micheal jacksons dead

[Killbert-Robby]

I like how his songs are topping the iTunes downloads.
It means all these people bawwwwing around about how he was the single most influential person in modern music, well, they don't actually OWN any of his songs

[Corgan_dane]

I guess Sacrificing MJ worked, we have Corgan back.

Does this mean I have to eat his heart or something? *worried*

*dives into Corgan's head and holds a rousing party*

Aww...I made you homeless this whole time, didn't I? Gonna have to redo the paint in there.

[Rkolter]

I like how his songs are topping the iTunes downloads.
It means all these people bawwwwing around about how he was the single most influential person in modern music, well, they don't actually OWN any of his songs

Now that he's dead though, neither does he.

That'll be interesting; the rights to his songs are literally worth billions. I wonder who they will pass on to?

[Corgan_dane]

I like how his songs are topping the iTunes downloads.
It means all these people bawwwwing around about how he was the single most influential person in modern music, well, they don't actually OWN any of his songs

Now that he's dead though, neither does he.

That'll be interesting; the rights to his songs are literally worth billions. I wonder who they will pass on to?

Hopefully not Alien Ant Farm.

It must be sad to be a one hit wonder with a cover of someone else's song.

[Tim]

I like how his songs are topping the iTunes downloads.
It means all these people bawwwwing around about how he was the single most influential person in modern music, well, they don't actually OWN any of his songs

To be fair, though, his most popular music came out in the 80's, before the time of mp3s. So perhaps people are finally getting around to filling their libraries with digital forms of his music. *shrug*

Now that he's dead though, neither does he.

That'll be interesting; the rights to his songs are literally worth billions. I wonder who they will pass on to?

I assume whoever own his estate.

Didn't Jackson own the rights to some of the Beatles' songs? Also, I heard that he even owned the rights to the "Happy Birthday" Song, which was why restaurants made up some birthday tune for the waitstaff to sing; and that you technically owe Jackson money for singing at every birthday you've ever been to. But then, perhaps that's a job for Snopes.

[Killbert-Robby]

I like how his songs are topping the iTunes downloads.
It means all these people bawwwwing around about how he was the single most influential person in modern music, well, they don't actually OWN any of his songs

To be fair, though, his most popular music came out in the 80's, before the time of mp3s. So perhaps people are finally getting around to filling their libraries with digital forms of his music. *shrug*.

I'm pretty sure people who actually listen to MJ and care about his work have bought CDs since the 80s, and aren't still listening to tapes.

[Yeahduff]

Most people are aren't big music consumers. The average person buys three cds a year, and that's in decline. Plenty of people who bought tapes and LPs of Thriller in 1984 have gone back and bought them on CD. A lot of other people let those records go obsolete and felt content catching his songs on the radio and on MTV since then. If they weren't fans they wouldn't be flooding iTunes.

The world knows Michael Jackson. But only a very small portion of the world care deeply enough to remember this event for the rest of their lives. I get and appreciate that there are people who will remember this day. But the fact some people will remember it, does not make a comparison to world-changing events valid.

Compare that to 9/11. If you were mentally able to comprehend and remember the event, you know what you were doing when you heard about the planes hitting the twin towers. And, you will remember it for when your children ask you to tell in show-and-tell, and your grandchildren too.

The collapse of the Berlin Wall. The photos of the collapse are so iconic that if you describe students attacking a wall with sledge hammers, or a hand poking through a hole, grasped by a dozen others, you KNOW the event the photo refers to. From a simple population standpoint, right now the entire childhood body of Germany has to learn about the fall of the wall in history class, and probably will so long as Germany is a country.

hyperbole

I also think you're gravely underestimating exactly how huge this guy was. To the world. He'll be forgotten, all right, just like Shakespeare.

A few months ago Jackson changed his will to give Paul McCartney all his Beatles songs.

[Mr.Bob]

the greatest performer of all time

there will be never be another


Edit: Hahaha The Berlin wall. You know you're talking about Michael Jackson here! You're taking such a localised view. Go to a village in-the-middle-of-nowhere China where no one speaks english and they'll know who he is.

[Laemkral]

I was unable to sleep in Kuwait and went on the free MWR Internet to check Facebook when I saw the Yahoo news article. My first reaction was "Huh, okay," followed by not caring and moving on with my internet experience. I wonder what will happen to his kids, who quite frankly are probably in need of some normalcy.

For all his contributions to popular music, how much of his fame is really derived from his artistic success, how much from his extremely unusual lifestyle and mannerisms? For many many people, he'll be remembered for the child molestation accusations, the theme park house, and dangling a baby over a balcony. Not his music. Sad, but true.

[W M]

...
Didn't Jackson own the rights to some of the Beatles' songs?

Yeah, apparently he owns roughly half of their works. Why? I don't know.

Also, I heard that he even owned the rights to the "Happy Birthday" Song, which was why restaurants made up some birthday tune for the waitstaff to sing; and that you technically owe Jackson money for singing at every birthday you've ever been to. But then, perhaps that's a job for Snopes.

If it's true, that's hilarious. Well done, Michael, well done...

[Dracomax]

Story I heardc, was that mccartney told micheal that he needed to invest for his future.

Micheal came back a while later and let him known he'd bought up the beatles songs.

mccartney was not happy.

[Risky]

Story I heardc, was that mccartney told micheal that he needed to invest for his future.

Micheal came back a while later and let him known he'd bought up the beatles songs.

mccartney was not happy.

