Thursday, June 25, 2009

Michael Jackson, DEAD (1958-08-29, 2009-06-25)

Saw him live once and it was one of the best live shows I ever seen. In the old Estádio José de Alvalade on September 26, 1992. Amazing 130 minutes of live MJ.

Here it is my favourite song and video of the amazing MJ

Michael Jackson - Man In The Mirror (Original Clip)
http://youtu.be/F9Nh84lfvW0
And the video:


Thanks to Michael Jackson on Wikipedia

Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.

In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. With videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" he continued to be highly visible on MTV in the 1990s, and also began to forge a reputation as a touring artist. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B, pop and rock artists.

Jackson's 1982 album Thriller is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including Off the Wall (1979), Bad (1987), Dangerous (1991), and HIStory (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century" and "Artist of the '80s"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music. He was also one of the world's most prominent humanitarians and philanthropists; personally, and through his Heal the World Foundation, he donated more than $300 million in charity, and holds the Guinness World Record for having supported the most charities out of any pop star.

Aspects of Jackson's personal life, including his changing appearance, personal relationships, and behavior, generated controversy. In 1993, he was accused of child sexual abuse, but the case was settled out of court and no formal charges were brought. In 2005, he was tried and acquitted of further child sexual abuse allegations and several other charges after the jury found him not guilty on all counts. While preparing for his concert series titled This Is It, Jackson died of acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication on June 25, 2009, after suffering from cardiac arrest. The Los Angeles County Coroner ruled his death a homicide, and his personal physician was convicted of involuntary manslaughter. Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief, and as many as one billion people around the world reportedly watched his public memorial service on live television. In March 2010, Sony Music Entertainment signed the largest music contract with Jackson's estate of $250 million deal to retain distribution rights to his recordings until 2017, and to release seven posthumous albums over the decade following his death.

Death and memorial

On June 25, 2009, Jackson died while in his bed at his rented mansion at 100 North Carolwood Drive in the Holmby Hills district of Los Angeles. Attempts at resuscitating him by Conrad Murray, his personal physician, were unsuccessful. Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics received a 911 call at 12:22 (PDT, 19:22 UTC), arriving three minutes later at Jackson's location. He was reportedly not breathing and CPR was performed. Resuscitation efforts continued en route to the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and for more than an hour after arriving there at 1:13 (20:13 UTC). He was pronounced dead at 2:26 local time (21:26 UTC). Jackson's death triggered a global outpouring of grief.

The news spread quickly online, causing websites to slow down and crash from user overload. Both TMZ and the Los Angeles Times suffered outages. Google initially believed that the input from millions of people searching for "Michael Jackson" meant that the search engine was under DDoS attack, and blocked searches related to Michael Jackson for 30 minutes. Twitter reported a crash, as did Wikipedia at 3:15 p.m. PDT (22:15 UTC). The Wikimedia Foundation reported nearly a million visitors to Jackson's biography within one hour, probably the most visitors in a one-hour period to any article in Wikipedia's history. AOL Instant Messenger collapsed for 40 minutes. AOL called it a "seminal moment in Internet history", adding, "We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."

Around 15% of Twitter posts—or 5,000 tweets per minute—reportedly mentioned Jackson after the news broke, compared to the 5% recalled as having mentioned the Iranian elections or the flu pandemic that had made headlines earlier in the year. Overall, web traffic ranged from 11% to at least 20% higher than normal. MTV and Black Entertainment Television (BET) aired marathons of Jackson's music videos. Jackson specials aired on multiple television stations around the world. The British soap opera EastEnders added a last-minute scene, in which one character tells another about the news, to the June 26 episode. Jackson was the topic of every front-page headline in the daily British tabloid The Sun for about two weeks following his death. During the same period, the three major U.S. networks' evening newscasts—ABC World News, CBS Evening News, and NBC Nightly News—devoted 34% of their broadcast time to him. Magazines including Time published commemorative editions. A scene that had featured Jackson's sister La Toya was cut from the film Brüno out of respect toward Jackson's family.

