Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

From TMZ.com:

We've just learned Michael Jackson has died. He was 50.

Michael suffered a cardiac arrest earlier this afternoon and paramedics were unable to revive him. We're told when paramedics arrived Jackson had no pulse and they never got a pulse back.

Michael is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince "Blanket" Michael Jackson II.

Jackson had 13 number one hits during his solo career.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

I wonder what caused it?

will they blame it on the sunshine?

the moonlight?

the good times?

or as we all suspect, was it the boogie

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

the king of pop is no more....RIP

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

As long as the other MJ is still alive I am :)

RIP

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Crazy.
Watching the news, the scenes of crowds gathering at the hospital and other sites, whether mourning or just curious...it's like we're collectively remembering 1983 again. It'd be nice if we could just remember him for the mega-hits and cultural impact rather than the bizarre behavior and scandals of his latter years.
RIP.

and also; Farrah, RIP

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Today is just...so bleak. I can't believe it. At one point I'm happily making comic pages. Next thing I know, I'm hearing of Michael Jackson and feeling absolutely miserable until the multiple confirmations. I honestly cried. I remember listening to his music for all of my life and hearing all those MJ jokes at school and never going along with them because I felt like I was alone in liking him for his music and his creativity. ;n;
I'm sure he's singing and dancing in heaven right now. Aw man.
R.I.P. <3
Drawing him and listening to UW is very theraputic right now.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

M'eh.

Extraordinary talent locked up in a freak of a man, at best an insane eccentric and at worst a pedophile... I'm not sure if he was just a deep-hearted person whose unending devotion to children made him an easy target, or a sick-minded individual who had a severely difficult time connecting with anyone that could be called his peers, and preyed on the innocence of children to satisfy his needs. I can't say that I'll ever be able to look at him as innocent in light of the worst allegations levelled on him because of the settlements. If I was an immensely successful musician who had the world to lose, I think that I would fight tooth and nail to clear my name instead of throwing money at the problem.

Given the fact that he indeed was socially aloof and that he did pay off those families, it's my personal opinion that he probably had done something wrong, and today it's hard for me to mourn the passing of someone like that. Scratch that, it's not hard... I don't mourn him at all.

What I do mourn though are the 80's, the smooth funk of the Thriller album, the power of songs like "Man In The Mirror" and the general feeling that music was so much better off because of MJ. Once the snowball started rolling down the mountain, any joy and warmth from that era was blotted away. I'm not completely certain if it was MJ or greedy families taking advantage of his kindness that ruined that but someone did, and that force ran completely contrary to everything his music stood for. In the end, the music just wasn't enough once the circus moved in. And this to me is sad -- his music could've carried on for years and years but as for myself, the music ceased to have any meaning once I got to the point where I couldn't divorce MJ the musician from MJ the insane.

Oh well. Here's to hoping that maybe one day someone else can contribute as much to music, only without the mad drama.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

i can't fathom the pressure and insanity he had to deal with as a child in a ruthless business such as music.
he obviously had serious problems.
rumors of a demerol injection just before his cardiac arrest.
uncountable plastic surgeries.
a monster payout to a family who's child says Mikey touched him. ( remember...2 accusations...zero convictions ).
RIP Michael.

enjoy his music.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

sad news - the tour and stresses of it so undoubtedly killed him, i said on numerous occasions like many, that he would not complete the dates, and it's sad to be proved right, but Michael was under so much pressure and tension all his life that something like this was bound to happen.

i'm shocked but not surprised

its a sad day

lets just forget about his lifestyle and circus around it and remember why he was in the limelight - his MUSIC

that's always going to be the legacy of famous musicians who die...

oddly enough the last item i sold on the internet yesterday (before his death was announced) was Michael Jackson's Thriller album, and a second oddity was yesterday afternoon my Itunes randomly played Thriller the single...

MJ will be most remembered for this Album

i will take a listen to it today...

