walsworth
Journeyman
I can rememember Teds in the 50's never mind 70's!
Michael Jackson...
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trudij
Senior Jockey
Eddie and the Hot Rods are amazing - and still going Clivex, you can go relive your yoof 
simmo
Senior Jockey
And with that roll call, the case for the prosecution rests M'lord
I think the last bit is true but he wasn't the first to use the promotional video, and wasn't the first to launch chart success off the back of its exploitation, but again I was always dubious about the legitimacy of this music masking weapon anyway and I'm not completely sure whether you could categorically say it was beneficial?. As a phrase that was popular in the early 80's went; 'nice video - shame about the song'. I personally regard 'Thriller' as cheating, and being more of a purist couldn't really accept that music should be allowed to cross-over into prolonged periods of acting, or even visual silence as the Thriller video features. For me it was inviting a dangerous departure from the core basics of music and ran the real risk of subordinating what should be the primary focus, to something which a good director and supporting cast could conceal, i.e. the music is actually mediocre at best, and pap at worst
Jackson seemed to almost embrace aspects of glam rock even in terms of presentation but just gave it a much, much sharper edge than the silly stuff of the early 70's. You had the gharish costume and the larger than life characterateurs (crikey it's almost Rocky Horror) but the big set pieces and choreography is what set it apart, from the traditional 'dressing up' and 'personalised decoration' that had become normal in the early 70's.
To some extent we had to embrace aspects of Jackson (however reluctantly) as my recollection is that it appealed to young teen females, which at that particular part of my evolution made it something of a strategic necessity. Even then I had great difficulty trying to feign the idea that I thought his music was "wicked" (or whatever the contempoary youth buzz word of approval was at the time) when I wanted to say it was w@nk.
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Grasshopper
Senior Jockey
- Joined
- Nov 14, 2006
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- 16,050
I'm just back from New York where, predictably, this was the only story in town.
I'm with Rory on this one.....except the bit where he appeared to agree with the contention that Jacko was a 'musical genuis'.
Personally, I found Jackson's music to be so much soft-core, beat-box pap, and the fact that he could jig a bit whilst singing his songs, meant the square root of fuck-all to me.
The only tragedy here is that his death will secure the 'King of Pop' legend, when if fact, he was an over-rated sack of shit.
Yours sincerely
Jermaine Jackson
I'm with Rory on this one.....except the bit where he appeared to agree with the contention that Jacko was a 'musical genuis'.
Personally, I found Jackson's music to be so much soft-core, beat-box pap, and the fact that he could jig a bit whilst singing his songs, meant the square root of fuck-all to me.
The only tragedy here is that his death will secure the 'King of Pop' legend, when if fact, he was an over-rated sack of shit.
Yours sincerely
Jermaine Jackson
You knew it was coming!
After years of speculation, the truth can finally be told: Elvis Presley not only faked his death in 1977, he’s alive today – and we’ve got the photograph to prove it.
The stark, black-and-white snapshot taken by a stunned fan on June 26 clearly shows the aging superstar resting in a wheelchair on the grounds of his Graceland mansion in Memphis.
ELVIS PRESLEY: Photographed at Graceland, say eyewitnesses, just days ago.
And while nobody can say for sure if The King is back at Graceland to stay, Presley insiders hint that the 74-year-old legend, “if he really is alive, might go public at any minute” if he gets some kind of indication that fans still care.
“I’m not saying Elvis is alive – honestly, I’ve always suspected it, but I’ve never known for sure,” said a close friend of the singer and former member of his close-knit “Memphis Mafia.”
“But I’ll tell you one thing – if that picture of him in the wheelchair is authentic, and it sure looks to me like it is, then you can bet your bottom dollar that El set the whole thing up to find out if people still remember him.
“Elvis isn’t stupid. In fact, he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. If he faked his death and kept himself out of the public eye for 32 years, he sure wouldn’t screw up and let somebody take his picture now, especially one that shows him in a weakened condition and unable to use his legs.
“At least, he wouldn’t ‘screw up’ unless he wanted to. I think that’s what might be going down. He‘s a sensitive guy and I guarantee you he wouldn’t come out of hiding if he felt like fans don’t care about him anymore.
“It‘s easy for me to believe he‘s testing the water before he does something drastic like go on Good Morning, America or Larry King and tell everybody he’s alive.”
Nobody officially involved in the maintenance of the Presley estate and its various for-profit enterprises has ever said anything to support the notion that Elvis faked his death of a heart attack on Aug. 16, 1977.
