Tribute to Michael Jackson "The Last Tear" (written by Michael Jackson)

Comment by James Everitt on June 26, 2009 at 2:58am

Michael Jackson
Official site for Michael Jackson. Includes news, discography, multimedia, chat rooms, and more.

Sony Comments on the Passing of Michael Jackson


NEW YORK, NY – June 25, 2009 – Michael Jackson, one of the most widely beloved entertainers and profoundly influential artists of all-time, leaves an indelible imprint on popular music and culture.

Commenting on his passing, Sir Howard Stringer, Chairman, CEO and President, Sony Corporation, said: "Michael Jackson was a brilliant troubadour for his generation, a genius whose music reflected the passion and creativity of an era. His artistry and magnetism changed the music landscape forever. We have been profoundly affected by his originality, creativity and amazing body of work. The entire Sony family extends our deepest condolences to his family and to the millions of fans around the world who loved him."

Rolf Schmidt-Holtz, CEO, Sony Music Entertainment, said: "Michael Jackson's unsurpassed artistry and beloved music brought joy to every corner of the world. We join today with his millions of fans in expressing our profound sadness and we offer our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones. It was a true privilege for all of us in the Sony Music family to work with one of the most talented superstars in the history of music. We will miss him greatly."

Martin Bandier, Chairman & CEO of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, said: "Michael was the kind of amazing talent that comes along once in a lifetime. He was an incredible recording artist, an insightful businessman, an unmatched performer, and a true icon. To all of us at Sony/ATV Music Publishing, he was also a trusted and passionate partner, who was very proud of our accomplishments. He will be dearly missed. We wish his children and entire family our deepest condolences."

Five of Jackson's solo albums – "Off the Wall," "Thriller," "Bad," "Dangerous" and "HIStory," all with Epic Records, a Sony Music label – are among the top-sellers of all time. During his extraordinary career, he sold an estimated 750 million records worldwide, released 13 No.1 singles and became one of a handful of artists to be inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The Guinness Book of World Records recognized Jackson as the Most Successful Entertainer of All Time and "Thriller" as the Biggest Selling Album of All Time. Jackson won 13 Grammy Awards and received the American Music Award's Artist of the Century Award.

Michael Jackson started in the music business at the age of 11 with his brothers as a member of the Jackson 5. In the early 1980s, he defined the art form of music video with such ground-breaking videos as "Billie Jean," "Beat It" and the epic "Thriller." Jackson's sound, style and dance moves inspired subsequent generations of pop, soul, R&B and hip-hop artists.

Comment by James Everitt on June 28, 2009 at 12:00pm

MICHAEL JACKSON'S ESTATE SALE

Michael Jackson died just before heading to the U.K., where a 50-concert schedule would have done much more than launch a musical comeback tour.

Proceeds from the concerts would have chipped away at nearly half a billion dollars in personal debt.

Creditors allowed Jackson to dig himself into such a hole because of the cash cow he put up as collateral: his 50% interest in a music publishing catalog that includes 250 Beatles songs and hundreds of thousands of other works.

Now, if those same creditors push the Jackson estate for quick payment, they could force a distressed sale of his interest in the catalog.

The King of Pop blew the profits from sales of 750 million records on extravagances ranging from $10,000-a-night hotel stays to the construction and upkeep of his $50 million Neverland Ranch.

But Jackson made one brilliant financial move--shelling out $47.5 million in 1985 to buy the publishing catalog. Ten years later, Sony paid Jackson $90 million for half the rights, forming a joint venture called Sony/ATV. Today, it's worth far more.

"You're talking about the greatest catalog in existence," says Ryan Schinman, chief of Platinum Rye, the world's largest buyer of music and talent for corporations. "When you have that many No. 1 hits in a catalog, you almost can't put a price on it."

Schinman thinks the catalog is worth as much as $1.5 billion, which would put Jackson's share at $750 million. Using a rough industry rule of thumb--that a catalog can throw off 5% to 7% of its value in cash each year--Jackson would have been earning some $80 million a year from his stake.

The real promise for getting out of debt, though, came from the scheduled concerts and the potential for an extended international tour. The London shows promised to net Jackson $50 million and a global tour could have earned him hundreds of millions of dollars more.

While the Jackson estate will own much of his own music, the big prize is still the Beatles catalog. Only an orderly sale will bring the maximum value.

"His creditors could say that, due to his passing, the owners of the estate have to make good on his debt in 60 days," says analyst Chris White of Wedbush Morgan. "Then you'd have to put this joint venture on the block, and that would be a distressed sale."

In other words, creditors could essentially foreclose on Jackson's stake in the Sony/ATV venture. Sony could try to block such a sale or buy Jackson's stake at a firesale price.

Representatives from Sony/ATV declined to comment.

A low price, while good for Sony, would diminish Jackson's estate. Given the state of both the economy and the music business, a quick sale of Jackson's catalog stake might not even erase his considerable debts.

"The music business is in the doldrums, to put it mildly," says Donald David, an estate lawyer who handled the postmortem finances of Tupac Shakur. "If somebody wanted to liquidate his interest, it's unclear whether it'd be enough to pay off the debt."