Matt

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

I guess Jacko was one of those larger-than-life characters I always suspected might die before his time, but still it's come as a shock.

More fragile than perhaps many of us today judging him realise. Who knows if he was guilty. I can understand the longing for deeply damaging yet untrue allegations to end, and financial settlements don't always mean guilt.

As for the rest of the weirdness and eccentricity - so what. Far rather that, than all those identikit popstars we have today.

Over the coming days, amongst all the bad taste playground jokes and mean-spiritedness, there will be an outpouring of grief, no doubt tipping over into mawkishness, but at least Jacko had talent and his output was a positive backdrop to many of our lives. Try saying the same about Jade Goody or Princess Di.

I really do feel genuine sadness at the whole tragic way his life ended. Perhaps his tours would have been humiliating and it's best they never happened, but still, part of me wishes he could have ended his days by sticking two fingers up to all the haters and sneerers out there.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Was out last night at a party when we saw it on the news. Stuck on some tunes and had a bit of a dance.. Can't say i was devistated. I always found it hard to even look at him in the later years...a shadow of the brilliance and the genius he showed in his early career. I cant help but think he died a long time ago.

Hopefully what he will leave behind is a legacy of great music and amazing dancing, and not all the other bullshit and scandle.

RIP

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

I am really quite upset by this. I guess I must be old, but I remember how excited my sister and I were waiting for the first full transmission of the Thriller video on the tv.

He was an intrinsic part of, well, most of my life really. Always there. I was never the mega-fan but loved his stuff in the 80s - and still do.

Bollocks to anyone raking over his private life on a day like this. The man was immense, and there will be many other days apart from this one to tear his memory to shreds.

RIP King of Pop. :(

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Ah yes. BBC1, December 2, 1983. OK, I had to look up the date, but clearly remember the anticipation and excitement throughout the UK at the time, and just being in complete awe at how movie-like it was.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Turns out it was food poisoning.....

he ate some 10 year old nuts! Ba-dum-chhhh!:D

Really sad though.:(

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

I'm pretty bummed about this. We'll never have another quite like him again - the man was a top celebrity from the time he was like 11 years old, an age when most of us were worried about long division and spelling bees. Even 25 years removed from Thriller, the guy still commanded a room in a way that very few could. Who's reached that level of celebrity throughout the years? Is the list really this short - The Beatles, Sinatra, and Micheal Jordan? The guy's entire personal life became national news and it drove the man crazy - I know he brought a lot of it on himself, but above all else you can tell that all the condeming stories in the media, all the rumors and lies, all the constant joking and judging really got to him and affected his life in a terrible way. RIP Mike :(

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

oh come on; he's done nothing of note for years, apart from behave indecently with small children. the hypocricy surrounding this has been incredible.

1 paedophile down. a very famous paedophile - that's the only difference. good riddance.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Wow, that's only the 16th time i have heard this joke, and it wasn't funny the other 15 times either. What is it about MJ that inspires so many juvenille and unfunny jokes? They are funny if you have maybe like a 5th grader's understanding of the man, but the truth is that no jokes can really envelop the guy's overall weirdness...talk about an easy target...


Good riddance? Hypocrisy? So when Bill Clinton dies will you be saying "one adulterer down"? Will you say similar things about Bill Cosby and Bob Barker because of their sex scandals? Does the fact that Thriller was 25 years ago mean that it doesn't matter if he's alive anymore? Do you really think the only difference between MJ and a paedophile (MJ was aquitted, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt) is that MJ is famous? You do know he made music, right? Like, the best selling album of all time? I'm not even a big MJ fan - but I guess some think that people ought to be defined by the negative things in their life. Nobody's denying that the dude was a total weirdo - and for the record, there's no hard evidence that the guy was attracted to children, or anything more than just a nutball whose every move made headlines. I mean, it's pretty obvious that the lawsuits were filed with the sole purpose of making the parents rich anyway. I'm not defending the guy against these charges - some of that stuff is indefensible - but his music is like, 1000 times more significant than any of that. If you didn't like the man fine, you don't have to comment...when Rick James died were you commenting "who cares, he was a druggie"?? What, exactly, is the hypocrisy??