And they certainly aren’t forthcoming with any new information now.
But if the story develops along the lines suggested by the ex Presley insider, they might have to. And that includes The King’s former wife, Priscilla, and only child, rock-star-in-her-own-right, Lisa Marie.
“There are plenty of good reasons for Elvis to come out of hiding now,“ says Wes Thomas, an investigative reporter and Presley expert who has written extensively on the performer.
“He’s certainly no spring chicken. And after the recent death of Michael Jackson, he might have stopped to reflect on his own mortality and decided that if he‘s ever going to tell fans the truth, he better do it now.
“That the kind of man Elvis was. He loved his fans and he never wanted to lie to them or cheat them. If he faked his death to escape the pressures of being a star, those who know Elvis would tell you they always expected him to come out of hiding and explain everything.
“What’s really got me about that picture is the wheelchair. It could mean he’s had a stroke and lost the use of his legs or maybe he has an unsteady gait. Then again, he might be using a prop to generate interest among fans.
“When you see Elvis Presley in a wheelchair 32years after he ‘died’, well, that’s something the whole world will want to see.”
Photo analysts commissioned by YourWorldReport.com say the photograph taken by a 53-year-old woman who sneaked onto the grounds of Graceland through an unlocked gate “absolutely, positively has not been altered or retouched” in any way.
And while they can’t say for sure whether the senior citizen in the wheelchair is Elvis or a mere look-alike, a nationally known aging expert says: “It’s The King.“
“Judging from my analysis of blowups, the man is Elvis or, if not Elvis, someone who aged exactly as our computer models say Elvis would have aged – which is a virtual impossibility,” says Phil Telers, of Washington, D.C. Telers has worked closely with police departments nationwide to “age” abducted children in computer models that are used to help find the kids years after they went missing.
As Elvis fans know all too well, circumstances surrounding The King’s “death” in 1977 were mysterious at best. Officially, he suffered a drug-induced heart attack while reading a book on the Shroud of Turin in the opulent bathroom adjoining his second-floor bedroom at Graceland – while girlfriend Ginger Alden slept just a few feet away in his bed.
But reports from mourners who said Presley was sweating profusely as he lay in his open casket before his funeral fueled persistent and compelling rumors that he was, in fact, alive.
Those rumors intensified when Presley insiders told friends that anybody who bothered to dig up the performer’s coffin would find – not Elvis – but a wax dummy inside.
In fact, Presley’s dad, Vernon, had the casket moved from Forest Lawn Cemetery, where it was originally buried, to Elvis’s beloved “Meditation Garden” at Graceland to keep overzealous fans from digging it up to find out who – or what – really was inside.
“If it’s truly Elvis I saw I’ll just die,“ says the excited fan from Cheraw, South Carolina, who took the wheelchair-bound man’s picture and requested that her name be withheld “so other fans won’t think I‘m trying to take advantage of anything.”
“I just had time to take the one picture and the camera was set to take black and white because my son is studying photograph at the junior college and they’re using black and white,” she adds.
“I was pretty far away and had to use my zoom lens. But I know he saw me because we made eye contact. I felt like it was Elvis and my heart was beating out of my chest. I tried to say something but my mouth was so dry all I could do was croak like a frog.”
The woman says security guards caught up with her “and they were real nice about escorting me out, not mean like you’d think they’d be.
“By then I could talk and I kept saying, ‘That was Elvis! I saw Elvis.’ The funny thing is, they didn’t deny it. And they didn’t make fun of me, either. But when I turned back around, Elvis was gone.
“If I hadn’t taken the picture, I probably wouldn’t have believed any of this ever happened. It still feels like a dream.”
After years of speculation, the truth can finally be told: Elvis Presley not only faked his death in 1977, he’s alive today – and we’ve got the photograph to prove it.
The stark, black-and-white snapshot taken by a stunned fan on June 26 clearly shows the aging superstar resting in a wheelchair on the grounds of his Graceland mansion in Memphis.
And while nobody can say for sure if The King is back at Graceland to stay, Presley insiders hint that the 74-year-old legend, “if he really is alive, might go public at any minute” if he gets some kind of indication that fans still care.
“I’m not saying Elvis is alive – honestly, I’ve always suspected it, but I’ve never known for sure,” said a close friend of the singer and former member of his close-knit “Memphis Mafia.”