Jackson's memorial was held on July 7, 2009, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, preceded by a private family service at Forest Lawn Memorial Park's Hall of Liberty. Jackson's casket was present during the memorial but no information was released about the final disposition of the body. According to news sources around the world, the event exceeded 2.5 to 3 billion viewers, making it the most watched live television broadcast of the history of humanity worldwide, surpassing the level of viewing in the television broadcast of the any other funeral or event. The memorial service was one of the most watched events in online streaming history. The U.S. audience was estimated by Nielsen to be 31.1 million, an amount comparable to the estimated 35.1 million that watched the 2004 burial of former president Ronald Reagan, and the estimated 33.1 million Americans who watched the 1997 funeral for Princess Diana.

Mariah Carey, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, John Mayer, Jennifer Hudson, Usher, Jermaine Jackson, and Shaheen Jafargholi performed at the event. Berry Gordy and Smokey Robinson gave eulogies, while Queen Latifah read "We had him", a poem written for the occasion by Maya Angelou. The Reverend Al Sharpton received a standing ovation with cheers when he told Jackson's children, "Wasn't nothing strange about your daddy. It was strange what your daddy had to deal with. But he dealt with it anyway." Jackson's 11-year-old daughter, Paris Katherine, cried as she told the crowd, "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine ... I just wanted to say I love him ... so much." Reverend Lucious Smith provided a closing prayer. On August 24, several news outlets quoted anonymous sources as stating that the Los Angeles coroner had decided to treat Jackson's death as a homicide; this was later confirmed by the coroner on August 28. At the time of death, Jackson had been administered propofol, lorazepam and midazolam. Law enforcement officials conducted a manslaughter investigation of his personal physician, Conrad Murray. On February 8, 2010, Murray was charged with involuntary manslaughter by prosecutors in Los Angeles. Jackson was entombed on September 3, 2009, at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

On June 25, 2010, the first anniversary of Jackson's death, fans traveled to Los Angeles to pay their tribute to him. They visited Jackson’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and his family’s home, as well as Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Many of the fans were carrying sunflowers and other tribute items to drop off at the sites. Members of the Jackson family and close friends arrived to pay their respects. Katherine returned to Gary, Indiana to unveil a granite monument constructed in the front yard of the family home. The memorial continued with a candlelight vigil and a special performance of "We Are the World". On June 26, there was a protest march in front of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division at the old Parker Center building and a petition with thousands of signatures demanding justice was delivered. The Jackson Family Foundation in conjunction with Voiceplate presented "Forever Michael", an event bringing together Jackson family members, celebrities, fans, supporters and the community to celebrate and honor his legacy. A portion of the proceeds were presented to some of Jackson's favorite charities. Katherine also introduced her new book "Never Can Say Goodbye".

Death aftermath

After his death, Jackson became the best-selling albums artist of 2009. In the United States selling over 8.2 million albums and a total of 35 million albums worldwide in the 12 months that followed his death. Jackson became the first artist to sell one million downloads in a week in download history, with a record-breaking 2.6 million downloads of his songs. After his death three of his albums sold more than any new album which was the first time a catalog album has ever scanned more sales than any new album. Jackson also became the first artist in history to have four of the top 20 best selling albums in a single year in the United States. Following this surge in sales, Sony announced that they had extended their relationship with his material. The distribution rights held by Sony Music were due to expire in 2015. On March 16, 2010, Sony Music Entertainment, in a move spearheaded by its Columbia/Epic Label Group division, signed a new deal with the Jackson estate to extend their distribution rights to his back catalogue until at least 2017, as well as to obtain permission to release ten new albums with previously unreleased material and new collections of released work. On November 4, 2010 Sony announced the release of Michael, the first posthumous album set to be released on December 14, with the promotional single released to the radios on November 8, titled "Breaking News". The deal was unprecedented in the music industry as it is the most expensive music contract pertaining to a single artist in history; it reportedly involved Sony Music paying $250 million for the deal, with the Jackson estate getting the full sum as well as its share of royalties for all works released. Video game developer Ubisoft announced it would release a new dancing-and-singing game featuring Michael Jackson for the 2010 holiday season. The game titled Michael Jackson: The Experience will be among the first to use Kinect and PlayStation Move, the respective motion-detecting camera systems for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3 due out later that year.

