Michael Jackson heart problem

[David]

Originally Posted by JWS

In his day (1940's - 70's), Frank Sinatra, was equal in mass appeal as Elvis and the Beatles in their time.

And Beethoven's titanic influence stretched over the entire nineteenth century like a sunbeam across the vast expanse of sea. Romanticism's roster of composers who were eager heirs to Beethoven's mighty legacy include Berlioz, Schumann, Schubert, Liszt, Rossini, Brahms, Paganini, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Glinka, Bruckner, Mahler, Stravinsky, & Schoenberg.

Not to mention primarily non-musical figures such as Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Tolstoy, Vladimir Lenin, Queen Victoria & Prince Albert, Adolph Hitler, the Allied forces during WWII, & Stanley Kubrick.

All shaped the posthumous portrait of Beethoven as the Promethean hero, the demigod.

[markolas]

Originally Posted by gldstwmn

I'm remembering the impact on my life and childhood. The Jackson Five and later MJ were huge. As I said before, losing MJ and Farrah in one day is quite a jolt for any 70's child. Much has been said about the other stuff. I just don't want to go there right now. I'd rather just linger a bit in memories of a golden time when it seemed things were simpler and yet quite magical.

I think I'm just a hair too young to get what the big deal was about Farrah Fawcett - I think I was like 2 when Charlie's Angels went off the air. Anything from the '70s freaked me out when I was little, for some reason. MJ was def. a fixture throughout my childhood, tho I remember him just as much for his personal oddities as for his music.

[Livia]

I'm supposed to be getting ready to go out, but I've been glued to VH1 Classic for the last 90 minutes - they're running videos all weekend.

I agree w/ David, I do prefer MJ's vocals from earlier in his career. As soon his death was confirmed, the radio station I had on played "I Want You Back." I've got a Jackson 5 greatest hits CD and my favorite track on there is "Who's Loving You."

I went to my favorite BBQ joint for lunch yesterday - when I walked in, a Jackson 5 song was playing. I asked the cashier if they were playing nothing but MJ songs or if it was a coincidence. He said they had the 70s station on and it was just coincidence (the next song was Clapton). I almost lost it, but I haven't cried at all until today.

No one on the planet can dance like him. I was just noticing that even when Michael would dance in a group, and they were all doing the same moves, he stood out amongst them - his moves were always sharper and just popped more. I don't think that was intentional, for the other dancers to hold back, Michael was just so much better.

I can't believe I don't own Thriller. Now I want the 25th Anniv. edition.

[GoldDustBoy]

This is amazing... 52 of his songs are currently on the itunes top 100... I hope his kids benefit from this since he was in such a bad financial position.

[TrueFaith77]

Originally Posted by GoldDustBoy

This is amazing... 52 of his songs are currently on the itunes top 100... I hope his kids benefit from this since he was in such a bad financial position.

I am happy, of course, that these sales figures evidence people's need to reconnect with personal memories of MJ. However, I'm saddened that in the upsurge, HIStory and Blood On The Dance Floor (the towering achievements of his recording career) are showing little movement. I honestly think that it was the public rejection of those two works that killed his spirit, more than any of the allegations, legal woes, drugs, personal problems. Hopefully, someday, they will be (re)discovered. Off The Wall, Thriller, Bad bring back my childhood -- the unique era where the pop landscape was dominated by ONE man. However, HIStory, Vol. 1 and HIStory, Vol. 2: Blood On The Dance Floor, while continuing to yield discoveries, represent the works that first awakened my political, artistic consciousness. I think those were the albums that taught me how to LISTEN to music. And the development, musically and thematically, is so extreme that, clearly, Michael knew the difference too. He tried to use his appeal earned from those first three albums to take the popular audience into deeper territory.

I hope, eventually, history catches up to HIStory.

[LukeA]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

I am happy, of course, that these sales figures evidence people's need to reconnect with personal memories of MJ. However, I'm saddened that in the upsurge, HIStory and Blood On The Dance Floor (the towering achievements of his recording career) are showing little movement.

They aren't selling because people don't know much about them- the sales uptick is largely nostalgia-driven, and you can't be nostalgic about something you're wholly unaware of.

That, along with those releases being wildly uneven.

[The Chain]

Originally Posted by TrueFaith77

I hope, eventually, history catches up to HIStory.

The new material on HIStory disc 2 is great, some of my favorite
Scream, Money, Earth Song. His lyrical abilities were seeming to blossom at this time, subject matter was politicol, relevant as opposed to just your typical pop love song. It's a shame this time period turned out the way it did for MJ. I think we could have had seen more great, consistent records, more intellegent records from the king o' pop had the 90s been different for him.

