Michael Jackson Ate My Hamster

Post #2

Well my followers...well, follower...well Richard Ford, I've made it to the traditionally difficult second post and only a day after the first one. Richard, I was not writing on the Blog when you emailed because I was working and didn't think it would be considered, by Honeywell, to be "work" in the true sense of the word, or in any sense for that matter. And then my Blackberry wouldn't let me reply so I had to send you an email from my work address and then you would have gone home so you'll have to read it tomorrow [big breath].

So I've thought long and hard about the topic of this post and because every news network across North America is still harping on about it I though I'd share my thoughts on Michael bloody Jackson. CNN, in particular, are treating his death like he was royalty; real royalty. Every time I go onto the network to get some real news I am treated to stories of his death, his kids, his huge debt owing to his spending habits and his will. We've had 3 nights of Larry King interviewing one of his brothers (Michael Jackson's brother, not Larry King's brother - what sort of a show would that be) at Neverland. We've had night after night of video of crying fans thinking that the world has caved in on them. It's as if there's no news in Iran, Iraq or Newcastle (wee Michael Owen).

However, it would appear that since his death on June 25th the sales of his music have increased through the roof. In the UK, 3 of his albums and 13 of his singles are back in the charts where 600,000 units were sold last week. I assume a "unit" is either an album or a song...not sure. In the North America we have 9 of his albums in the Billboard Top 100 album charts including the top 3;

1. Michael Jackson: No. 1s
2. Essential Michael Jackson
3. Thriller

The latter, I'm reliably informed by the BBC's website is the best selling album of all time. Other albums reside on the Billboard chart at 15, 25, 27, 34, 39 and 41, a collection of his studio albums and compilations. The top 3 are at this lofty place due to sales of over 100,000 each from the previous week, mostly digital downloads it would appear. 2.3 million songs were downloaded during this week too. Compare this with total sales for all Michael Jackson albums of 10,000 in total from the week before his death and song downloads of 7,000 and you can see the volume of sales, all because Michael Jackson died.

So if Michael Jackson is "the King of Pop" and all his fans are so distraught at the news of his death, where were they all when his financial difficulties hit the news in 1995? If they had bought all the records they are buying now, then, perhaps he wouldn't have been so skint. Perhaps he could have kept Neverland (sold to some real estate company a few years ago to raise cash).

Don't get me wrong, I don't doubt that these people genuinely feel sorrow that he has died. But if Morrissey or Mark E. Smith died, I wouldn't rush out a buy the Smiths records or The Fall's CD...mostly because I already have all of them but that's not the point. My point is that these "fans" are not really fans at all. They don't love Michael Jackson for his music, they love the idea of Michael Jackson, the wealth,the glamour and the media-generated hype.

I saw a graph this evening showing the top 10 selling artists of all time based on units sold, according to the Recording Industry Association of America and guess where Jacko is? It's a trick question because the "KING" of pop doesn't make it onto this list. It is, in order from biggest selling first (in millions of units):

The Beatles 190
Elvis (Presley, not Costello) 168.5
Garth Brooks (who the hell's he??) 128.5
Led Zep 112
The Eagles 101.5
Elton John 91
Billy Joel 83.5
Barbara Streisand 78
Madonna 78
Mariah Carey (really????) 76.5
Pink Floyd 75.5

I think the fact that he's only produced something like 10 albums in nearly 40 years didn't help either. In around the same time (Jacko released his first album 4 years earlier) The Fall have produced 3 times this output and the same again in compilations botched together by a myriad of record companies that Mark E Smith has fallen out with. Its just a shame so few people buy The Fall records. There's me, the incredible Richard Ford, erm that fat lad we met at University in the pub up from Penny Lane and emmm that's it. Admittedly I chose a band with an unnaturally high output to compare Jacko with but the point is, how can he be the King of Pop if he's produced so few records and doesn't even hit the top 10 biggest selling acts of all time?

His spending was out of control. Where were his advisers? He bought the ATV Music in 1985 for $14.5M and with it, the rights to the majority of the Beatles music, then promptly had to sell 50% by merging ATV Music with Sony in 1995 to raise money. Then, according to the BBC, he secured a $200M loan with the Bank of America in 2001 using his half of the Beatles music as collateral to pay off debts and refinanced it again in 2006. At the time of his death it was speculated that his debt was $300M - $500M. How can it get that high?

I wouldn't mind so much if the media were focusing on his talent. Despite the fact that I don't particularly like his stuff (apart from the Jackson 5) I have to admit that the guy had talent. Song writing, singing and performing but this past 2 weeks has shown that it's all about the hype and not the music.