Michael Jackson, pop icon, is dead at 50

By Brooks Barnes
Courtesy: New York Times

(June 26, Los Angeles, Sri Lanka Guardian)Michael Jackson, the fallen King of Pop, is dead. The singer, songwriter and dancer whose career reached unprecedented peaks of sales and attention, died Thursday. He was 50.

Jermaine Jackson, who performed with his brother, confirmed the death in a brief news conference Thursday evening. Mr. Jackson said that his brother had been in a coma and in cardiac arrest when he was taken U.C.L.A. Medical Center, a six-minute drive from the rented mansion in which he was living, shortly after noon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics. He was pronounced dead at 2:26 p.m. Pacific time. His brother added that an autopsy might be performed as early as Friday.

As with Elvis Presley or The Beatles, it is impossible to calculate the full impact he had on the world of music. At his height, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world and has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which was born in part as a result of Mr. Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.

From his days as the youngest brother in the Jackson 5 to his solo career in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Jackson was responsible for a string of hits like “I Want You Back,” “I’ll Be There,” “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough,” “Billie Jean” and “Black and White” that exploited his high voice, infectious energy, and ear for irresistible hooks.

As a solo performer, Mr. Jackson ushered in the age of pop as a global product — not to mention an age of spectacle and pop culture celebrity. His early career with his brothers gave way to a solo act in which he became more character than singer: his sequined glove, his whitened face, his Moonwalk dance move became embedded in the cultural firmament.

But not long after his entertainment career hit high-water marks — “Thriller,” from 1982, has been certified platinum 28 times by the Recording Industry Association of America — it started a bizarre disintegration. His darkest moment undoubtedly came in 2004, when he was indicted — though later acquitted — on child molesting charges. A young cancer patient claimed the singer had befriended him and then sexually fondled him at his Neverland estate near Santa Barbara, Calif.

Reaction to Mr. Jackson’s death started trickling in from a stunned entertainment community late Thursday, while radio stations immediately programmed marathons of Mr. Jackson’s music. MTV broke into its regularly scheduled program to air the music videos for “Beat It” and “Thriller.”

“I am absolutely devastated at this tragic and unexpected news,” the music producer Quincy Jones said in a statement. Mr. Jones, who produced “Thriller” said Mr. Jackson “had it all — talent, grace, professionalism and dedication.” He added, “I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

The Apollo Theater, where Mr. Jackson first performed in 1969 with his brothers at the ripe age of 9 (they won amateur night), said, “We will always remember Michael in our hearts as a true Apollo legend, known for his professionalism and grace.”

Kenny Ortega, the director and choreographer who was working with Mr. Jackson to create the London concert series, called “This is It,” said, “This is all too much to comprehend.”

Impromptu vigils broke out around the world, from Portland, Ore., where fans organized a one-gloved bike ride (“glittery costumes strongly encouraged”) to Hong Kong, where fans gathered with candles and sang his songs in unison.

Mr. Jackson was an object of fascination for the press since the Jackson 5’s first hit, “I Want You Back,” in 1969. His public image wavered between that of the musical naif, who only wanted to recapture his youth by riding on roller-coasters and having sleepovers with his friends, to the calculated mogul who carefully constructed his persona around his often baffling public behavior.

Mr. Jackson had been scheduled to perform a 50 concerts in at the O2 arena London beginning next month and continuing into 2010. The shows were positioned as a potential comeback, with the potential to earn him up to $50 million, according to some reports.

But there has also been worry and speculation that Mr. Jackson was not physically ready for such an arduous run of concerts, and Mr. Jackson’s postponement of the first of those shows from July 8 to July 12 fueled new rounds of speculation about his health.

“The primary reason for the concerts wasn’t so much that he was wanting to generate money as much as it was that he wanted to perform for his kids,” said J. Randy Taraborrelli, whose biography, “Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness,” was first published in 1991. “They had never seen him perform before.”

Mr. Jackson is survived by three children: Michael Joseph Jackson, Jr., Paris Michael Katherine Jackson and Prince “Blanket” Michael Jackson II.

The performer’s eccentric lifestyle took a severe financial toll. In 1987 Mr. Jackson paid about $17 million for a 2,600-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., 125 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Calling it Neverland, he outfitted the property with amusement-park rides, a zoo and a 50-seat theater, at a cost of $35 million, according to reports, and the ranch became his sanctum.

But Neverland, and Mr. Jackson’s lifestyle, were expensive to maintain. A forensic accountant who testified at Mr. Jackson’s molestation trial in 2005 said that Mr. Jackson’s annual budget in 1999 included $7.5 million for personal expenses and $5 million to maintain Neverland. By at least the late 1990s, he began to take out huge loans to support himself and pay debts. In 1998 he took out a loan for $140 million from Bank of America, which two years later was upped to $200 million. Further loans of hundreds of millions followed.

The collateral for the loans was Mr. Jackson’s 50 percent share in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a portfolio of thousands of songs, including rights to 259 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney that are considered some of the most valuable properties in music.

In 1985 Mr. Jackson paid $47.5 million for ATV, which included the Beatles songs — a move that estranged him from Paul McCartney — and 10 years later Mr. Jackson sold 50 percent of his interest to Sony for $90 million, creating a joint venture, Sony/ATV. Estimates of the value of the catalog exceed $1 billion.

In many ways, Mr. Jackson never recovered from the child molestation trial, a lurid affair that attracted media from around the world to watch as Mr. Jackson, wearing a different costume each day, appeared in a small courtroom in Santa Maria, Calif., to listen as a parade of witnesses spun a sometimes-incredible tale.

The case ultimately turned on the credibility of Mr. Jackson’s accuser, a 15-year-old cancer survivor who said the defendant had gotten him drunk and molested him several times. The boy’s younger brother testified that he had seen Mr. Jackson fondling his brother on two other occasions.

After 14 weeks of such testimony and seven days of deliberations, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 14 counts against Mr. Jackson: four charges of child molesting, one charge of attempted child molesting, one conspiracy charge and eight possible counts of providing alcohol to minors. Conviction could have brought Mr. Jackson 20 years in prison.

Instead, he walked away a free man to try to reclaim a career that at the time had already been in decline for years.

-Sri Lanka Guardian