I am shocked. I am numb. I can not believe it.

The King of Pop is dead.

He was a genius. His music was an inspiration.

Rest in peace.

wow

my first ever concert was Michael Jackson at the RDS 1996- I was just 13…I’ve been hooked and gig going ever since..sad times for his family, friends and fans.

No matter what happened on in his later years, he made alot of people happy..he’ll continue to influence millions for lifetimes to come

RIP

a flawed genius , he was a complete odd ball but most of his music was great

Like many great artists he had loads of personal demons but whether it be James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Samuel Beckett, Miles Davis or Picasso or whoever else, I am of the opinion that the art can appreciated without always having to make a moral judgement on the artist

http://steviegblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/michael-jackson-rip.html and http://steviegblog.blogspot.com/2009/06/10-more-moments-of-michael-magic.html

Sad to see an icon go. Esp sad when he had a tour ahead of him and an opportunity to show the world his great talents again. Its such a pity he didnt even get to play one of those concerts.

I liked the jackson 5 stuff the best. He was a blast of energy. He had lived a lifetime by the age of 11.

It’s a strange one. I’m sure after a few more hours of blanket (no pun intended) coverage, we’ll be sick of it but it does make you think about his position in the music world, etc.

I can understand and totally agree with what Paddy M has to say but I hope that folks will be able to focus on the incredible classics that he’s left behind. It seems a little unfair to not recognise the musical and cultural impact. Regardless of him as a human being, it’s impossible to deny the quality of his Jackson 5 or OTW to Bad output.

Not looking forward to the media overkill over the next few days/weeks. We’ll have to contend with the fate of his kids, the circus of the funeral, the resolution of the gigs, the fate of his estate (and bills).

When you throw in a couple of interviews with the medical staff who worked on him, the reaction of the fans and the showbiz world, it’s gonna be some overwhelming/insufferable weeks.

The repercussions will mean that this story will run and run for decades. Elvis Mk 2.

While the London gigs will no doubt be refunded, say you are a die hard MJ fan but didn’t get tickets to his comeback tour. Out of desperation you buy tickets at hugely inflated prices on eBay – where do you stand?

I’m not in this situation, just curious.

Michael Jackson’s legacy will be the incredible music he created that is universally acclaimed around the world. He is a star in every sense of the word and one that we will never witness again. 750 million albums sold = the greatest musical icon of them all.

R.I.P. Michael

The only good thing to come out of this is the ticket agency’s in london will all be taking a big hit today

@petee

Hope you’re right. Would be nice to see the touts get shafted for once.

To rehash the tribute I posted on my own blog last night:

If you weren’t a child of the 1980s, it’s impossible to exaggerate the extent to which this man’s outrageous talent captivated a generation. There is no contemporary equivalent. No one even comes close.

As an entertainer in the era of recorded music, he had only three peers: Elvis, Sinatra and the Beatles.

Half a dozen or so of his songs might be appropriate to post here to mark his passing. Somewhat perversely, I’ve chosen a song he didn’t write and never performed, but which sums up how I think a lot of us might feel about the man in his later years. Like Mr Bojangles, Jackson’s failings were human failings. But his talent was divine.

Pitchfork have collated a load of Tweeter comments about MJ here – http://pitchfork.com/news/35746-artists-react-to-michael-jacksons-death/

My fave – Mogwai’s Stuart Braithwaite:

You bought the Elephant Man’s bones and sent a statue of yourself round the world. RIP you amazingly talented loonball.

And on the business front, from Record of the Day, “5 of the top 14 albums on amazon MP3 sales charts are MJ already today” and “All of the top 15 albums (physical) are Michael Jackson albums”

@Michael, you don’t honestly know that that he dangled his baby off of a hotel balcony? You don’t know that he admitted to having sleepovers with young boys?

On the music business tip, some interesting commentaries on what happens now for AEG and the 02 in London in the wake of MJ’s death

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article6580748.ece

http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i07c5940218c277f4644e0e0cf01cddaf

And on MJ’s estate in general

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/jun2009/db20090625_228739.htm?campaign_id=alerts

Saddest day since Johnny Cash died. A massive loss. His comeback would’ve been amazing. I had tickets for February 2010, and was already excited for it.

