TMZ.com is reporting that Michael Jackson is dead at age 50. Several other news outlets have reported that he was rushed to hospital for a possible cardiac arrest, but TMZ is the only site to report that he has in fact died.
UPDATED:
Seems it's been confirmed by multiple sources. While MJ's life has certainly taken a turn for the strange in the last two decades, you can't deny the magic he had that captured everyone's attention in the first place. Check out this version of the Jackson 5's "I'll Be There" with the instrumental tracks stripped out:
Also, J5 back yard party in 1973.
Jackson 5 Home Video on Soul Train
And the legendary Mowtown 25 Anniversary Performance
Michael Jackson - Billie Jean (1983) [Motown 25 Live]
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Oh. My. Fucking. God. This can't be so. There are no words to describe how I'm taking this news. Shock, maybe. I mean, Michael wasn't supposed to DIE yet. Not like this.
it's alarming to say the least. even a little unsettling. after i heard the news my thoughts immediately went back over the past few days when i saw a random picture of him walking with his oldest son wrapped in conversation. one of the rare pictures of one of his children not draped in a disguise. i thought it was a genuine and touching moment caught in the media. later in the week i saw a slide show that included him and lisa marie on the shortest celebrity marriages, i believe it was in the chicgao trib. it made me think back to how he's been part of some sort of public spectacle my entire life. and now he's gone in one last fury of spectacle. one that will probably remain for quite some time.
in passing yesterday i was flipping through channels taking in some of the coverage. i caught a sound bite by larry king. something about how it'll be sad to see over the coming months all the people coming forward with salacious stories about jackson with claims of improprieties he will never be able to defend. it's a sordid legacy he leaves behind. as greg kott mentioned later in the evening on wgn news, it's a shame that the public will probably mostly focus on the last two decades of his life in the tabloids over the amazing music and entertainment he had brought into all of our lives.
for me, if nothing else existed of the jackson legacy, off the wall is well enough to put him toward the top of my list of entertainers i admire.
Beneath the freakish exterior, beat a human heart after all.
Man, I thought he'd be around for a long time and make it to old age like James Brown, perhaps have a musical rebirth...gone too soon. RIP.
Shocking!
I remember taking an LP of Thriller to a "class party" in, what, 3rd or 4th grade. MJ was the first person that it ever occurred to me that "someday he's going to die and I'm going to feel old." Well I feel old.
So you think the Dandy Warhols are gonna cover Blackbird?
My very first "serious" LP, Thriller, given to me by Robert Kamins for my birthday. I spent a lot of time dancing to that record when I was little. It never occurred to me until just now, but I guess I owe MJ something for starting me down a life of being passionate about music.
When I was a kid, my mom and my Aunt Bonnie drove me down to Alabama so I could go to Space Camp. We listened to Thriller the whole way. Aunt Bonnie, who's from the South, thought "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'" sounded like "jungle music." She was right, of course. In the best possible way.
Thank you, Michael Jackson, for introducing me to the funk. Shamoan!
i was never a huge MJ fan, i had a MJ action figure with the billie jean red jacket and i had the thriller shirt but that was like a kid wearing hollister or whatever the dumb fashion is...i do like the older stuff like "dont stop..." but my ""formative years included the BAD album which i will simply state i didnt dig
Rolling Stone has posted its "Essential Michael Jackson Coverage", including cover stories from 1971, 83, 84, 87, and 92. The 1971 one, by Ben Fong-Torres, is especially great.