“But I’ll tell you one thing – if that picture of him in the wheelchair is authentic, and it sure looks to me like it is, then you can bet your bottom dollar that El set the whole thing up to find out if people still remember him.
“Elvis isn’t stupid. In fact, he’s one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. If he faked his death and kept himself out of the public eye for 32 years, he sure wouldn’t screw up and let somebody take his picture now, especially one that shows him in a weakened condition and unable to use his legs.
“At least, he wouldn’t ‘screw up’ unless he wanted to. I think that’s what might be going down. He‘s a sensitive guy and I guarantee you he wouldn’t come out of hiding if he felt like fans don’t care about him anymore.
“It‘s easy for me to believe he‘s testing the water before he does something drastic like go on Good Morning, America or Larry King and tell everybody he’s alive.”
Nobody officially involved in the maintenance of the Presley estate and its various for-profit enterprises has ever said anything to support the notion that Elvis faked his death of a heart attack on Aug. 16, 1977.
And they certainly aren’t forthcoming with any new information now.
But if the story develops along the lines suggested by the ex Presley insider, they might have to. And that includes The King’s former wife, Priscilla, and only child, rock-star-in-her-own-right, Lisa Marie.
“There are plenty of good reasons for Elvis to come out of hiding now,“ says Wes Thomas, an investigative reporter and Presley expert who has written extensively on the performer.
“He’s certainly no spring chicken. And after the recent death of Michael Jackson, he might have stopped to reflect on his own mortality and decided that if he‘s ever going to tell fans the truth, he better do it now.
“That the kind of man Elvis was. He loved his fans and he never wanted to lie to them or cheat them. If he faked his death to escape the pressures of being a star, those who know Elvis would tell you they always expected him to come out of hiding and explain everything.
“What’s really got me about that picture is the wheelchair. It could mean he’s had a stroke and lost the use of his legs or maybe he has an unsteady gait. Then again, he might be using a prop to generate interest among fans.
“When you see Elvis Presley in a wheelchair 32years after he ‘died’, well, that’s something the whole world will want to see.”
Photo analysts commissioned by YourWorldReport.com say the photograph taken by a 53-year-old woman who sneaked onto the grounds of Graceland through an unlocked gate “absolutely, positively has not been altered or retouched” in any way.
And while they can’t say for sure whether the senior citizen in the wheelchair is Elvis or a mere look-alike, a nationally known aging expert says: “It’s The King.“
“Judging from my analysis of blowups, the man is Elvis or, if not Elvis, someone who aged exactly as our computer models say Elvis would have aged – which is a virtual impossibility,” says Phil Telers, of Washington, D.C. Telers has worked closely with police departments nationwide to “age” abducted children in computer models that are used to help find the kids years after they went missing.
As Elvis fans know all too well, circumstances surrounding The King’s “death” in 1977 were mysterious at best. Officially, he suffered a drug-induced heart attack while reading a book on the Shroud of Turin in the opulent bathroom adjoining his second-floor bedroom at Graceland – while girlfriend Ginger Alden slept just a few feet away in his bed.
But reports from mourners who said Presley was sweating profusely as he lay in his open casket before his funeral fueled persistent and compelling rumors that he was, in fact, alive.
Those rumors intensified when Presley insiders told friends that anybody who bothered to dig up the performer’s coffin would find – not Elvis – but a wax dummy inside.
In fact, Presley’s dad, Vernon, had the casket moved from Forest Lawn Cemetery, where it was originally buried, to Elvis’s beloved “Meditation Garden” at Graceland to keep overzealous fans from digging it up to find out who – or what – really was inside.
“If it’s truly Elvis I saw I’ll just die,“ says the excited fan from Cheraw, South Carolina, who took the wheelchair-bound man’s picture and requested that her name be withheld “so other fans won’t think I‘m trying to take advantage of anything.”
“I just had time to take the one picture and the camera was set to take black and white because my son is studying photograph at the junior college and they’re using black and white,” she adds.
“I was pretty far away and had to use my zoom lens. But I know he saw me because we made eye contact. I felt like it was Elvis and my heart was beating out of my chest. I tried to say something but my mouth was so dry all I could do was croak like a frog.”
The woman says security guards caught up with her “and they were real nice about escorting me out, not mean like you’d think they’d be.
“By then I could talk and I kept saying, ‘That was Elvis! I saw Elvis.’ The funny thing is, they didn’t deny it. And they didn’t make fun of me, either. But when I turned back around, Elvis was gone.