I’ve put up his entire RDS show from 1997 on my blog, http://swearimnotpaul.blogspot.com/2009/06/watch-michael-jackson-rds-dublin-1997.html

We’ll never see that kind of show on our shores again.

My mum took me to see Michael Jackson at Pairc Ui Caoimh when I was five. It was my first ever gig, and it was amazing. He was truly my idol then I think. It’s always been difficult to reconcile my early idolised image of him with the one that we have all become more familiar with since the early 90s.

There is an early demo version of Billie Jean on an anniversary edition of Thriller which I think categorically shows that Michael Jackson was fundamentally a brilliant musician. So I echo what others have said here – the music, and the genius of his performing talent is what I will remember.

I think it is sad that he has died, but I do hope, for a man who has appeared to have lived such a tortured life, he finds some peace in death.

Bad was the CD I ever saw and it was the first time I realised that music existed outside what was on the radio.
Incredible talent and with the wide diffusion of popular culture nowadays there’ll never be another star as big.

His early albums had a massive impact on my childhood so I’m remembering that today. Unfortunately I mourned the loss of Michael Jackson years ago.

An extraordinary talent. It’s sad that so much of his personal life was blighted. He deserved to be happier. A deeply screwed-up individual.

I want to remember him the way he sounded, looked and danced on the Billie Jean vid. Why on earth did such a great-looking guy want to turn himself into the plastic surgery disaster area he became? Discuss…

I grew up watching fab Vinnie on MT USA (the programme that introduced Ireland to exciting artists and videos such as ZZ Top, Pat Benatar and ..emmm Toto) on a Sunday afternoon and I think this is where I first saw Wacko Jacko first with Billy Jean and the the enormously exciting (for an 11 year old) Thriller video.. in full.

At the time it was huge event. Soon after I bought Thriller with my confirmation money is Golden Discs, Stillorgan.. still got the vinyl buried in the attic.

very moved
very sad
very, very sad
but a little relieved that such pain is at an end

Who’s going bad?

Mayfayne

‘Anyone who can seperate the man and the music would obviously have no problems playing a Gary Glitter record at their kids next birthday party.’

No, who would do that? Gary Glitter is shit.
If you had never heard about Michael Jackson’s private life, but heard his music you’d think it was amazing – nothing should stop you listening to it. I think people need to remember the life he had before the accusations, the events that led him to have the problems he had & the situations he ended up in. It’s not an excuse and it doesnt make it ok, but it doesnt make his story any less sad.
He was a strange man and he lived a strange life. But he was also an extremely talented man & has influenced so much of what we listen to today. So for that, be thankful.

just regarding the issue of the cancelled gigs – what I’m gonna find interesting is the issue of the ‘official’ seconary market which, I think, we’d all accept exists, wherein the promoter or the artist actually siphon off prime tickets to sell at inflated prices. Obviuosly if you buy over the odds on Ebay – tough titty, but if you go through semi-official channels, it could get very interesting, could it?

While we cannot ignore the controversies surrounding recent years, the focus now should be on his music and the great joy and entertainment he gave to countless millions – if not billions – of people worldwide.

Watching US TV last night (as I’m living in NY), they showed some old interviews with Barbara Walters and others, which showed a confused, naive and very insecure young man, who never had a real childhoold and who clearly didn’t have the benefit of childhood friends. While it seems simplistic, this must have a lot to do with his desire to hang around children. We should not forget, either, that he was never convicted of anything. A jury acquitted him in the most recent trial.

As for the $23million pay-off to the family of another boy, the TV last night played some recordings of the father of the child, made months before the settlement. He can be clearly heard telling a friend that he was going to milk Jackson. I would like to know why the parents of the children who were allowed to hang out with Jackson were not also put on trial for negligence? What normal parent would allow their child to sleep over in the house of an older adult who is not related to them, or not a close family friend, even a famous one?

Guess I was born in the wrong generation….our idols were role models, people who actually deserved our praise. People who led their lives as examples one should live by.
I hope they hurry up and bury Jackson so we can get on with everyday activities. No way does this man deserve the sort of media attention given to Kennedy, 9/11, Princess Di. I am continually amazed and disgusted with our media.

“I am continually amazed and disgusted with our media.”

