yullo !!!
seeems like a lot of people out there dont have such a great love for the colour of passion, red!!
herez a nice little sometihng on music whose essense are the colours BLack and White.{ i know few of you smart alecs will say that black n white are not colours because of blah blah blah, i am a comman man using common terminology} so here goes . . . . . . . .
The term black or white is synonymous with a lot of things. It is a comparison between the good and the bad for some, between legal and illegal for some others and for a lot of people the difference in skin colour. It is this comparison and differentiation that has made and destroyed many a life. It has made a huge psychological impact on some to the extent that they become obsessed with and try their best not to be identified as, in most of the cases, ‘black’. They try their best to mix in without being identified .One of the most famous cases being that of the king of pop “Michael Joseph Jackson” or simply MJ to many.
Michael Jackson was born in the year 1958 and has lived all but the first four years of his life in the public eye. He was the youngest in the group of five brothers known as ‘The Jackson Five’. In the 1960s their parents pushed the brothers Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine and Michael into talent competitions and then into supporting soul acts on the live circuit - where they learned stagecraft from the likes of James Brown, The Temptations and Gladys Knight. MJ became the lead vocalist and the front man of the group. Despite being very young to be singing about such emotions, he managed to make chart-toppers like I Want You Back and I'll Be There completely credible.
By the time he was aged ten the Jackson Five had signed to Motown Records, which was their pathway to success and superstardom. In the US the Jackson 5 had 16 top 40 singles between 1969 and 1975, and three top five LPs in 1970 alone, including the song “I want you back” #1 in US in ’69 and #2 in UK the following year. But this success, occurred at the cost of their childhood, as told by Taj, son of Tito, who said, “my uncles never had a childhood”. The five brothers used to be bullied and beaten up by their father, Joe, as was admitted by MJ, on Oprah Winfrey’s show, were he spoke about how tough it was for him to go on stage after getting beaten up by his father. He described his father as being very hard, strict and stern. MJ went to say that there had been a lot of sadness in his life.
This had a huge impact on the mind of the man who has the distinction of being inducted in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of fame twice, first on May 6, 1997 as part of the Jackson five, and on March 19, 2001 as a solo artist. MJ’s album Thriller, released in 1982, has the distinction of being the most successful album of all time having sold over 47 million copies worldwide and it fetched him 12 Grammy nominations with him taking eight home. MJ has won many other awards, which include Best Selling Male Pop Artist of the Millennium Award at the World Music Awards, and the Living Legend Award at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards. He has many number one and top ten songs to his credit and his songs have found place in the best 100 Music Videos of all time as declared by the ‘Rolling Stones’ magazine. Michael was listed as the #1 male artist with the "Most #1 hits by the Billboard magazine when they released their list of the best artists and songs in the last four decades on their fortieth anniversary. He had also landed the largest individual sponsorship deal in history from Pepsi in 1983 and his involvement in the 1984 Victory tour sparked the greatest demand for concert tickets ever. "Making Michael Jackson’s Thriller", a long form video, released in December 1983 became the best-selling music home video.
But even though he had all this success and a huge amount of adoration, not only for his singing but also for his amazing dancing abilities (including the phenomenal Moonwalk), Michael was starting to become more and more weirder. He started wearing masks to his concerts and underwent numerous plastic surgeries, which have changed the very colour he represented. His skin colour is now completely white which he has blamed on a skin pigmentation deficiency. There were rumours abound that he is obsessed about ageing and that he had taken drugs to change his skin to white. He is also said to have gone home without removing his make up after performances. His marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter, in 1994 was claimed by many as a publicity stunt. The marriage did not last for long. MJ went on to have children with another woman, Debbie Rowe, in 1997 who divorced him two years later. The couple have two children, Prince Michael Junior, born in 1997 and Paris Michael Katherine, born in 1998, both of whom are with MJ. His latest album ‘Invincible’ released in late 2001 was his first in six years, but proved to be nothing more than a damp squib.
MJ also has begun to lose his image in the public’s eye after allegations of child abuse, prominent among them was the one made by a 13 year old friend in 1993. MJ later settled with the boy’s family for 20 million dollars in 1994, after which the criminal investigations against him were stopped. MJ categorically denied the rumours and now is trying his best to regain the confidence of one and all with a lot of charity work for children in particular. Many of MJ’s videos in the 90’s have children in them and show Michael in a good light.
This might be the result of his bad childhood taking the toll on him now. He is said to be very fond of animals and toys and is surrounded by them in an attempt to recapture his youth. But as is known all over you can never go back in time no matter how hard you try. All of us go through the emotionally turbulent transition phase from childhood to adulthood but few do not make it through and remain stuck in this phase. MJ has done lot of impromptu actions while facing an audience. Most recent of all, he hung out a baby out of his balcony window when his fans were cheering for him outside. This drew a lot of flake and he later apologized for it going onto say that it was a most irresponsible thing for him to do.
