but I also do not believe that behavior is something that can be "cured" or controlled, and some people - the police thankfully - can't always be bought off from keeping an eye on that.

I believe he may actually reside in Oman, but he appears to be somewhat nomadic.  Working on his Thriller remaster with Paul McC's vocals wiped off.  Can't wait for that.

[uwe]

Ok, touchy subject and I don't want to find myself in the wrong bracket here:

- When I wrote teenagers, I was not insinuating "he did it with adolescents who already kind of knew what they wanted and could be expected to say no". I was using teenager in a 10+x, but still pre-adolescent sense.

- MJ is a pedophile or at the very least has pedophile demons he has to struggle with. But I've seen no evidence, not even an indication that would allow to call him a rapist or even an attempted rapist. You can be a pedophile and not be a rapist, just like you can be straight, gay or an SM afficionado and not be a rapist (or ever in danger of becoming one) either. We're talking about varying shades of grey, granted, but even in that grey area  there is a line MJ has not crossed from what I can judge him on. Seduction is not rape. Even misuse of a child's affection, gratitude or guilt is not rape. I think that was portrayed vividly in Kevin Bacon's great (and brave) performance in "The Woodsman" where he played a convicted and paroled  pedophile who is not a rapist and in fact only realizes that he is  (nontheless still) abusing children (or in danger of abusing them) when confronted with a girl's (he's taken an interest in) description of her parental molesting/rape situation at home.

Uwe

[eb2]

Oh, none of us are in the wrong bracket.  I have the biggest problem with the parents.  I agree in that someone can have psycho-sexual urges and never act on them.  But I base my calling him what I call him on the civil suit brought against him in 1993, where the child gave a lengthy sworn statement outlining the sexual acts that ol' Jacko did with the child.  Jackson settled the following year for a figure generally agreed to be in excess of $15m.  After he bought off the parents he went on tv and said that the charges were all fabricated and he was being targeted by greedy swindlers.  After that the child's father launched another suit based on Jacko breaking the terms of the original settlement - basically Jackson paid them to say nothing and not cooperate with the DA about criminal charges, and Jackson would say nothing about them as well.  Jacko had to break the bank yet again to make that one go away, and all told he seems to have paid out somewhere between 20 and 40 mil.

That is a lot of dough.  But if it were my kid, I would never take a penny.  But then again I wouldn't let my kid go visit MJ.  I would let him watch the Thriller video though, and hope he looked at the girlfriend.  She was easy to look at.