I am continually amazed and disgusted by people being continually amazed and disgusted with our media and using that same media to express how continually amazed and disgusted they are with our media.

Matt@46 – ”However one of my favourite stories of the last few years involves Michael Jackson’s stay in Grouse Lodge (outside Portlaoise) a couple of years back”

Outside Portlaoise??? Grouse Lodge Studios is a couple of miles outside Mullingar. What you are correct about though is that, yes, Jackson loved his time at Grouse Lodge. The owner of Grouse Lodge, Paddy Dunning, said in an an interview with the Westmeath Examiner that Jackson was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people he’d ever met and was a devoted father to his nice, well-mannered kids. He loved the peace and quiet of the lakes and countryside around Mullingar and his frequent trips into the town itself! Mad but true. Granted, trying to make himself ‘white’, the excessive plastic surgery, the infamous baby-dangling incident and his friendships with children (was it more than friendship? We will never really know) shows someone not entirely in touch with reality but Dunning’s recollections reveal Jackson had a normal side too.

As for his music, well ‘Thriller’ is the pop equivalent of ‘Sgt Pepper..’ or ‘Dark side of the Moon’ or ‘Blonde on Blonde’ or ‘After the goldrush’, a landmark album, a masterpiece of its genre (although Quincy Jones has a large part to play in this), the first album we ever had in our house growing up. The video for ‘Thriller’ gave me nightmares for months after I saw it as a kid on MT USA. It was shown in the afternoon! Unfortunately, he went completely shit from ‘Bad’ onwards….

Jim mentioned Stuart from Mogwai’s Twitter comment about all this..Stuart also said, in a slightly tongue-in-cheek way, that this is ‘Pop’s 9/11!!’…there’s some truth in that though. We’re gonna be hearing about this for an awful long time to come.

I just want to know, who is going to give me bananas?

Have very mixed feelings about this whole thing.
The guy was a genius there is no question of that – Billie Jean was one of the first videos I ever saw on Sunday on MTV (over at a friends house because of course we had only the two channels,RTE1 and 2, of course, at the time) and it remains in my Top 5. I had the jacket from Beat It. I was a mixed race (black) kid growing up in Monkstown in the ‘80 and MJ was one of the few black stars that everyone loved; he was a positive force who bought joy to millions.

For me personally he was one of the very few positive black images I came across at the time. In a sea of on-screen ho’s, pimps, criminals, crack heads, “sports” stars, and gangstas – there was MJ.

And then it went horribly wrong – so horribly, tragically wrong. What he did to his face; makes my soul weep.

Such talent, such sadness.

But I will try and remember him for the music.

Obviously the product of a weird family situation but it can’t be denied that he had a huge imapact on the ‘pop’ scene. MJ definitely made the ‘dance thing’ part and parcel of the whole MTV thingy. Gone were the statues and suddenly you have this gyrating moonwalking freak! His music , self pennend wasn’t too bad either! RIP
(Hope we don’t have the Elvis type conspiracy theorists claiming MJ just took the easty way out and ‘faked it’! One is enough!

In 1990 I was 4 years old. Thriller had been out 7/8 years.
And this was the music that was still getting played in my house. The impact he made on music is astonishing. It is not to be underestimated.
He is the biggest cultural icon of I don’t know how many years. Definitely the biggest artist of my lifetime by an absolute mile.
I have never had any interest in dancing on any level but Christ, whenever I saw a Jackson video on TV as a kid, I tried to emulate every single move I saw.
He was a genius within his field. Racial barriers were torn apart thanks to Michael.
Now is a time to reflect on the musical history of this ridiculously talented individual and nothing more.

@Quint

Portlaoise. Mullingar. It’s all the same to an ignorant jackeen like myself. There’s Dublin and the other bits.

Anyhows, just googled them and they give Moate as the nearest village.

Interesting writings from a guy who covered the child molestation trial as a journalist:
http://classicalgeektheatre.blogspot.com/

Hey. I was at Michael’s HIStory concert in the RDS, Dublin. July 1997. I havent seen much footage except sum low quality video. If anyone has photos of that gig I would love to see them. I have a few myself will gladly post/swap them across email. just wanna see more from the show I was at. dont hesitate to contact me via my MySpace site above
cheers all

Craig