[strandinthewind]

Here is the wiki on History:

Chart performance

"HIStory" debuted at number-one on the Billboard 200 and Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts selling over 391,000 copies in its first week.[21][22] The album was certified seven times platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America on October 22, 1999 in recognition of 3.5 million shipments in the United States.[23] Multi-disc albums are counted once for each disc within the album if it is over 100 minutes in length, in this case "HIStory" is 148:50 minutes long. It is counted twice meaning each album was certified platinum after 500,000 copies were shipped. The Canadian Recording Industry Association certified it 5× platinum after shipping in excess of 500,000 units.[24]

In Europe, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry certified "HIStory" six times platinum, denoting six million shipments within the continent. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the album debuted at number-one on the official albums chart and was certified four times platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for shipments of 1.2 million copies.[25] In France, "HIStory" became Jackson's fourth diamond-seller album after Dangerous (1991), Bad (1987) and Thriller (1982), denoting sales of over one million units.[26] In addition, Germany was the European country where the double-disc set sold the most, over 1.5 million copies, being certified three times platinum by the IFPI.[27]

"HIStory" has sold over twenty million copies worldwide[28] and, according to Access Hollywood, is the best-selling multiple-disc album of all-time.[29]

20 million world wide is very good, though his past records did better http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Records...ichael_Jackson

[becca]

"if you take Michael Jackson out of the equation, we would be without a lot of people who found their way to entertainment."

Most of those people I have never been interested in while noting many are very talented in their ways (Paula Abdul, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears New Kids, Spice Girls, Garth Brooks even). Like a previous commentor I am not into the big splashy coreographed stage pop show thing for whatever reason. Vintage Queen would be as far as I'd go I suppose. A lot of his dance moves seemed to me to have been drawn pretty directly from James Brown, but I will take it his dancing was entertaining and influential to a ton of people if a shade less than James Brown. Musically I can comment though. I had a load of funk and disco records around me in the '70s and '80s as my brother was a DJ. I would have to rank Michael Jackson and The Jacksons circa 1975-1986 as generally up there with Kool & The Gang, Dazz Band, Gap Band, Earth Wind & Fire, Prince, Rick James, Boney M... you get the idea. He owed a lot to Stevie Wonder and to Quincy Jones. Of the first hit solo album as an adult his name is on song credits for two tracks and a co-credit on one. Paul McCartney and David Foster contributed as well as Stevie Wonder, but three songs are by Rod Temperton. 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. 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).

Now Elvis did a lot, but he was a popularizer to whites, an interpreter of other people's music on a scale of Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. Elvis didn't play an instrument, didn't write hardly anything, was not even the first white guy to have a hit with covers of already popular r&b race records (Bill Haley had several nationally before the hillbilly cat from Memphis had even a regional hit single, plus had some originals in the style that were also hits). But it is true, no Elvis no Rock & Roll as we white folks know it, this they have right... but no Michael Jackson you would probably lose Prince and Madonna and a load of teenybopper flashy nothings backed by even heavier synthesizers mostly. Michael Jackson in the light of the funk and disco music of the late '70s to middle '80s is one of the tops, '80s dance also one of the tops, but outside of that he is not so much honestly. Nowhere near Smokey Robinson, James Brown or Stevie Wonder in import and influence, probably not even equal to Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield musically speaking. He was extremely popular for a very short time, the life span of two heavily produced albums involving literally a hundred other people. Abba and the Bee Gees made music every bit as world-wide popular for a longer time, much longer for the Bee Gees if you start at 1967, never mind The Beatles, Bob Marley or The Rolling Stones. Basically where pop music is concerned I can think of as many as fifty more likely kings. They may've had a bit less marketing muscle or flash of some kind but substance-wise there is not all that much to Michael Jackson's actual music, and not really worthy of the term genius if you had a funk and dance music record collection of any depth. Even in sales I have to think Smokey Robinson with his work covered by so many has outshone Jackson, I'm not aware of too many Jackson authored songs covered or recorded by anybody else. I was going to say Pebbles but that hit MJ song was written by Stevie Wonder...

I've always had a problem with the Jackson hype being too overblown and it's annoying to hear these claims yet again mostly from the ignorant part of the same mass media machinery.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by becca

. . . He was extremely popular for a very short time, the life span of two heavily produced albums involving literally a hundred other people . . . .

