Michael listened to all types of music. For example, during the HIStory  sessions he was listening to two albums frequently, the first being “Ready to Die” by Biggie Smalls & the second (which he was a big fan of) “The Downward Spiral” by Nine Inch Nails.

Morphine the haunting and gritty masterpiece is basically Heavy Metal & deeply influenced by Nine Inch Nails, one of the most innovative acts of that time. Michael wrote the song discussing a very disturbing & personal subject, drug addiction.

The relentless funky beat crashing like metal waves and pressurized gas synthesizer sounds hissing with Slash’s & Michael’s aggressive guitar riffs (yea, MJ plays guitar on this) make this Gothic pop at it’s finest and one of Michael’s most experimental songs ever, lyrically and sonically. Something that would have made Nine Inch’s front man Trent Reznor proud. Michael even uses an audio clip from David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” (who Michael related with on some level). “You heard what the doctor said….go on…take it and….” from Matron Mothershead to the Merrick character played by John Hurt.

But it’s not just the subject matter but how it was conveyed and expressed. Michael’s lashes out in anger and pain, almost screaming in the verses then transcending into a calm but creepy, paranoid state … “relax, this won’t hurt you” before switching back with a grunting “Ohhh!!!”, as if he’s experiencing violent mood swings of some kind and physiological reaction on and off drugs (Demerol and Morphine)

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The finished product, then, is intentionally unfinished and spontaneous. "You can just hear him having fun," Forger says. "His spirit and emotion are totally there. He knew in demos he didn't have to be totally perfect in his execution. So he'd be loose. He'd throw in ad libs and dance or sing or pop his fingers or clap his hands. You just hear him enjoying himself."

Jackson first wrote and recorded "Don't Be Messin'" during the Thriller sessions with engineer Brent Averill. Around this time he was working on a variety of musical ideas, including demos of "P.Y.T." and "Billie Jean." "Don't Be Messin'" features Jackson himself playing piano ("He could do more than he ever really let people know," Forger says.) He also produced, arranged, and guided many of the instrumental parts, including the cinematic strings, Jonathan Maxey's piano part in the bridge, and David Williams funky guitar licks.

Ultimately, since "Don't Be Messin'" wasn't fully developed and so much other strong material was coming in for Thriller, Jackson decided to put the song on the back burner, having in mind to revisit it for his next album. "That was kind of how Michael developed ideas and songs," explains Forger. "He let the song unfold in its own time. Sometimes a song wasn't ready or didn't quite fit the character of an album or a project and it would stay in the vaults. And then at a certain point of time, he would pull it out again."

In this case, the track re-surfaced in 1986, during the early stages of the Bad sessions. Jackson worked on the song primarily with recording engineers Matt Forger and Bill Bottrell in the "laboratory," the nickname for his renovated home studio at Hayvenhurst. As was typical for Jackson rhythm tracks, the song was quite long (nearly eight minutes) in its early phases. "Michael loves a song to be long," Forger says. "He loves it to groove because he gets to dance to it—which is a big thing, because when Michael feels the music is making him dance it means the groove is in the pocket."

Jackson's grooves, however, were unusual in that they often lacked the predictable repetition of much dance music, surprising with strange beat patterns, textures and nuances. "Some of these long versions of ["Don't Be Messin'"] really sound very interesting because there's different things happening in different sections," Forger says. "It's really not like you're sitting there for eight minutes thinking it's terribly long, because things are happening within that length of time that make it feel like, 'Yeah, this is cool.' It's actually satisfying to listen to the rhythm."

Cutting the song down was often a brutal process for Jackson, especially the intros and outros. As with other songs on Thriller and Bad, though, Jackson tried to trim it down into the four-to-five minute range, which is where the new mix of "Don't Be Messin'" clocks in.

Jackson continued to work on "Don't Be Messin'" into late 1986, at both his home studio and at Westlake. However, once Quincy Jones came on board, the serious paring began and "Don't Be Messin'" was left on the cutting room floor. Jackson would pull out the song again during both the Dangerous sessions and HIStorysessions, updating its sound and adding new elements. Clearly, it was a song he liked. But ultimately it never found a home.

The version Matt Forger mixed was the last version Jackson worked on during the Badsessions in 1986. Forger feels it is the purest, most emotionally satisfying version: "It's exactly how Michael dictated it at the time. It's precisely Michael saying, 'this is how it has to be.'"

The 1986 demo isn't a groundbreaking song. The vocal is only partial-strength, the lyrics aren't finished, and the production isn't close to what it would be had it been fully realized by Jackson and Quincy Jones. However, it is a solid addition to the growing list of quality Bad-era outtakes (a list that also includes "Streetwalker," "Fly Away," and "Cheater"). "It's such a catchy underlying melodic hook," Forger says. "And it has a rhythmic feel that syncopates in such an interesting fashion." In a 2009 interview legendary recording engineer Bruce Swedien cited the track as one of his favorite unreleased Jackson songs. "It's just beautiful," he said . "Oh my God, there's nothing like it."

Like much of his work, the track doesn't fit neatly into a single genre, fusing flavors of Latin, jazz, and pop. With its breezy Bossa Nova rhythm and layers of interwoven hooks, it is a song that easily gets stuck in the head and makes you want to move—yet it also rewards multiple listens with its sophisticated syncopation and complex rhythm arrangement ("Music is like tapestry," Jackson once said. "It's different layers, it's weaving in and out, and if you look at it in layers you understand it better.")

