Today’s my last day of Michael Jackson posting for a while (i.e., until his next video comes around on the 1988 countdown). I’ll have some MJ excerpts from the Warhol diaries a little later in the day, but first I thought I’d share two historical updates from last week. Another tidbit from the early 1980s […]

posted 8 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

Aside from its ultramegahugeness, there are some aspects of Thriller that wouldn’t be the same today. A. If it was released now, it wouldn’t be sequenced the same way. Here’s your all-star lineup: (side one) 1. “Wanna Be Startin’ Something” 2. “Baby Be Mine” 3. “The Girl Is Mine” 4. “Thriller” (side two) 5. “Beat […]

posted 2 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. 1 comment

My dad worked at CBS Records (as Sony Music was then known) in the 1980s and programmed the computer systems that handled a lot of their internal bookkeeping. I remember two details he told me about Thriller, which sold so many copies it routinely overwhelmed the computer: 1. One quarter, it accounted for one half […]

posted 2 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. 1 comment

“In eighteen months, he never once called me by my name… I have a lot of respect for him, but his manners need a little work.” –Sheryl Crow “We love Michael so much, we let the first kid slide.” –Chris Rock “You got to put the jelly on the jelly.” -Michael Jackson

posted 2 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

Is there anything groovier than the first fifteen seconds of “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”? Over a buzzy bassline, Michael Jackson talks in a voice that’s as close to his natural speaking voice as most people would ever hear (the breathy falsetto was a guise he adopted when in public). “You know, I was, […]

posted 2 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. 2 comments

Trying to remember when I first became aware of Michael Jackson, I realized I had two separate exposures to him around the age of ten–and I’m not sure that as a child, I realized both came from the same person. I vividly remember hearing the ballad “She’s Out of My Life” on AM radio, particularly […]

posted 2 July 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

Consider, if you will, the opening lines to Air Supply’s #2 hit from 1980, “All Out of Love”: I’m lying alone, with my head on the phone / Thinking of you ’til it hurts Dude, that pain isn’t from a broken heart–it’s because you’re trying to use a telephone as a pillow.

posted 5 May 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet

As previously mentioned, I visited the auction-house exhibition of Michael Jackson’s possessions from Neverland last week. The auction itself had already been cancelled by Jackson at the last minute. Pick your theory as to why: (1) He got a last-minute cash infusion (2) He never intended to actually sell his stuff, but wanted to (a) […]

posted 27 April 2009 in Photos, Tasty Bits. 2 comments

I recently wondered what album had the highest differential between the times I listened to before my high school graduation to times I listened to it after that. The answer, I decided, was Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut. It was one of the first three albums I ever owned, and was in heavy rotation in […]

posted 7 April 2009 in Tasty Bits. 5 comments

Of all the songs likely to name-check the African country of Mozambique, I would have put Tom Cochrane’s catchy but lunkheaded 1991 hit “Life Is a Highway” fairly low on the list. But last week I actually paid attention to the verses, for the first time ever, and there it is: From Mozambique to those […]

posted 16 March 2009 in Tasty Bits. no comments yet