Yeah, he bought the company that had specific rights to the catalog (to use the actual Beatles performances you'd need to pay MJ and 2 or 3 other companies). That company is now half-owned by Sony, half by Jackson's estate (sources suggest it may be more like 75% Sony's the past few years).

Rumor has it the Jacksons are feuding over the rights to MJ's works. Maybe McCartney will snap them up.

[Grabmygoblin]

yup. dead. heard about it first through my msnbc headlines twitter text, which may have excited me a little too much.

avoiding the tv coverage, since all those people who are now boo-hooing just two years ago were screaming that he needed to be locked up, and I can only take so much hypocrisy over breakfast.

[Yeahduff]

For all his contributions to popular music, how much of his fame is really derived from his artistic success, how much from his extremely unusual lifestyle and mannerisms? For many many people, he'll be remembered for the child molestation accusations, the theme park house, and dangling a baby over a balcony. Not his music. Sad, but true.

No. Seriously. You have no idea how huge this guy was. We're talking Beatles level shit here. The fact that we can talk about music at all in light of all the extra-curriculars is a powerful statement of the strength of the music and the depth and breadth of his world-wide fame.

[Komiyan]

I mean man, the guy did Thriller, that is one of the best songs ever, for serious. While I'm not crying about this, you have to appreciate the quality of the music and how it appeals to pretty much everyone.

[KWill]

Here goes a fond and at times embarrassing part of my childhood. =(
A lot of memories tie in with MJ. Bad was the first CD I owned (even if I had to share it with my siblings), watching the Thriller music video and marveling about how they pulled it off... Certainly more memories than the day we went to chip up an ugly piece of architecture and went from living in an occupied territory to living in a real country.

[Mercury Hat]

No. Seriously. You have no idea how huge this guy was. We're talking Beatles level shit here. The fact that we can talk about music at all in light of all the extra-curriculars is a powerful statement of the strength of the music and the depth and breadth of his world-wide fame.

well iiiiiii didn't think his songs were all that great so he clearly wasn't that important to the music scene and nobody else should care. it's not like most of the music radio stations were playing his songs in tribute or anything.

[Terotrous]

I think his life is a poster example of how excessive fame can really hurt a person.

It's tragic, because he was incredibly talented, but it almost ended up being a curse.

[Levi-chan]

[McDuffies]

It was sad news. Michael Jackson was a great entertainer and prolly great part of the childhood of anyone who had a chance to grow up in 80ies. Great dancer, excellent vocal range and some really great music.
I'm specially sad because I think that Jackson had a very tragic life. I see him as a victim of popularity, a person with unhappy childhood and life, who lived on the edge of insanity with noone around being particularly interested in helping him, as long as he was such a cash cow. For one thing, he seemed to be a facial surgery addict, and that's serious psychological problem, not a "whim". I dunno, last decades of his life seem tragic alltogether, and his death seems like something that was imminent. Tragic, I hoped that he would eventually snap out of lunacy his life has gotten into.

I think he's pretty much comparable to Elvis or Beatles for his time. Michael was the first really global superstar, first star that penetrated third world, all continents, all countries, all social classes, all races. Hell, every kid in Thailand knew his name, a kind of achievement the likes of Beatles and Elvis just came too early to achieve. Michael was in a way, one of the first icons of globalisation.
I think that his music has a lasting value and he's not just a forgotten 80ies star. Scandals in 90ies took toll on his career and many people just brush him off as a child-molester or freak, which is a kind of reputation that would totally ruin any lesser star. But him, he was pretty popular to this day, yeah. Like Duff said, he hasn't made anything important in last 15 years, but his albums are still huge sellers, and his audience is still large and quite fanatic. Hell, I might be mistaking, but I think I've heard of a few related suicides too. And yeah, noone ever reached the sales numbers of "Thriller".
I think that if it appears that he's forgotten that's mostly because he hasn't had much of hit singles in last decade, and controverse surrounding him keeps distracting from his music - it's always his private life and his nose that get talked about.

I think that comparisions with political events are awkward. Politics is one thing, entertainment is other. Entertainment will in eyes of many people be less important than political events that define the way we live, even if it (like in case of Jackson) affects much more people than one political event like, say, Obama Election. I don't think that these two types of events can even be compared, they're simply different "breeds". I mean we could be arguing who was more important, Elvis or John Kennedy, but how exactly do you propose we measure influence on two totally different areas of life?
And as for "what were you doing when"? Man, that's so relative. I sure won't remember what I was doing when I heard that Jackson died, probably because I was watching news, which is something I do pretty much every day at that time, so it sure isn't something I'll commit to memory. That doesn't mean I think his death is unimportant event. I know I'll remember what I was doing when I first heard this or that song, because these kinds of details can carve into your memory.

The Beatles Songs rights: yeah, Jackson pretty much bought rights to majority of their catalogue as a collateral of buying a larger company that held their rights. Which angered McCartney who, at the time, was trying to get rights to those songs back. Media and word-of-mouth largely construed it as if Jackson purposefully bought rights to Beatles songs. It may be absurd that freaking Beatles don't own right to their songs, but the blame is on screwy old copyright laws and screwy business politics that caused part of Beatles songs to belong to some faceless corporation, and not on Jackson. But hell, he's always been an easy target. Leaving those songs to mcCartney is awesome move.

Itunes issue: You'll see this fenomenon for literally every popular musician's death.
I own some of his earlier albums, listened to Thriller and Dangerous as a teenager. I lost interest in buying new albums when he started working with R Kelly. After his death, I'm considering getting some of them because I know that he won't make an more.