What, did the rest of you die too?  Where is everyone?

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

I have trouble getting in on the whole Jackson thing, since I'm not much of a pop/dance fan.  I remember HIStory vaguely, with that bizarre video for "Scream" that he and his sister did, and I vaguely remember my mother playing Thriller when I was a little kid, but, to me, Jackson was always an okay singer with weird videos and silly dance moves.

Nothing against him, really, but I never understood what all the fuss was about, and I certainly never understood Jackson being among the top two highest-selling artists of all time.  "Thriller" was a catchy song and all, but 50m copies sold?  Really?  I don't get it.

I have a difficult enough time understanding the fame of the Beatles and Elvis, both of which probably trailed Jackson in terms of raw talent but were at least "important" before him, even if they were both ripoffs and less well known but infinitely more talented artists.

I mean, are the Jackson 5 really worthy of being above and beyond some generic kids' group (like Hanson), based purely on the fact that they got to it three decades earlier by virtue of being born sooner?  And was MJ, on his own, really anything other than an okay singer (didn't have much range) doing rock-disco fusion with creative video writers?

Again, not trying to be an ass, and it's nothing against MJ.  He had a really screwed up life, and if there's an afterlife, I hope he's finally found some peace.  He did a lot of good work outside of the music industry while he was alive.  And it's not that I think his music was bad or something.  I own a couple of his records.

It's just that I can't jump on board with the general public's idol-worship of what were essentially singers who got paid for making pre-teen girls squeal.

Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin

The only song of his I really liked was:

Naturally enough the New York Times got all twitterpatted about the lines"

"Jew me, sue me
Everybody do me
Kick me, kike me"

and said he was promoting antisemitism.  

Morons.

there were many controversial things about him, starting with his image as one of the main American exports, his conspicious skin problems (as though he wanted to become white and lovely looking girl), but it's undeniable he was HUGE talent which broke existing boundaries in US as well as in outside world. that's why so many people mourn him and news of his death really deserved BREAKING NEWS status. For example here in India Iranian election controversy attracted very little attention as people think it's just internal struggle for power. On comparison MJ' departure climbed even into Hindi (Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil, Malayali, etc..) TV news channels and even mentioned (albeit in the end of the news program) on state-run DD news channel.

I knew more about his recent songs than his earlier works, so I liked Invincible and HIStory. Hopefully they can climb in charts to repay his debts and leave something for orphans.