In memorium: The King of Pop

[sherkahn.insanejournal.com]

Michael Jackon, the King of Pop, has passed away.
1959 - 2009. R.I.P.

While much can be said about the man, the talent can not be denied.
In tribute to the kindler, gentler time when the man embodied "wonder" and his performances took showmanship to a new level.

Let's try to keep it civil, yes?

Comments

[colonel_green.insanejournal.com]

He produced some great music.

As to his personal life, he had a host of really troubling psychological issues accumulated from and all the chaos that stardom (particularly child-stardom) brings, which took a particular toll on him. A complicated, tragic case.

[dorksidefiker.insanejournal.com]

I went as a zombie from Thriller for a couple years in a row on halloween. I loved his music.

He was still kinda creepy and in serious need of therapy, but what star isn't?

Another little bit of my childhood has died. My sympathy goes out to his family and his children.

[sandoz_iscariot.insanejournal.com]

I think InsaneJournal is the only place in my bookmarks that hasn't had its servers nuked by this news.

Farrah Fawcett also died today. Sad day for pop culture icons everywhere.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

That's funny. I couldn't access IJ for an hour or two -before- he died.

[foxhack.insanejournal.com]

I would propose a Michael Jackson week, but I'm pretty sure that 95% of all the material with him in it only made him look bad.

Eh.

Rest in peace, or something.

[benicio127.insanejournal.com]

.....Well he did love Batman and Superman. Had huge statues of them at his Neverland Ranch. Could always dedicate those to him....

[thanekos.insanejournal.com]

YOU-LA-LA

[sharkbites.insanejournal.com]

I am shaken, and I don't even consider myself a fan!

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

It's a shame that things ended this way.

Also, RIP, Farrah Fawcett.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Her death made me sad. My mom died almost two years ago the same way. And just hearing her voice...she seemed fragile, vulnerable, scared and NICE. She never hurt anyone and died a terrible death. And what does she get for that? To be bumped by Michael Jackson by Brian Williams. Ugly.

[ninjapeps.insanejournal.com]

okay, who put that nsfw:pedophilia tag there? seriously, not cool.

I didn't like most of his work after his Dangerous album but I loved nearly everything up until then. he was my favorite singer when growing up.

[superfan1.insanejournal.com]

Wasn't a big fan of his, but like some of his songs. RIP Michael Jackon.

Also RIP Farrah Fawcett.

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I heard the news first from this very post.

Though not a huge fan, I did like some of his music and have a few of his classic, innovative videos on my iTunes. It's sad that it all ended this way, and that many younger people today only know of him as a source of cheap humour. May he rest in peace.

[persoconchii.insanejournal.com]

Let us remember some truly badass music he's done!!
...and not the complete farce he has become in the last decade >_>

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

I loves me some eighties-semi-nineties Jackson music. And the man had Vincent Price in a song. As a longtime Price fangirl, that alone would have sold me.

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

Holy shit, I remember seeing Captain Eo at Disney when I was a kid.

When I first saw a news blurb that said Michael Jackson was going to the hospital I thought it would turn out to be no big deal. I was pretty shocked when I went back later and saw that he died.

Michael Jackson's dead?

[nefrekeptah.insanejournal.com]

What? But he can't be dead, he's...

he's really dead? Wow.

I'm not totally sure how to feel about this.

Re: Michael Jackson's dead?

[ashtoreth.insanejournal.com]

Motto.

This is the first I've heard of it. I wonder what he died of..probly hurting his body with too much meddling.

I did love his relationship with Al Yankovic. But Farrah's the one I'll miss.

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

MTV did not show black artists, for whatever reason, before Michael Jackson. (Maybe they were putting them on BET or something.) Michael Jackson broke that color barrier. Yes, MTV doesn't really show music videos anymore, but still...

Michael Jackson had the problem that many artists/actors/etc. have when they become successful "too soon." Maybe certain celebrities wouldn't be basket cases if they "hit it big" at a later age or had a better support staff.

It is unlikely we will have a celebrity like that from the music scene ever again.

[comicoz.insanejournal.com]

Is that true? MTV is just a bit older than me, so I remember seeing (and buying, at my local Venture store with every ounch of paper route money I had) a copy of Thriller. I remember watching the video on MTV of it, and I remember Stevie Wonder and others there too...did they really not arrive there before Michael?

And while his later life was...a bit out there, the man made amazing music back in the days of my youth.

