Scraping The Barrel.

Controversy is swirling around a leaked Michael Jackson single, with some of his family claiming the vocals on the cut aren't actually  him.  Whatever the case it made me think of the posthumous albums of Jimi Hendrix.  After his death a lot of material would be dredged up and released.  Probably most notorious amongst Hendrix fans are the albums put together by Alan Douglas, which included considerable overdubbing on unfinished tracks.  Then there was the rerelease of material Hendrix recorded while an R&B sideman with Little Richard and the obscure Curtis Knight amongst others.  Is a similar fate in store for Jackson?  Unlike Hendrix Jackson wasn't the kind of artist who would jam with anyone and end up being recorded as a result, nor did he have the kind of sideman period Hendrix did.  On the other hand there is likely a lot of demo material and tracks rejected as too weak for release in the Sony and Jackson family archives, and as anyone who keeps an eye on cheap CDs knows a lot of artists have oddball compilations in their discography put together from material of questionable provinence and ownership. 

C.D.

Michael Jackson mania continues in the tabs, and I doubt it will let up anytime soon. But one example I saw today was especially eye rolling. The cover story for the latest National Examiner is Michael's autopsy, and the headlines include the claim he starved himself to death. Right below that was a headline that read "Lose 5 pounds this week on the lemonade diet." Rather a case of cognative dissonance there.

Shut Up Already!

Okay, news media. Enough is enough. Michael Jackson is on his way to the cemetary. So shut up about him for a while. He's not going to get any more or less dead if you keep talking about him. At the very least can the 24/7 coverage of meaningless minutae. There will be lots of time to wrinkle out all the dirt you can print about him over the next few months. Meanwhile you've been giving short shrift to more important stories, like the Iranian mess and the coup in Hondouras.