Actually, Michael was the clear stand out star from the J5 (one of the biggest pop-music phenomena of the 1970s) and they began singing in 1966. He also maintained huge popularity through 2008 as in 12 weeks Thriller 25 sold over three million copies worldwide. As of November 2008, US sales of Thriller 25 stood at 688,000 copies, making it the best-selling catalog album of 2008, with 774,000 copies in the US. So, this, the sales in the millions of History and Blood on the Dance Floor in the mid and late 90's, the very successful world tour for History, the rather unprecedented upcoming London dates (which sold out in minutes) , the massive public outpouring of grief in the last few days, and the Elvis like current and instant rise in his record sales - clearly indicate MJ was popular for more than a very short time

Also - he wrote several of the songs in Thriller and no matter how much anyone else produced those songs, they were not on that stage thrilling people with those dance moods. And, they all acknowledge MJ's talent.

In the end, there was and will be no one like MJ. Does that make him better than the people you mentioned or negate the opinions you stated? IMO it does not. It does, however, demonstrate MJ was a very talented man who touched the hearts of many just like Lennon, Elvis, etc. - which you seem not to be acknowledging.

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by David

And Beethoven's titanic influence stretched over the entire nineteenth century like a sunbeam across the vast expanse of sea. Romanticism's roster of composers who were eager heirs to Beethoven's mighty legacy include Berlioz, Schumann, Schubert, Liszt, Rossini, Brahms, Paganini, Meyerbeer, Wagner, Richard Strauss, Mendelssohn, Verdi, Glinka, Bruckner, Mahler, Stravinsky, & Schoenberg.

Not to mention primarily non-musical figures such as Goethe, E.T.A. Hoffmann, Tolstoy, Vladimir Lenin, Queen Victoria & Prince Albert, Adolph Hitler, the Allied forces during WWII, & Stanley Kubrick.

All shaped the posthumous portrait of Beethoven as the Promethean hero, the demigod.

Well said!

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by GoldDustBoy

This is amazing... 52 of his songs are currently on the itunes top 100... I hope his kids benefit from this since he was in such a bad financial position.

I know - but - here is an article on the assets he had, which were huge:

The King’s Ransom

Though years of excessive spending had left Michael Jackson deep in debt, the star's estate should eventually be profitable.
Johnnie L. Roberts
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Michael Jackson died this week while preparing for a 50-night schedule of shows at London's 02 Arena that were scheduled to begin in July. The concerts would have been Jackson's first since 2001, and he was doing them in part for a simple reason: he desperately needed the money.

During his life, Jackson sold hundreds of millions of records, and his musical legacy should easily have led him to amass one of the greatest fortunes in show-business history. But instead, a history of bad management, excessive personal spending, and big legal bills left him, at his death, facing continual rumors that he might file for bankruptcy. "After all is said and done, he was almost broke," one close associate told NEWSWEEK. "He needed to do this tour." In the hours after his death, NEWSWEEK spoke with three sources who'd been close to Jackson and involved in his finances, and though their views differ in some respects, they agree that the crisis-ridden financial life he left behind is almost certain to remain as murky and complex as it's been since the mid- to late 1990s.

Jackson's financial problem stems from the fact he continued to spend tens of millions of dollars a year even as his musical output—and his income—slowed down. (His last album, Invincible, was released in 2001.) In recent years Jackson financed these personal debts by borrowing against assets, and by some estimates his total borrowings at his death may have exceeded $400 million. And it wasn't all personal spending: according to record-industry executives, Jackson would drop as much as $30 million recording an album over two or three years in his quest for perfection. His videos cost as much as $8 million. While Sony picked up part of the tab, Jackson was responsible for a hefty portion. "I hold everyone around him responsible," says a former associate. "No one said no. They said, 'Yes, Michael, yes, Michael.' "

According to two of Jackson's former advisers, Sony Music Group, his most pivotal business partner and record label, will likely end up owning his most valuable musical asset: his share of Sony/ATV Music Publishing. A joint venture that Jackson and Sony formed 14 years ago, Sony/ATV owns 750,000 era-spanning hits and classics; its most prized asset is the song rights to most of the works of the Beatles, which Jackson managed to stealthily purchase in 1985 for $47.5 million—a deal that destroyed his friendship with Paul McCartney. In the music industry's 1990s heyday, Sony/ATV might have been worth as much as $1.5 billion, according to the Jackson associates who spoke with NEWSWEEK. Its value in today's recessionary global economy is anyone's guess. One of Jackson's associates says Sony/ATV's value might have plunged to $500 million; a second simply says it's worth "a big number." Jackson's share of the joint venture, in which both he and Sony once had equal stakes, may now be less than 25 percent, one of the associates told NEWSWEEK.

Compounding his woes, the lucrative publishing catalog of Jackson's hits, MiJac, is also encumbered by massive loans, one of the confidants told NEWSWEEK. MiJac is administered by Warner Chappell, a division of Warner Music Group.