Michael Jackson was reported to be one of the largest owners of property on the moon. In 2005, he bought a 1,200 acre plot in the Lake of Dreams and owned a smaller parcel in the Sea of Vapours. After his death, a crater on the moon was renamed Michael Joseph Jackson by The Lunar Republic Society in Jackson's honor. The crater was previously named Posidonius J and is located on an area of the moon known as the Lake of Dreams, or Lacus Somniorum. The crater is 22 kilometers across and is situated near Jackson's owned land. A spokesman for the society said: "The official designation of a Lunar crater is a singular honour bestowed upon only a select few luminaries. "Among those receiving this rare tribute over the past century are Leonardo da Vinci, Christopher Columbus, Sir Isaac Newton, Julius Caesar and Jules Verne."

On November 3, 2010, the theatrical performing company Cirque du Soleil announced that it would launch "Michael Jackson: The Immortal World Tour" in October 2011 in Montreal, while a permanent show will reside in Las Vegas. The 90-minute US$57M production will combine Jackson's iconic musical oeuvre and choreography with the Cirque's signature artistry, dance and aerial displays involving 65 artists. The tour was written and directed by Jamie King and centers on Jackson's "inspirational Giving Tree – the wellspring of creativity where his love of music and dance, fairy tale and magic, and the fragile beauty of nature are unlocked." On October 3, 2011, the accompanying compilation soundtrack album Immortal was announced to have over 40 Jackson’s original recordings re-produced by Kevin Antunes.

In April 2011, Jackson's longtime friend and billionaire businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, chairman of Fulham F.C., unveiled a statue of Jackson outside the club's stadium, Craven Cottage. Fulham fans were however bemused by the statue and failed to understand the relevance of Jackson to the club. Al Fayed however defended the statue and told the fans to 'go to hell' if they didn't appreciate the statue.

Honors and awards

Michael Jackson was inducted onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1980 as member of The Jacksons and in 1984 as solo artist. Throughout his career he received numerous honors and awards, including the World Music Awards' Best-Selling Pop Male Artist of the Millennium, the American Music Award's Artist of the Century Award and the Bambi Pop Artist of the Millennium Award. He was a double-inductee of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as a member of The Jackson 5 in 1997 and later as a solo artist in 2001. Jackson was also inducted in several other hall of fames, including Vocal Group Hall of Fame (as The Jackson 5 member) in 1999, Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002 and Hit Parade Hall of Fame (with his brothers) in 2009. In 2010, Jackson was inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. His awards include many Guinness World Records (eight in 2006 alone), 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), 26 American Music Awards (including the "Artist of the Century" and "Artist of the '80s")—more than any artist—, 13 number one singles in the US in his solo career—more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era—and estimated sales of up to 750 million records worldwide, making him the world's best selling male solo pop artist. On December 29, 2009, the American Film Institute recognized Jackson's death as a "moment of significance" saying, "Michael Jackson's sudden death in June at age 50 was notable for the worldwide outpouring of grief and the unprecedented global eulogy of his posthumous concert rehearsal movie This Is It." Michael Jackson also received a Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from the United Negro College Fund and also an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Fisk University.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Thanks AGAIN to Wikipedia page of Michael Jackson

Here some special videos of MJ (3):

Michael Jackson - Mega Mix
http://youtu.be/f1P1VksxfrM

"We all feel a hole in our music soul this is a terrible lost but while we all listen up his music and singing and dancing his songs he will always still alive in our hearts, thanks for living in our time "MJ Rest In Peace and now Sing in heaven"

Thanks to all of you for comment, I feel the same and i'm with all the fans around the world, good bye MJ

Spanish:
Todos sentimos un vacio enorme en nuestra alma musical
es una perdida terrible pero mientras escuchemos su musica y cantemos y bailemos sus canciones el siempre estara vivo en nuestros corazones gracias por vivir en nuestra era "MJ descansa en paz y ahora, canta en el cielo"

Gracias a todos por sus comentarios, me siento igual, estoy con todos los fans alrededor del mundo, adios MJ.

djtiba"

Michael Jackson - Thriller
http://youtu.be/sOnqjkJTMaA
And the video:


Michael Jackson - This Is It
http://youtu.be/W_SLU3m6uCA
And the video:


I went to London 9 days after Michael Jackson has died. There were a lot of homages in different places in London. I went to see 2 shows of Madonna on July 4th and 5th at the O2 Arena. I took some photos on July 5th and add my name to a tribute to MJ.

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