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Re: Michael Jackson's Comeback (Press Conference Video Inside)
Mabye the people knocking Slash for it are kids who only associate MJ with the child abuse allegations, the dude was one of the most respected and imitated musical artists in history.
The Smooth Criminal video is one of my favourite videos of all time.
Re: Michael Jackson's Comeback (Press Conference Video Inside)
Axlin08 wrote:Yeah, I like both of those songs also, and Slash's work in them.
It seems only Axl had some massive hate for MJ.
Yeah, the VMA thing was one of my early "what the hell moments" with Axl. The whole "this award has nothing to do with Michael Jackson" thing I've never understood.
Music video was elevated to a whole different level because of MJ, thus they re-named the Video Vanguard Award after him. Whether Axl Rose wants to believe it or not, you would NEVER have had videos like the ones from UYI without Thriller. Period.
So yes, jackass. This award had EVERYTHING to do with Michael Jackson.
Maybe MJ was another one that Axl asked to open for Guns, and MJ laughed in his face and said "i'm bigger than you dumbass". 
Re: Michael Jackson's Comeback (Press Conference Video Inside)
He'll be on soon:
Re: Michael Jackson's Comeback (Press Conference Video Inside)
Well... It was very brief.
Re: Michael Jackson's Comeback (Press Conference Video Inside)
I like to climb trees, too.
He looks good...for Michael Jackson. Anyway, I find this as appropriate a time as any to post up an article of mine that I recently revisited.
There’s No Sex in Your Violence or: Those Yellow Bastards
By [censored]
Shock sells. It’s no wonder we’ve become numb to so many of life’s real problems. Every day, we’re surrounded by images of death and mutilation. The news runs a constant, perverse reel of life’s most unfortunate outtakes. What responsibilities then do journalists hold? In a world where outlets like FOX News inform us of yet another step toward our impending doom every hour on the hour, the role of a journalist has come to symbolize more a ringmaster than a crusader for truth. Still, the most irreparable harm can often be done by poking enough holes into a seemingly innocent subject matter. Art has increasingly come under fire. There’s a danger inherent in most art and entertainment. In times of war, the most conservative values will often rise to suffocate the natural rebellion of the artist. The easy-come yellow journalism of a PhotoShop world means news media can now shoulder the blame for their exploitative nature onto the backs of musicians and popular entertainers.
There’s no denying Michael Jackson is a flawed man. He’s also one of the greatest musical entertainers of the 20th Century, in the public eye since childhood, and documenting his eccentricities has become big business for a lot of journalists looking to get their name out there. What better way to get yourself attention than by exploiting an attention-getter? “Living with Michael Jackson” was a 2003 TV documentary by Martin Bashir in which he followed Jackson for a period of eight months between 2002 and 2003. Sensationalized revelations made by Bashir concerning Jackson’s controversial personal life coupled with an on-camera appearance by a terminally ill young houseguest are widely believed to have prompted Jackson’s being investigated and put on trial on child molestation charges for the second time.
Bashir’s docu-soap is very dirty in that it left me with a feeling of being an accomplice to Bashir’s shaky journalistic methods. Throughout the course of their time together, Bashir misleads Jackson, often lying to him outright and putting him into forced situations. Bashir’s journalism is trashy tabloid material, and the fact that it not only appeared as a multi-night ABC News special, but led to Bashir’s further employment by ABC, is appalling.
Bashir used the public’s pre-conceived idea of Michael Jackson as an eccentric and exploited Jackson in a derogatory, hurtful way – utilizing devious editing and misinformation – to further his own career. It goes to show just how willing Bashir is to take an innocent occurrence completely out of context for the sake of shocking an audience, further evidenced in Bashir’s gig anchoring “Nightline” as well as his work as a correspondent for “20/20.”
Glam rock provocateur Marilyn Manson is a polarizing figure. The name alone says it all, a calculated move that Manson, ever the consummate artist, would have define his career. Having formed in 1989, Manson’s namesake band first burst onto the national radar in 1994 with the release of its major label debut, “Portrait of an American Family.” Since then, Manson has become both demon dog to an increasingly right wing America and champion to the underdog, perhaps the last living dandy. Manson’s Bowie-esque albums deal less with the befuddling satanic imagery the media associates with him and more with love lost. Manson’s a romantic, not a Satanist. In 1999, the media witch hunt that followed the Columbine Massacre wrongfully singled out Manson, an artist, and tried to hold him responsible; this despite the fact the two gunmen openly loathed Manson’s poppy, danceable music. Manson retreated, his career never to fully recover, although he would begin to reclaim his dignity following an appearance in Michael Moore’s lauded “Bowling for Columbine” and with the release of several hit singles, including an ironic cover of Depeche Mode’s “Personal Jesus.”
The media’s sensationalized coverage of Columbine made celebrities and martyrs out of two murdering psychopaths, which is presumably what they’d wanted all along. Columbine set a precedent. If you want instant celebrity and notoriety, shoot up your school. Let the media coverage take care of the rest. If you die when there’s no one watching, then did you ever really live at all? We need those cameras to be in the faces of grieving parents right away. No time to cry like the present, so get ready for your close-up.
Here we are, more than a decade later in 2009. Major news outlets have now fully embraced the roles once inhabited by blogging gossip mongers. The controversial passing of California Proposition 8 has taken a backseat to the all-inclusive coverage of a leaked on-set rant featuring actor Christian Bale. Sean Penn’s winning a Best Actor Academy Award for his portrayal of slain gay rights icon Harvey Milk in Gus Van Sant’s biopic “Milk” was seen by many as a politically motivated move by the Academy. That may be, considering his biggest competition was comeback kid Mickey Rourke in Darren Aronofsky’s heartbreaking “The Wrestler.” Rourke famously burned his bridges to and from Tinseltown some time ago. While both deserved the prize, it’s ironic that Penn’s winning becomes a grand conspiracy. In 2006, the late Heath Ledger lost the Best Actor race for his portrayal of bisexual cowboy Ennis Del Mar in “Brokeback Mountain,” the film itself similarly losing Best Picture to the decade-too-late message of “Crash.” Had either the film or its actor been nominated in our post-Proposition 8 climate, would they have stood a better chance at striking cultural relevance within the minds of Academy voters? For a machine as allegedly left and elitist as Hollywood, why would it take such a moral tragedy to define great art?
Not everything’s as black and white as the headlines would lead you to believe. For as many exhaustive hours of coverage we’ve seen reported of pop tart Britney Spears’ meltdown(s), in November 2008 we were still able to pull our heads together long enough to elect a compassionate, elegant, open-minded man to the office of President of the United States. See, if we’re to rely on the Martin Bashirs and Bill O’Reillys of the world to deliver our news as a condemnation of our arts and entertainment, to find ulterior motivation behind otherwise incidental occurrences, then we really are watching Rome burn. Have fun with that. I’ll be on the roof of the Moulin Rouge, sipping absinthe with Toulouse-Lautrec.