Add in competing interests from Jackson's family, creditors and even one-time friend Paul McCartney, and the situation could get complicated very quickly.

"They could get into a bit of a disagreement as to who has priority," says David. "That said, you can't leave an asset free of what it is securing. If McCartney wanted to claim back that catalog, he'd have to pay off the loans. He's got the money to do it, but I'm not sure he'd want to."

If an estate drama is on the horizon, Wall Street seems unfazed. Shares of Sony ended Friday's session down less than 1%.

"Sony is such a huge conglomerate," says White, "that their exposure to one entertainer--even one as big as Jackson, isn't going to move the needle in the short term."

Comment by James Everitt on July 7, 2009 at 4:18pm

Michael Jackson Memorial Service
Tue Jul 7, 2009

12:33 pm: The Jackson family takes the stage and thanks Michael's fans for all their support and love. Perhaps the most touching moment came at the very end of the memorial when Michael's daughter, Paris, expressed her love for her late father.

12:28 pm: A group of singers, celebrities, and children sing "Heal the World."

12:23 pm: Kenny Ortega, the director or Jackson's planned London concerts, invites the world to join in the singing of "We Are the World." Dozens of children take the stage to join in the singing.

12:18 pm: Shaheen Jafargholi, a 12-year-old contestant from "Britain's Got Talent," sings "Who's Lovin' You."

12:16 pm: Smokey Robinson recalls hearing a young Michael Jackson singing "Gone Too Soon" and being blown away at his feeling and soul.

12:11 pm: R&B star Usher performs "Gone Too Soon," a song that was performed by Jackson and later dedicated to AIDS victim, Ryan White.

12:05 pm: Rep. Jackson-Lee says that she will introduce Resolution 600 in the House of Representatives. The document declares MJ was a world humanitarian and someone who will be honored "forever and forever and forever."

11:58 am: Sheila Jackson-Lee from the U.S. House of Representatives says that we know "people are innocent until proven otherwise," an obvious reference to Jackson's ongoing legal difficulties.

11:51 am: Martin Luther King III calls Michael Jackson "truly the best of what he was." Bernice King hopes that no rumor or fiction will separate Jackson's family from God's love in the coming times.

11:48 am: Jermaine Jackson performs Michael's favorite song, "Smile."

11:43 am: Brooke Shields says that Jackson's favorite song was "Smile" from Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times." Shields: "We need to smile."

11:38 am: Brooke Shields recalls her friendship.

Comment by James Everitt on July 8, 2009 at 1:06pm

Timeline Michael Jackson: A Look Back at His Life!

A star since the age of 12 when The Jackson Five registered four No. 1 hits in 1970, Michael Jackson parlayed his remarkable singing and dancing talents into mega-stardom, the likes of which few entertainers have ever known.

Millions stream Michael Jackson memorial service

The world was watching, but did the Internet weather the crush of viewers during Michael Jackson's memorial tribute?
For the most part, yes.


THE SERVICE: 'The best father,' tearful daughter says
A huge online audience, many watching from PCs at work where TV wasn't available, streamed the event live. That taxed the Internet's overall performance and slowed some sites, according to Keynote Systems, a website monitoring firm.

The ripples were felt nationwide. It took Talia Andrews, a public relations representative in New York, up to a minute to change Web pages. "It shows how an event can really reshape the way we use the Internet."

Millions of streams burdened the Internet as the four major TV networks, cable news outlets and social-networking services provided live coverage.

Like other major news operations, CNN.com added live-video streaming capacity. It drew 781,000 concurrent live streams at its peak, based on internal data. During the presidential inauguration, CNN set a single-day record as the Internet's largest live-video event, with 1.3 million concurrent live streams.

FOXnews.com's peak number of concurrent streams was 676,821.

MSNBC.com on Tuesday drew 510,000 concurrent live streams at its peak.

While comments about Jackson seemed to dominate Twitter, Facebook users posted 800,000 status updates on the event. (By comparison, there were 1.8 million updates with "Obama" during the inauguration.)

The social network, which teamed with ABC News, CNN, E Online and MTV to offer live streams, says its Michael Jackson page hit nearly 7 million fans, possibly making it the largest following of anyone on the Web.

Digital technology let 47 movie theaters in 24 states present the tribute for local audiences.

AEG Live on Sunday tapped Cinedigm Digital Cinema to broadcast the event live via satellite to theaters equipped with digital projectors. The company and the theaters showed the tribute for free, using Twitter and other social networks to get the word out that tickets would be on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Cinedigm CEO Bud Mayo says the modest cost was far outweighed by the public relations boost it provides his effort to build a network of theaters that sells tickets for concerts, sports and other events. "Our mission is transformative," he says. "It's to change the way a movie theater is used and fill seats that are empty 90% of the time. This is about complementing the movie industry, not replacing it."