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

UMM, I think it's the Threat to the Sanctity of Marriage by the people running our country.


Like that?

:D

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

"some of that stuff is indefensible - but his music is like, 1000 times more significant than any of that"

some of that stuff? even if only 'some' of that stuff is indefensible, why do you turn round and defend it with his music? does making significant music make paedophilia ok? i take it you're currently childless? there is no comparison to make between being a druggie and being a paedophile. richie james killed himself - hurt himself, no underage kids given alcohol (sorry; 'jesus juice') and encouraged to share a bed with an adult man who admitted to not thinking that that was abnormal. that's pathetic. clinton? you're comparing adultery to paedophilia?! that's beyond ridiculous.

in my eyes, you don't any more negative than paedophilia; so yes - that's what defines him in my eyes. if it was anybody else on the planet he'd be being vilified, and rightly so. are you saying that because of his success in the 70's that gary glitter should be looked upon as anything else than a sick fuck?

'there's no hard evidence that he was attracted to children'? have you spent the last decade in some sort of trance? he paid $22m or so to keep a case out of court. he came right out and said it was fine to share a bed with young boys.

i can comment all i like because the hypocrisy surrounding this stinks to high fucking heaven; and you're displaying it. there is no defence, great music or no great music. best-selling album of all time or no best-selling of all time. i'm not attacking the music he made at his (distant) peak - i'm attacking him as one father attacking another.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

whats a michael jackson?

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

You're getting the wrong idea here. I'm not saying it's okay to molest children because you made good music. Of course it's indefensible. I'm not saying that adultery or drug use is the same thing at all. I'm just saying it's an incredibly negative view to have about things and especially inapproprite if you're actually saying "good riddance" when the guy kicks it. If he was a paedophile, that does not affect your life, but maybe his music does. Get over yourself. For me, music is always number one. You come off as a Nancy Grace-type person who gets outraged over things that don't effect your life in the slightest. Yes, Gary Glitter was a sick man. It doesn't mean I won't enjoy his music when it comes on. I can't say I'm self-righteous enough to wish he'd never been born. Just because some of us want to celebrate the great music that he made is not 'hypocrisy'. I can support Bill Clinton as a president without condoning what he did, too. If you want to define a man by what he does in his darkest moments, fine. But keep it out of a thread about a guy who just died.


As for MJ's allegations specifically - first of all, you do not know what "hard evidence" is. What you have is speculation. I had a neighbor whose boyfriend had faced similar accusations based on a few images that were supposedly on his computer. The problem is, they were false accusations, and he was found innocent of any wrongdoing. Unfortunately, being in a somewhat public position, he was forced to leave his job, had his name dragged through the mud, and lost most of his friends. My grandfather, who had a TV show on a local station in Ohio, was accused of sexual assault. A newspaper wrote a big front page piece on it and he killed himself as a result. He was innocent. A week later, the same newspaper printed a retraction as they found the guy they were actually looking for. Now let's take the biggest celebrity in the world. I don't know if he did anything wrong. But the media, especially the tabloids, would love you to believe he did. In this country, an accusation is as good as being guilty. Just think about it - even if he did nothing wrong, everything would have played out the same. People assume that because he paid $22m means that he's guilty - maybe he is, maybe he isn't, but either way you can be sure he just wanted to put the whole thing behind him. It was destroying his career. Yes, it is weird to think there is nothing wrong with sharing your bed with children. But if there is legitimately no attraction, it's not wrong. Just weird. And MJ was the weirdest dude of all. How can we assume anything about the intentions of a black man who tried to modify his appearance to resemble a white boy? Here's the truth of the matter - for the last 20 years, the name "Michael Jackson" was associated with so many bizarre things that not even his closest friends could figure him out. But when it comes to paedophilia, suddenly everyone knows his intentions? People love to villify others and see them go down in flames, particularly the ones different from us, and especially celebrities. Let's face it - no matter what the courts said or what the truth actually was, there was just no way this wouldn't be a permanent stain on his reputation.