“If I hadn’t taken the picture, I probably wouldn’t have believed any of this ever happened. It still feels like a dream.”
Euronymous
Senior Jockey
fixed
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Actually the more I think about it, I'm wondering if there's ever been a less influential big selling artist?.
To the best of my recollection Jackson started to make it big circa 81-82 breaking through in the Summer of '82 if my poor memory is holding up?. He experienced about 6 years of stellar success culminating in a high in the late 80's, circa 1988 (probably music's darkest period in terms of the dross that was around at the time - but thats another issue). By any reasonable estimate he's had 25 years plus for his alleged influence to come through, and if it were really there, it would have done so by now. In musical epochs, that's not far off being about 4 generations, and yet few commentators have detected it, and you aren't exactly inundated with artists and groups queuing up to cite him as their influence. If Jackson was really that influential you'd have seen the evidence of it long ago by now.
I thought Oasis were slightly unusual in invoking the Beetles given that there was something in the region of a 30 year gap between them, and they'd be on the outer limits etc, but when you see it terms of Jackson's sales (so often cited by his defence as testimony to his popularity) he has to be just about one of the least influential of the big acts in history (with the probable exception of Madonna). To my mind it points to him being popular with a dedicated fan base and his music clearly strikes a chord amongst certain types to endure as long as it has, but it doesn't seem to resonate to anything like the extent that 800m album sales suggest it should do amongst the industry.
There seems to be a 20 year revivalist cycle around youth cultures. This isn't too surprising, and I believe it's quite easily expalined. Those teenagers who fell under the creative spell of a certain movement and derived their formative influences from it, reach a point of economic maturity about 20 years later. Those who subsequently found employment in music, design, fashion, the media or the creative industries will draw on their formative years for inspiration. With a pre-prepared nostalgia industry this normally succeeds in generating something of a revivalist interest in the period. My God they even tried to do it a little bit with the God awful Stock, Aitken and Waterman (now they truly were the anti-christs of music) epoch. The Jackson generation has probably gone through this and gone largely unacknowledged, and it's probably the early 90's Brit pop/ Manchester scene that is the next one that's due to be re-cycled.
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EC1
On a break
One thing about the whole MJ business
when you have kids..bring them up right and do not mess with their heads
because its certain that his upbringing has severley damaged the bloke to the extent that its fooked all his "adult" life up.
you seem to be pulling a few punches there Grassy :lol:
when you have kids..bring them up right and do not mess with their heads
because its certain that his upbringing has severley damaged the bloke to the extent that its fooked all his "adult" life up.
you seem to be pulling a few punches there Grassy :lol:
EC1
On a break
I'm not sure that whether you like who he has influenced really matters..I'm not keen on any of those Gareth mentions..then again I don't like thrash metal or derivatives of..which were influenced by Zep.
its about impact on following artists really
its about impact on following artists really
EC1
On a break
thats good argument technique then Gareth 
Aldaniti: where did you pick that lot up from - the National Enquirer? ) I'm sure it's all quite correct, because Buddy Holly didn't die - he got a bit banged up in the plane crash, had botched reconstructive plastic surgery, took the name Roy Orbison and had a successful career until faking his death. He still plays club gigs here in Brighton when Fatboy Slim's not available, under the DJ name of Slimboy Phat. Amazing world, isn't it?
) I'm sure it's all quite correct, because Buddy Holly didn't die - he got a bit banged up in the plane crash, had botched reconstructive plastic surgery, took the name Roy Orbison and had a successful career until faking his death. He still plays club gigs here in Brighton when Fatboy Slim's not available, under the DJ name of Slimboy Phat. Amazing world, isn't it?
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and I thought that was "Boy Goerge"Aldaniti: where did you pick that lot up from - the National Enquirer?
walsworth
Journeyman
Thought his brain went off on it's own, years ago?
trackside528
At the Start
- Joined
- Apr 30, 2006
- Messages
- 5,377
Memorial service due to start anytime now out in Los Angeles.
My personal take on Jackson is that he was a fabulous performer at his best. I'll be damned if the likes of Thriller and Billie Jean don't stand the test of time.
Since when did how influential an artist was to future generations of musicians become the most important gauge of their 'greatness' anyway?
My personal take on Jackson is that he was a fabulous performer at his best. I'll be damned if the likes of Thriller and Billie Jean don't stand the test of time.
Since when did how influential an artist was to future generations of musicians become the most important gauge of their 'greatness' anyway?