Jackson's business associates and family aren't officially commenting on his financial affairs. A spokesperson for Sony/ATV declined to speak on any financial matters beyond describing the publishing operation as a 50-50 joint venture. Expressing his condolences in a prepared statement, Martin Bandier, Sony/ATV's CEO, called Jackson "a trusted and passionate partner, who was very proud of our accomplishments." As for the status of Jackson's stake, the spokesman would only say, "There are specific beneficiaries of that asset." In a statement, Jackson's attorney, Joel Katz, commented generally on his business affairs, noting that Jackson was involved extensively in the preparations for the London concerts. "Michael Jackson was a perfectionist, and his business affairs are worldwide," Katz said. "Many of them are quite ongoing and will be dealt with appropriately."

While there's no denying Jackson's grim financial circumstances, others in his financial life say future earnings from his recordings and assets may largely offset his debts and leave him with a significant estate. "His legacy has a better chance of being preserved for his estate than ever before," a key adviser said this morning. "I don't think people understand the significance of his assets." According to this source, Jackson's publishing assets generate $50 million to $75 million a year. He collects a share of it, which is split with his partners. Sales of his past recordings easily yield another $5 million annually. At one point, Jackson was spending up to $20 million a year, however, and his mountainous debt had to be serviced from the proceeds, too. With his death, that spending will end, of course.

At the same time, Jackson's estate is likely to be caught up in the mother of all probate cases. That, this source says, will help buy time "for things to right themselves," especially given the explosion of income that his assets will now begin to generate. The estate "will earn tremendous amounts over the next few years, as would be the case when any legendary talent like Michael passes," this person says. "He's an icon like Marilyn Monroe and Elvis," says Keith Estabrook of the public-relations firm Estabrook Group. Larry Mestel, CEO and founder of music publisher Primary Wave, agrees. As lead of the Jackson 5, a quintet that included his brothers, and as a solo artist, Jackson "made some of the most incredible music," Estabrook says. "Like many of the greats, it will last for an enormous time." Jackson also leaves behind an uncounted trove of unreleased recordings, many of which may now be released.

Although the Los Angeles County medical examiner is conducting an autopsy to determine the exact cause of Jackson's death, his associates believe the financial pressures he faced were likely an indirect cause. Whatever health or substance-abuse problems Jackson had can't have been helped by the daily six-hour rehearsals he'd been doing for the upcoming concerts, which were made necessary by his frayed finances. "That had to be completely overwhelming," says one close associate. In the past decade Jackson's deteriorating finances had assumed a prominent role—alongside the surgical masks, unending cosmetic surgeries, childlike behaviors, and alleged molestations—in Jackson's eccentric, troubled public persona. In the hours after his death, Jackson would likely have been encouraged that most of the public focus has remained where he would have wanted it: on his music.

At James Brown's funeral a few years ago, standing alongside Al Sharpton at the open casket, Jackson spoke to the reverend about legacies: "When a legend dies, maybe he will get in death what he didn't get in life in terms of credit." Recalling that story today to NEWSWEEK, Sharpton added, "I hope that's true for Michael."

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/204011

[sara1998]

Originally Posted by strandinthewind

Actually, Michael was the clear stand out star from the J5 (one of the biggest pop-music phenomena of the 1970s) and they began singing in 1966. He also maintained huge popularity through 2008 as in 12 weeks Thriller 25 sold over three million copies worldwide. As of November 2008, US sales of Thriller 25 stood at 688,000 copies, making it the best-selling catalog album of 2008, with 774,000 copies in the US. So, this, the sales in the millions of History and Blood on the Dance Floor in the mid and late 90's, the very successful world tour for History, the rather unprecedented upcoming London dates (which sold out in minutes) , the massive public outpouring of grief in the last few days, and the Elvis like current and instant rise in his record sales - clearly indicate MJ was popular for more than a very short time

Also - he wrote several of the songs in Thriller and no matter how much anyone else produced those songs, they were not on that stage thrilling people with those dance moods. And, they all acknowledge MJ's talent.

In the end, there was and will be no one like MJ. Does that make him better than the people you mentioned or negate the opinions you stated? IMO it does not. It does, however, demonstrate MJ was a very talented man who touched the hearts of many just like Lennon, Elvis, etc. - which you seem not to be acknowledging.

Great points. Thank you.

[trackaghost]

Thank god for Becca and Gerald. I hate it when someone dies everyone suddenly such a huge fan.

[Hawkeye]

Originally Posted by trackaghost

Thank god for Becca and Gerald. I hate it when someone dies everyone suddenly such a huge fan.

Heh I only commented on how I felt this would spark Edge of 17 part 2. This whole death thing hasn't really affected me, I still don't like MJ's music and don't see his "genius"

His death has made me even happier to still have Stevie and enjoy every 20 second new song clip she throws at us