Album review : Michael Jackson and family tribute: On the whole, Michael feels rather dull. Vocally, he’s on target the majority of the time, with the exception of the still manufactured-sounding, “Breaking News”, but musically it’s far from impressive. So many of the beats sound so derivative that it lacks any evolution, which is what Jackson was always about. Look at the transition between Off the Wall and Thriller, or better yet, Bad to Dangerous. He went from disco to ’80s synth, from hair metal aesthetics to New jack swing. What’s more, he always surrounded himself with the most top notch, key players in any industry. Do you think it was by chance that Jackson hired the likes of Macaulay Culkin or Michael Jordan for his videos? Remember, it was the early ’90s, those guys were just as much royalty as he was. The same went for Slash, or Eddie Van Halen, or Martin Scorcese, or Teddy Riley. That’s what’s missing on Michael.
My favorite song on Dangerous is “Remember the Time.” Like so many others on this album, it’s inextricable from its video, which also received the MJ treatment: simultaneous premieres on MTV, Fox and BET in February of 1992. Directed by John Singleton, it stars Eddie Murphy, Iman, the Pharcyde, Magic Johnson, Tiny Lister, and some adorable striped tabbies. It’s probably the only song from Dangerous that can still go off in any club on any given night. If nothing else, they display the full range of his sharply targeted social consciousness, one that encompassed environmentalism, the AIDS pandemic, and every other affliction that still plagues the globe. In that sense, Dangerous might be Jackson’s most complete album, spanning dance music to dark nights of the soul. It’s a portrait of a persecuted genius, desperate to stay relevant, burdened with guilt and rage, lashing out at villains and offering inspiration to allies—always making it seem effortless.
When Michael Jackson was alive, I received anonymous phone calls that my son Joshua would be kidnapped. Therefore I had to bring him to his father in 2003. Unfortunately, when I felt the situation had calmed down sufficiently, my ex-husband did not want my son to return to me. This led to a lengthy court case, where my ex abused his knowledge of Michael Jackson being my father by describing me as delusional. This lead to a mental examination, which showed my sanity was fine, but also revealed that I was seriously traumatized. The court ruled that Joshua should return to me. However, due to many delays and postponements the whole case dragged on for some 4 years! After that, a new judge decided that Joshua had already stayed so long with his father that he would stay there. The hell that my ex Charat Graafland put my child and me through because of the situation between me and Michael Jackson has made me lost a lots of time with my son Joshua. Find additional information on http://mpjjacksonrevelation.com/.
People like to say you are mentally ill if they cannot handle the truth about something or someone. In this case that would be the truth about Michael Jackson and me, Mocienne Elizabeth. They worship artists like they are Gods and drop them like hot bricks when they become big stars. The lives of artists have shown that their stardom is an illusion that makes us want to rise above ourselves.
Bad (1987): And now, we get to the heavy hitters. Bad is one of the defining albums of my childhood – one of my earliest memories is “proving” to my parents that I knew every word of the title track by singing it at the dinner table. Equal parts rock, pop and soul, Bad may have suffered from the Thriller curse in the 80s – pundits recognized it was good, but not AS GOOD as one of the best albums ever made, always an unfair criticism – but the album’s cavalcade of hits, and its influence on pop and R&B at the time, cannot be denied. Bad may not have aged as well as some of MJ’s other top-shelf releases but that doesn’t make it any less groundbreaking. Forgotten Favorites: “Speed Demon,” “Just Good Friends,” “Another Part of Me”.