But where all will this take the ‘Prince’ to. Will he fade into oblivion at the age of 44?an age at which lot of people just begin their journey upwards on the ladder of fame at the top of which MJ has stayed on for forty years. Will his obsession with health and ageing eventually lead to him dying prematurely?. It is said that he has undergone so many surgeries on his nose that there is no skin left to graft. With his skin like moonlight being more prominent now than his moonwalk MJ is the classic case of wanting and becoming what you are not and stand for. He is remembered by millions across America as the cute black kid who was so well poised and sang love songs very innocently. All his chart busters came at a time when his skin tone was still black. That “Invincible” was such a big flop goes on to show that the changes of colour and identity have harmed Michael and his career. Even though the Jackson five were probably the most popular blacks after Martin Luther King Jr, Michael maybe a victim of the racial stigma that affected scores of his fellow African-American countrymen. He maybe feeling that unless he becomes ‘white’ he is not going to be an integral part of the crowd. This very thought has destroyed a lot of people in the United States of America.
It is said that even though the Jackson Five’s childhood’ was incomplete they illuminated millions of other childhoods with some of the most infectious and joyous dance music ever made. The joy of which will never be able to work on MJ. Racial profiling is the biggest and worse crime committed all over the world after religious discrimination and probably surpasses it in terms of the hurt and pain it causes leaving deep scars and unhealed wounds in the souls of the affected.
Most of us here in India are proud that there is no discrimination based on colour, but overrule the fact that caste differences and underlying political agendas have lead to us not lagging far behind. The Indians settled in USA and most non-Americans are now undergoing the same profiling after the 9/11 attack. Even the most popular Indian entertainers like Aamir Khan and Kamal Hassan have had to face intense interrogation in US airports because of their names. A group of Indians travelling to US of a performance were thought to be hijackers because of the way they were ‘behaving’ on the flight.Well maybe we should not be saying much against this, because a country, which nearly eliminated its original inhabitants and is so double faced in that it was the country to which all those who were looked down upon and treated badly in United Kingdom and the rest of Europe migrated. The country of ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’ has now reached a stage where in its own people vehemently oppose any war against others where in US is only trying to prove its superiority through other excuses. The scars of the Vietnam War still run deep in the hearts of many. This has also had a lot of effect on the young. The Columbine high school shoot out was followed by many such incidents even though precautions were taken. Child abuse has taken a new meaning and a found new messiah in Eminem a.k.a Marshall Mathers, a white American, whose videos and songs are all about how he was treated in his childhood and the spite inside him for his mother among other people. The song “I am sorry mama” only emphasises it further. Probably Slim Shady, as Eminem is popularly known as, will become the new victim of American policies and be hailed as the King of Rap, stepping into a domain of blacks, overshadowing MJ, the King of Pop
seeems like a lot of people out there dont have such a great love for the colour of passion, red!!
herez a nice little sometihng on music whose essense are the colours BLack and White.{ i know few of you smart alecs will say that black n white are not colours because of blah blah blah, i am a comman man using common terminology} so here goes . . . . . . . .
The term black or white is synonymous with a lot of things. It is a comparison between the good and the bad for some, between legal and illegal for some others and for a lot of people the difference in skin colour. It is this comparison and differentiation that has made and destroyed many a life. It has made a huge psychological impact on some to the extent that they become obsessed with and try their best not to be identified as, in most of the cases, ‘black’. They try their best to mix in without being identified .One of the most famous cases being that of the king of pop “Michael Joseph Jackson” or simply MJ to many.
Michael Jackson was born in the year 1958 and has lived all but the first four years of his life in the public eye. He was the youngest in the group of five brothers known as ‘The Jackson Five’. In the 1960s their parents pushed the brothers Jackie, Tito, Marlon, Jermaine and Michael into talent competitions and then into supporting soul acts on the live circuit - where they learned stagecraft from the likes of James Brown, The Temptations and Gladys Knight. MJ became the lead vocalist and the front man of the group. Despite being very young to be singing about such emotions, he managed to make chart-toppers like I Want You Back and I'll Be There completely credible.
By the time he was aged ten the Jackson Five had signed to Motown Records, which was their pathway to success and superstardom. In the US the Jackson 5 had 16 top 40 singles between 1969 and 1975, and three top five LPs in 1970 alone, including the song “I want you back” #1 in US in ’69 and #2 in UK the following year. But this success, occurred at the cost of their childhood, as told by Taj, son of Tito, who said, “my uncles never had a childhood”. The five brothers used to be bullied and beaten up by their father, Joe, as was admitted by MJ, on Oprah Winfrey’s show, were he spoke about how tough it was for him to go on stage after getting beaten up by his father. He described his father as being very hard, strict and stern. MJ went to say that there had been a lot of sadness in his life.
This had a huge impact on the mind of the man who has the distinction of being inducted in the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of fame twice, first on May 6, 1997 as part of the Jackson five, and on March 19, 2001 as a solo artist. MJ’s album Thriller, released in 1982, has the distinction of being the most successful album of all time having sold over 47 million copies worldwide and it fetched him 12 Grammy nominations with him taking eight home. MJ has won many other awards, which include Best Selling Male Pop Artist of the Millennium Award at the World Music Awards, and the Living Legend Award at the 35th Annual Grammy Awards. He has many number one and top ten songs to his credit and his songs have found place in the best 100 Music Videos of all time as declared by the ‘Rolling Stones’ magazine. Michael was listed as the #1 male artist with the "Most #1 hits by the Billboard magazine when they released their list of the best artists and songs in the last four decades on their fortieth anniversary. He had also landed the largest individual sponsorship deal in history from Pepsi in 1983 and his involvement in the 1984 Victory tour sparked the greatest demand for concert tickets ever. "Making Michael Jackson’s Thriller", a long form video, released in December 1983 became the best-selling music home video.
