Thread: Michael Jackson: dead at age 50

>> Of course Jackson sold more records than the Beatles, but my point was that record sales do not necessarily reflect what that music ends up meaning to people and how deeply it pervades the popular culture.

It's actually the other way around. I believe MJ sold around 750 million total, whereas the Beatles have sold well over a billion.

>> It's a problem when people get all shrill and theatrical and say things like "damn you and all your words"

Hey, that was the funniest line in this thread.

>> I really miss Reagan and Thatcher. Which makes me the polar opposite of most of my friends.

I really liked Reagan, personally. It's kind of funny too because my parents, who were basically 60's era "hippies", would sometimes jokingly refer to me as "Alex" (eg: P. Keaton) because of my apparently conservative opinions.

>> Oh geez, would you look at that - we're onto page 4 now. Look what you went and made me do.

While I have to disagree with you on your major points, you have done a good job of defending your opinion and you've made some interesting secondary arguments along the way as well. All things considered, I think this has been, for the most part, a constructive discussion (if not a little drawn out). But I really don't expect any converts from either side, so I think it's safe to say that the whole debate over just how important a role MJ played is open to interpretation.

I'll pretty much stop here because it's obvious theres a lot of "die hard" Michael fans here.

I'm certainly not an MJ fan, but I'm a fan of our justice system. Innocent until proven guilty. So MJ is to be assumed innocent. No court has ever judged him guilty, yet the media basically destroyed him. You could say he was alive the last years, but you could also say that a zombie is alive in a way. For me, he was already dead, so the news of his "real" death were somewhat meaningless. Like "MJ died... again".

I can remember that his video was only aired after 22:00 to protect minors. If you were allowed to stay up and watch it (the stations played it right at 22:00) you definetly were the "cool guy" in school the next day. Good times. I wouldn't say I miss him or his music, but some of my childhood memories will always have Dirty Diaaaana playing in the backgound.

Originally Posted by nvoigt

For me, he was already dead, so the news of his "real" death were somewhat meaningless. Like "MJ died... again".

Which makes him the first corpse to sell out 50 concerts in London in under 5 hours. 750,000 tickets.

err.. yes, the first.

I'm unaware of Keith Richards giving 50 concerts in one town at a time and selling out the 750,000 tickets in under 5 hours. Care to show me my evil ways?

I can't even open the site without installing a foreign language package... care to point to something credible backing up your accusations?

I can't believe this thread isn't locked yet ...

Originally Posted by ಠ_ಠ

I can't believe this thread isn't locked yet ...

I can't believe he's dead. Although he did have a rather unhealthy lifestyle. I'm not sure bleach is good for your skin... as if it was vitiligo. That's just like saying, "He got his nose operated on because it got broken" :\. Great music, from an "odd" guy.

What I can read there is a lot of talk about sueing, countersueing, tons of money and making somebody look as victim or victimizer in front of the jury for a process that is about a crapload of money, not religion. MJ has called jews leeches in a private conversation. If that makes him an antisemite, what would we be by that standards? I'd surely be a gay-hating, anti-catholic, anti-protestant, anti-reformed, anti-sunni, anti-shiite, anti-semitic, anti-hinduist, anti-buddhist, anti-atheist, anti-feminist, anti-vegetarian, anti-vegan, anti-bush, anti-obama, anti-whateveryoucanthinkof. I don't think there is a religion, political movement or any other topic I haven't stereotyped and talked crap about on the phone and/or in private conversations. If you'd pick 30 sentences out of my 30+ years of life, you could probably paint me as a monster worse than Hitler, Dschingis Khan and Nero all together. Multiply that by the media factor and you've got a lot of leverage to have the jury award you the money you want. If he made public hate speeches, I'll be on your side, but I'm not the 4th Reich thought police, I'll not judge someone based on parts of private conversations picked to make him look bad in court where all is about money.

Originally Posted by Sharke

Sure...it's an AP article after all so no shortage of sites...

USATODAY.com - ADL demands Michael Jackson apology

That article is a joke. We are given a quote without a context. How can we be exactly sure what he was talking about and why? Besides, we even don't know who he was talking with. People often say things that the other person wants to hear, but which they actually don't believe in, in order to leave a "good" impression to someone.

Could I ask you, what are you trying to do? You are posting random links about things that would discredit him and are totally off-topic. Most of those articles are ripped out of context, originated from unreliable sources or are accusations in which he has been found innocent. And should I remind you again that they didn't have anything to do with what this topic is about – his contributions to modern music? Also I don't think that other people's personal lives are any of our business.

You know you can't bring proper arguments to prove your opinion about him not having a huge impact on modern music, so you try to discredit him as a person. In politics this is called argumentum ad hominem and is a popular demagogy method.

I didn't even exist when Michael Jackson made his music, yet I know that he inspired artists that are popular today, like Kanye West, who states it in a song of his, if I'm not mistaken... I also think that Akon mentioned Michael Jackson inspiring him...
Also Michael Jackson did that retarded dance in his music video, thriller it was I think... Or something off that album, that must have made future artists dare more infront of the camera, although no one changed the music video industry more than Madonna ( woohoo to half naked women! )

And then, everyone thinks that every old man is a pedophile these days...