For Forger, working on the track triggered memories of a simpler time in Jackson's turbulent career: "It just brought all the feelings back of what it was like in that era. Michael was just this exuberant, happy person. He wanted to challenge the world and make wonderful, great music."

What was Forger's goal in resurrecting the track?

"Just to make it authentic. Something Michael would enjoy and be proud of. It's got his charm and energy. If people appreciate it and enjoy it for what it is then I'll feel great. All I want it to be is enjoyed for the simple thing that it is."

Förutom den villkorliga domen måste de båda männen avtjäna samhällstjänst i 100 timmar.

Källa: SVD. Tack för tipset, Madeleine!

Rätt åt Sony, för flera av låtarna är det inte ens Michael Jackson som sjunger! Läs mer här. Kan inte fatta hur ett skivbolag kan göra något sådant. De är bara giriga efter pengar... *Suck*

Michael Jackson was there for us when it mattered most. He didn’t have to, but that was the side of him that many people did not know. On a day when the City of Stockton was down for the count, Michael Jackson showed up out of the blue and resuscitated us back into existence.After a madman with a rifle killed and injured dozens of schoolchildren at Cleveland Elementary in Stockton, California, nobody would expect the world’s biggest musical superstar to take notice and make the effort to show up in person in January of 1989.

Patrick Purdy may have destroyed many lives that day, but Michael Jackson’s presence helped bring more attention and compassion to the victims than anybody else on planet Earth could have done in a hundred years.

I certainly remember the panic in the air around Stockton, the calamity and desperation of parents stopping everything they were doing and racing to get their kids out of school immediately. I clearly recall hoping desperately that the police got there fast and ended it in a hurry. The incident in Stockton led to a quick assault rifle ban in California and was the beginning of national campaigns and activism against these types of deadly guns, according to an analysis by Reuters. Michael Jackson played a major role by his presence there that day.

Michael Jackson, coolest pop singer on the planet, showed up in Stockton with “truckloads of gifts to the children” and helped comfort survivors of the attack, according to Diane Batres who worked for the district attorney’s victim witness department.

The Record newspaper of Stockton has reported that Michael Jackson went far beyond the call of duty when he visited the classrooms of Cleveland Elementary School and met with the injured survivors of the shooting.

20 yrs after the incident Darren had this footnote: ~ My most powerful and long-lasting memory of Michael Jackson was after that school shooting in my hometown when he showed up and brought doses of mesmerizing happiness and cool comfort that nobody else in the world could bring. At the height of his fame, he reached out to a community that needed help in the worst way.

Diane Batres wasn’t happy back in 1989 when she took a call from someone at MJJ Productions. “I thought it was someone wanting to make a movie. I was furious,” said Batres. The Cleveland School shootings had happened a couple weeks before and Batres was in charge of the District Attorney’s Victim Witness department. Then she learned MJJ was Michael Jackson, offering a Stockton visit to comfort survivors of the school attack.

“It was very kind of him to do this. He brought truckloads of gifts to the children and held children in his arms. He was genuinely concerned and expressed his sorrow,” said Batres. Jackson gave videotapes of his recent recordings to the children. One of the songs was ‘Man in the Mirror.’

Batres heard later from a grateful parent how much that meant. “One of the mothers called after the experience and said, ‘I’m so glad I saw that’ because she realized for the first time there were yellow tears, white tears, brown tears and black tears. Every tear was the same color. They all felt the same sadness,” said Batres.

Michael visited every classroom at Cleveland that day, stopped by Central Methodist Church to meet wounded children not yet ready to return to school and sat with two more children still recovering at San Joaquin General Hospital. Jackson gave all the children videotapes and T-shirts. “His presence made me feel like, ‘Oh, wow, the world is safe, and it is possible to dream, and there is hope after all,’ ” said Elizabeth Pha, 27, who as an adult is pursuing her own career as a singing star.

In a recent interview with former Record reporter Dianne Barth, Cleveland Principal Pat Busher said, “(Jackson’s) motivations were heartfelt. … It was to help children. And that event did a lot of good for the children.”

"It was a quick elevator ride that occurred more than a decade ago in the Carlyle Hotel, New York’s old-world Art Deco bastion of elegance. During the mid-1990s, Dan Camp, then-president of the Upper East Side property, found himself in an elevator one evening with Princess Diana, a regular at the Carlyle. But things turned surreal when two other regulars boarded the lift: Steve Jobs and Michael Jackson. The three exchanged courtesies, and when the white-gloved elevator operator deposited the lift onto the ground floor, the riders went their separate ways. “This was the last thing in the world you would ever expect to happen,” says Camp, “but these kinds of things happened with some degree of regularity."

Kanske dags att börja åka hiss lite oftare…

Källa: MrApple.

I rättegången mot Michael Jacksons läkare Conrad Murray vill hans advokater ha tillgång till de hundratals timmar med film som spelades in inför popstjärnans comeback, skriver BBC. En bråkdel av dem användes i filmen This is it, som gavs ut fyra månader efter Michael Jacksons död 2009. Åklagarsidan tänker visa klipp ur filmen för att visa att sångaren var i gott skick. Försvaret menar att de icke publicerade repetitionsfilmerna visar att han inte var det.

Filmbolaget Sony pictures har samlat ihop hundratals sidor med argument mot att råmaterialet ska göras tillgängligt. Frågan ska diskuteras i förhandlingar i rätten på torsdag, skriver BBC.

Läkaren Conrad Murray står åtalad för att ha gett Jackson en dödlig dos narkosmedel. Rättegången är planerad att dra igång i september.

Källa: GP.