But even though he had all this success and a huge amount of adoration, not only for his singing but also for his amazing dancing abilities (including the phenomenal Moonwalk), Michael was starting to become more and more weirder. He started wearing masks to his concerts and underwent numerous plastic surgeries, which have changed the very colour he represented. His skin colour is now completely white which he has blamed on a skin pigmentation deficiency. There were rumours abound that he is obsessed about ageing and that he had taken drugs to change his skin to white. He is also said to have gone home without removing his make up after performances. His marriage to Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis' daughter, in 1994 was claimed by many as a publicity stunt. The marriage did not last for long. MJ went on to have children with another woman, Debbie Rowe, in 1997 who divorced him two years later. The couple have two children, Prince Michael Junior, born in 1997 and Paris Michael Katherine, born in 1998, both of whom are with MJ. His latest album ‘Invincible’ released in late 2001 was his first in six years, but proved to be nothing more than a damp squib.
MJ also has begun to lose his image in the public’s eye after allegations of child abuse, prominent among them was the one made by a 13 year old friend in 1993. MJ later settled with the boy’s family for 20 million dollars in 1994, after which the criminal investigations against him were stopped. MJ categorically denied the rumours and now is trying his best to regain the confidence of one and all with a lot of charity work for children in particular. Many of MJ’s videos in the 90’s have children in them and show Michael in a good light.
This might be the result of his bad childhood taking the toll on him now. He is said to be very fond of animals and toys and is surrounded by them in an attempt to recapture his youth. But as is known all over you can never go back in time no matter how hard you try. All of us go through the emotionally turbulent transition phase from childhood to adulthood but few do not make it through and remain stuck in this phase. MJ has done lot of impromptu actions while facing an audience. Most recent of all, he hung out a baby out of his balcony window when his fans were cheering for him outside. This drew a lot of flake and he later apologized for it going onto say that it was a most irresponsible thing for him to do.
But where all will this take the ‘Prince’ to. Will he fade into oblivion at the age of 44?an age at which lot of people just begin their journey upwards on the ladder of fame at the top of which MJ has stayed on for forty years. Will his obsession with health and ageing eventually lead to him dying prematurely?. It is said that he has undergone so many surgeries on his nose that there is no skin left to graft. With his skin like moonlight being more prominent now than his moonwalk MJ is the classic case of wanting and becoming what you are not and stand for. He is remembered by millions across America as the cute black kid who was so well poised and sang love songs very innocently. All his chart busters came at a time when his skin tone was still black. That “Invincible” was such a big flop goes on to show that the changes of colour and identity have harmed Michael and his career. Even though the Jackson five were probably the most popular blacks after Martin Luther King Jr, Michael maybe a victim of the racial stigma that affected scores of his fellow African-American countrymen. He maybe feeling that unless he becomes ‘white’ he is not going to be an integral part of the crowd. This very thought has destroyed a lot of people in the United States of America.
It is said that even though the Jackson Five’s childhood’ was incomplete they illuminated millions of other childhoods with some of the most infectious and joyous dance music ever made. The joy of which will never be able to work on MJ. Racial profiling is the biggest and worse crime committed all over the world after religious discrimination and probably surpasses it in terms of the hurt and pain it causes leaving deep scars and unhealed wounds in the souls of the affected.
Most of us here in India are proud that there is no discrimination based on colour, but overrule the fact that caste differences and underlying political agendas have lead to us not lagging far behind. The Indians settled in USA and most non-Americans are now undergoing the same profiling after the 9/11 attack. Even the most popular Indian entertainers like Aamir Khan and Kamal Hassan have had to face intense interrogation in US airports because of their names. A group of Indians travelling to US of a performance were thought to be hijackers because of the way they were ‘behaving’ on the flight.Well maybe we should not be saying much against this, because a country, which nearly eliminated its original inhabitants and is so double faced in that it was the country to which all those who were looked down upon and treated badly in United Kingdom and the rest of Europe migrated. The country of ‘equality’ and ‘freedom’ has now reached a stage where in its own people vehemently oppose any war against others where in US is only trying to prove its superiority through other excuses. The scars of the Vietnam War still run deep in the hearts of many. This has also had a lot of effect on the young. The Columbine high school shoot out was followed by many such incidents even though precautions were taken. Child abuse has taken a new meaning and a found new messiah in Eminem a.k.a Marshall Mathers, a white American, whose videos and songs are all about how he was treated in his childhood and the spite inside him for his mother among other people. The song “I am sorry mama” only emphasises it further. Probably Slim Shady, as Eminem is popularly known as, will become the new victim of American policies and be hailed as the King of Rap, stepping into a domain of blacks, overshadowing MJ, the King of Pop
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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