[halloweenjack.insanejournal.com]

In his prime, he was quite simply astonishing. I mean, I grew up listening to the Jackson Five, and even so, after watching the Motown Special where a lot of people got their first good look at the Thriller-era Michael, a bunch of us--including people, like myself, who never bought a Michael Jackson record in their lives--looked at each other and said, "Wow."

As for the rest of it... a good object lesson in the dangers of getting everything that you ever wished for.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I don't feel his death. Because the Michael Jackson I grew up with might as well have died when his head caught fire, the moment that marks the end of his peak(and what a freaking peak it was). When he came back I had forgotten him, and he was already looking remote. I never thought of him, BAD and onward, AS Michael Jackson.

So this one is immortal in my head and heart:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPQmHwALAck

[goblinthebamf.insanejournal.com]

http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=1&issue=8 (http://drmcninja.com/page.php?pageNum=1&issue=8)

by the time I was listening to his music, he was already embroiled in scandals, so I never had a chance to enjoy him. I think he had a raw deal all around and wish he'd lived long enough to see his name freed from the slanders. I'll be avoiding the newschannel coverage, since it'll kinda disgust me to see those who were only too eager to mock him a couple years ago now trying to pretend they always loved him.

[pensive (from insanejournal.com)]

an icon and music legend. He's missed greatly.

[goblinthebamf.insanejournal.com]

http://www.thrilltheworld.com/ (http://www.thrilltheworld.com/)

[shadoestar.insanejournal.com]

A lot of people still don't know that the guitar solo on "Beat It" was played by an uncredited Eddie Van Halen.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

These guys do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8if4LV_SzE

[04nbod.insanejournal.com]

(http://s91.photobucket.com/albums/k318/04nbod/?action=view&current=longshoteighties.jpg)

this month's decade variant from marvel. The 80's - Thriller

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

Wow. How horribly appropriate.

[dejadrew.insanejournal.com]

Do we have any kind of tag for memorial posts? Should we? Sadly, it is one that would probably see use. ("theme: in memorium" maybe?)

And, yeah. Whatever else he was, and I'm not sure even he knew, Jackson made some of the most danceable pop music ever recorded. And the man could move. It's a sad end to what ended up being a pretty sad life, and I'm sorry as hell that things ended up the way they did.

Thank you for Billy Jean, Mister Jackson.

[heat16.insanejournal.com]

Bye Mike.
See you later.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

I was never really a fan of Michael Jackson, but then, his star had been on the wane for a long time before I even really knew who he was. His kind of music was never really the stuff I liked, but what I've heard of him was pretty good - he was certainly a talented singer. More importantly to me, he's pretty much been around all my life - a lot of celebrities have died in the last few years, but most of them were either old as the hills, or I'd only recently become aware of them, or I was like 'who'? But MICHAEL JACKSON, I mean, oy - he's been around all my life. Whether as a reference to his heydays in old 'Bloom County' strips, or as the increasingly bizarre celebrity he'd become in recent years, he was one of those people who seemed ubiquitous, a part of western culture that, a part of my mind assumed, would always just kinda BE there, y'know? And now he's gone. It's kind of mindblowing.
Whatever the man was or was not guilty of in his later years, he was a talented performer with a unique and bizarre creative vision, and it's really a tragedy that his life became such a trainwreck. Goodbye, Mr. Jackson - I hope wherever you are now, you're happier.

Don't know how I feel about it.

[proteus_lives.insanejournal.com]

He was a great artist in his time but....Did he or didn't he? I can't say for sure. I can't and won't celebrate a pedo no matter how talented he is or was. (I don't watch Roman Polanski films) But there is a chance he was innocent. So I don't know how to feel.

Re: Don't know how I feel about it.

[kitty_tc_69.insanejournal.com]

I said this earlier today... there's no chance he was guilty. None at all. And I'll tell you why.

He beat a molestation charge TWICE. Do you know how hard it is to do that even once, let alone twice? In our paranoid culture? Juries are predisposed to convict in sex offense cases in general, overwhelmingly so in cases involving children. By the second trial, there was already a cultural bias towards thinking he was guilty.

If there was enough evidence for the jury to even think it was remotely likely he was guilty, they'd have hung him. He'd have died in prison, not at his home. The very fact that he was acquitted twice is more than enough to convince me that there was nothing to hang those accusations on. Nothing but greed and a witch hunt mentality.

Micheal Jackson was INNOCENT. I'd stake blood on it. I just wish he'd heard more people believe in it when he was alive.

[moneyless_jew.insanejournal.com]

...A time when Francis Ford Coppola was willing to do ANYTHING to keep American Zoetrope out of bankruptcy.