Comment by James Everitt on July 12, 2009 at 3:13pm

Michael Jackson 'Murdered for His Money' - Funny bloopers R us Michael Jackson's sister La Toya believes the King of Pop was effectively "murdered" for his money by a manipulative entourage. In interviews with Sunday newspapers, La Toya gave details about the 50-year-old singer's sudden death, drugs found in his body and a stash of cash and jewels that she claims have gone missing. She told one paper: "We don't think just one person was involved in the murder. It was a conspiracy to get Michael's money." La Toya, 53, accused a "shadowy" group of hangers-on of cutting him off from his family and friends and forcing him to sign up for 50 concerts at London's O2 arena. They also fed him drugs and saw him as a "cash cow", she claimed. "He was surrounded by a bad circle," she told another paper. "Michael was a very meek, quiet, loving person. People took advantage of that. "People fought to be close to him, people who weren't always on his side. "Michael was worth more than a billion dollars. When anyone is worth that much money, there are always greedy people around them." "I believe Michael was murdered, I felt that from the start," she added. "Not just one person was involved, rather it was a conspiracy of people." Jackson was the "loneliest man in the world" with no real friends and isolated from his family at the time of his death - less than 12 hours after completing a rehearsal for his tour, she said. His sister has revealed that he was not found in bed but in the bedroom of his physician Dr Conrad Murray and said he had an intravenous drip stand and oxygen canisters in his room. She described accompanying Jackson's children, Prince Michael, 12, Paris, 11, and seven-year-old Prince Michael II - also known as Blanket - to see their father's body and said her brother thought he would die in his 50s. "Michael knew he was never going to be a grey-haired old man," she said. "He didn't want to grow old." La Toya said she was at her home close to Jackson's in Beverly Hills when she was told by her father that her brother had been taken to the UCLA Medical Centre. While in the car on the way to the hospital she said her mother screamed down the phone, "He's dead!". "I nearly crashed my car," La Toya said. "My legs went weak. I couldn't press down on the gas pedal. I got to the wrong entrance at the hospital and was begging the security guys to help me and take my car because I was so weak and faint. "They took me up to the area where Michael had been taken. Mother was crying and Michael's kids were crying. "I screamed, 'Is it true?' and she said, 'Yes, he gone'. "I couldn't stop crying." La Toya claimed her brother had only wanted to do ten shows in London but that the people around him did not care about him and were only interested in his money, and forced him to agree to do 50 shows. While Jackson regularly kept up to £1 million in cash at his home, La Toya said no money nor jewellery was found. "Michael didn't keep a close eye on his finances," she said. "A lot of people made a lot of money out of Michael." She pledged the family would file a civil lawsuit against anyone they believed responsible and push for police to bring criminal charges. She said: "I am going to get down to the bottom of this. I am not going to stop until I find out who is responsible. Why did they keep the family away? It's not about money. I want justice for Michael. I won't rest until I find out what - and who - killed my brother."

Comment by James Everitt on August 8, 2009 at 9:12am

MAP: Get a sense of Neverland's vastness
PHOTOS: Take a tour around Michael Jackson's Neverland

Will Neverland Ranch be the Next Graceland? (and Would You Go?)

The man who once said, “I’ll always be Peter Pan in my heart,” had enough money, at age 29, to realize his own personal Neverland. When Michael Jackson purchased 2,700 acres in Santa Barbara County’s Los Olivos hills, he set out to create a retreat where he’d never have to grow up. He populated the grounds with whimsical landscaping, wild animals, manufactured lakes, and even a steam-powered railroad.

For years, Michael Jackson lived there within a giant mansion overlooking Neverland Ranch’s various amusements, including a giant ferris wheel, a zoo (remember Bubbles the chimp?), a classic carousel, and a glorified tree house. He sprinkled the property with a video arcade and movie theater, tennis courts, and a clock made entirely of flowers. Then he opened up the doors of his ranch, and invited children in. And we all know what happened after that...

After being brought up and eventually acquitted of molestation charges in 2003, Jackson felt his Neverland was forever tainted by the police who’d combed the property for evidence during the trial. He gathered up his children, and hunkered off to the island nation of Bahrain, where he could continue to live in luxury but away from the spotlight.

Since then, Neverland Ranch has fallen into disuse. The animal cages lie empty. The ferris wheel no longer graces the skyline. The carousel dismantled, and the mansion rid of all its furniture. Many of the rides were sold off—one even showed up at a recent Alameda County Fair. Jackson gave up most of his ownership stake in the property, and local developers talked of turning it into a casino grounds, among other things.

Since MJ’s death, there has been renewed talk about what to do with Neverland Ranch. It has already turned into a makeshift memorial, with fans driving the winding roads to reach its gates and place gifts, candles, and flowers along the property’s edge, a la Princess Diana in London. If you go, you’ll find news crews aplenty, and vendors selling t-shirts, but you will not be able to enter the property.

Briefly last week it was rumored that the body was going to be taken to Neverland Ranch for a memorial service, but instead the service is taking place at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. Larry King did an hour-long live show within the ranch’s grounds in which viewers got to see the tree that Jackson used to climb to write his music, among other things. And, already, there are rumors of seeing the King of Pop’s ghost on the property.

CONTINUE NEVERLAND RANCH ARTICLE

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