[carrie721]

Originally Posted by becca

King of pop? Hyperbole. Barry Gibb in terms of songwriting would probably be a fit holder of that title if not Elton John or Paul McCartney. Jackson was no genius, and he took from a lot of people who came before besides James Brown. No James Brown, no Michael to be king of pop, totally impossible. No Smokey Robinson, again no Michael. That is saying a lot. Unless you just don't know who those two people are you can't possibly say otherwise.

you can do this with just about anything - without x there would be no y. everything in art is derivative to a degree.

MJ's immense popularity is undeniable. if nothing else, he should get credit for building on what SR, JB, and others did and taking it to a level they simply couldn't.

Who was bigger than Michael besides them was and is Stevie Wonder. Simply a fact. He didn't make hit videos and have the massive hype machine but aside from that he beats Michael in every way other than sales of one single album. More songs, more albums, more hits over a longer time period, more influential (Erykah Badu, India Aire, Jamiroquai, Angie Stone and other more substantive creative people).

well that is certainly a matter of taste.

Originally Posted by becca

Stevie Wonder stayed in his community,

what, "where he belonged"?

I see the fruits of people influenced by them and compare and their fruits are lasting, Michael did not and will not. He made dance music about zombies and people trying to get money from him and his self-absorbed loss of his childhood. He did not overcome, he has not prevailed, except on white bankers pieces of paper.

geez, always so serious. i don't really delineate so heavy-handedly between so-called "high" art and "low" art. just because something is popular doesn't mean it's automatically ****.

and, hang on, side bar for just a second. i'm not even a michael jackson megafan. i would call myself a casual fan at best. i was enthralled with him at age 8 because he did the theme song for that movie free willy but that was basically the beginning and end of my infatuation.

i just want to make it clear that i am not some defensive uberfan. i am just someone who enjoys a handful of his songs and who has seen the michael jackson ****show from the sidelines for the past 18 years or so that i've been aware of popular culture.

but back to the meat of the argument.

yeah, "thriller" may be about zombies and "billie jean" may be about god knows what, but what the hell are "lucy in the sky with diamonds" and "crocodile rock" about?

sometimes good music is just good music.

but if you're interested in music with some more depth, check out "dirty diana" or "black or white" or "man in the mirror," the latter of which he did not write but did interpret it with candor.

the irony of you dissing him for not having "prevailed" when you admit that you get flustered over MJ because of your own experiences with some "attackers" should go without saying.

as for your "self-absorbed loss of his childhood" comment - ouch. where's that empathy that (allegedly) goes hand-in-hand with your beloved socialism? gotta look out for our fellow man and all that.

Thank you for this space and I've said all I want to now. Think about people homeless families on the street of your town or in Tehran fighting for scraps of freedom instead of this entertainer who overdosed and who many that crossed his path in real life have some very bad things to say about.

and there are others who have nothing but good things to say about their experiences. and i'm not talking about employees and people who MJ could have bought off.

have you ever watched the martin bashir ABC special and the re-cut version they aired later? they're real eye-openers.

Originally Posted by becca

I don't see how, it would have to be spelled out for me as I could see the Aerosmith-Run DMC thing being ground-breaking but Van Halen was only following in others' footsteps like Mike Bloomfield's not to mention Peter Green. Not being in the U.S. at the time or getting MTV I can't say if they had some no black artists videos policy Billie Jean broke but Canadian tv had black vjs and black artists like Eddy Grant and Joan Armatrading making videos for tv shows. A friend also says he saw James Brown do the Moonwalk in the '70s.

gee, good thing you did your homework before going on this massive diatribe.

from wiki:

It was the first video by a black artist to be played regularly by the channel, as they felt black music was not "rock" enough.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Jean#Music_video

as for james brown doing the moonwalk in the 70's - it's been acknowledged by many people in many places that MJ did not invent it. in fact, anyone with access to youtube can watch a video by the guy who taught MJ how to do it.

Originally Posted by becca

The two oldest kids don't share blood (despite both being named Michael), but Blanket Jackson might, so maybe Joe or whoever will get him to groom into the succesor pop king or whatever plans they might have in mind.

i don't know what relevance blood lines have here, since the "king of pop" moniker does not refer to a literal monarchy. i understand the political system in canada is different from the US, but try to keep up.

Originally Posted by becca

If I was right about the moonwalk (although have never heard of the Bowie part in it) maybe I am right about other things?

see chris's post.

The hype about Jackson's place in music history is like when some kid talks about Avril Lavigne 'changing the world' and not knowing who Madonna, Stevie Nicks, Gale Garnet or Wanda Jackson are. It just seems like everyone is an 'icon' and 'changed the world'.

yeah, because avril lavigne has been an international superstar for decades now. honestly, come off it.

I'm amazed Joe Jackson is going to help teach 'his' grandchildren about their culture's history... what the? Two of those kids are zero relation to MJ genetically, or are we supposed to not know and mention that? Joe is going to have access (as will their biological mother), whenever he wants folks, at least as long as we pretend they are related to MJ. Knowing how hard it is to adopt in most places I can't imagine if the truth had been investigated that MJ would've been found a fit single parent based on his drug use and supplying of alcohol to minors... this looks like a job for Maury!

good god. step away from the sauce.

your concern about blood relation is really, really stupid and completely irrelevant. honestly, if you would keep it simple and say something like - MJ behaved inappropriately around kids and that's wrong, and his music holds no interest to me, therefore i feel no loss and find the media hype distracting and ridiculous - who could argue with that?

instead you've been raving and, at times, utterly incoherent.

It's amazing what got people out in the streets after the flu scare and parting with their money, maybe every town should have a MJ memorial area and the economy will recover much quicker!

actually tens of thousands of people showed up in downtown LA for the lakers parade last month, so MJ's memorial was just sloppy seconds.

btw - for someone who rails on about the evil of the MSM and their lack of "priorities" about what's really important, you sure did find a lot of time between feeding the homeless and supporting the freedom fighters in tehran to post about MJ.