Michael Jackson is DEAD!

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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.

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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.

[sola sistim]

Originally Posted by 34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j

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.

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

[34958hq439-qjw9v5jq298v5j]

Originally Posted by sola sistim

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

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.

Originally Posted by chuck

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.

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!"