Listen, if villifying the guy and believing that a man's life is defined by his worst moments helps you sleep at night, fine. I'm sure you have absolutely no skeletons in your closet. But come on, he just died. It's big news. The guy was a one-of-a-kind. Let us grieve a little.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

There is a joke in the above post which is in to poor taste to repeat...

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

if you want wall-to-wall grieving, i'm sure the internets are full of places where you won't hear a word said against him and you can all celebrate his life and put everything else behind you and not think about them. if my objections offend you, then try one of those, rather than tell me what i should or shouldn't post.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Post whatever you want. It's a public forum. But don't call me a hypocrite because I choose to think of MJ as a musician first, and whatever else second. Music comes first for me. The fact that he settled a claim against him for child molestation (IIRC it was his insurance company who decided to settle in the end and it was done against his wishes anyway, but whatever) does not affect my life. If the allogations are true, it's upsetting. But MJ was too significant to be defined solely by something like that. There's a thousand child molesters out there, but only one guy with the best selling album ever - if you think the bad moments are more significant, fine. But it seems really self-serving to come into a thread about his death just to tell people that. Sadly, this is the era of the internet - even when it comes to death, people look at it as a chance to be condescending and attempt to make people feel bad because they're upset about it.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

just because he had the best selling record doesnt make him any better than anyone else..

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

I was going to post a comment back on Sunday, but I'm glad Nutters threw down before me - because I'm another one setting up camp in the "WTF! Who cares!" area.

"Thriller" and "Off the Wall" - outstanding albums.

The man created the music video as an outlet for creative talent - Billie Jean and Smooth Criminal - top stuff.

But since then.... please forgive me if I don't cry a fricking river - as an artist he's been pretty much irrelevant for the last 25 years. Apart from tabloid headlines and hype - there's been sweet fuck all else.

And I'm not even considering the child molesting charges.

So yeah - all the mawkish messages of hope and tearful bullshit from current music stars - where the hell were you over the last decade while this 'great' man self-imploded? In fact - where were you last week?

The fact that all the mainstrean media are camped outside his house and the Jackson family is now getting some press coverage - and Joe's attempts at rousing sympathy (hahaha - that's right Joe, it's all about the Blu-Ray!) - all point to media industry that built MJ and his like up, ripped them down - eulogise them when they're dead - and like Michael himself - are increasingly becoming irrelevant.

Re: Michael Jackson is DEAD!
 

Morally? Of course not. I'm not saying we lost come kind of Mother Teresa like figure. Just a great, one-of-a-kind musician.

Good points; but I'm not exactly sure what you wanted the current music stars to do. A lot of them commented on his self-implosion. It's not really big news. As for the media - yeah, it sucks that they're paying respects to him now that they can't get anything else out of him. Don't forget how desperately the media wanted to bring him down during the trials. They were paying ridiculous sums of money to anyone who was willing to tell them something condemning about the guy. Of course anyone's willing to make up a story for a half-mil and there were so many weird accusations being thrown around that it got to the point where you couldn't believe anything. Somehow I knew that Joe Jackson was gonna come out and find a way to cash in on this too; the man's always struck me as being morally bankrupt. As for not being sad because the man hasn't done anything for you lately, that's legit; but think about your favorite musicians in that light as well. I'm not going to be apathetic when David Bowie dies because I haven't liked anything he's done in nearly three decades. When my great-grandpa, who was a war hero, died, we did not just say "who cares? The guy's been in a nursing home for 10 years!"