美国当地时间2009年6月25日,原定今年7月开始世界巡回演唱会的一代巨星迈克尔·杰克逊在其位于洛杉矶的家中因心脏病突发去世,享年50岁。从没有人取得如此辉煌的音乐成就:13项格莱美奖、全球累计售出7.5亿张唱片,单单《颤栗》(thriller)一张大碟就创下了全球销量1.04亿张的吉尼斯世界纪录。从没有人在生前受到如此多的非议,而在死后却又得到如此多的赞扬。他是无数人深爱的mj,是这个星球上唯一的king of pop—论文联盟http://
we watched him grow up: a baby-faced boy with a 1)captivating smile and an amazing voice, who stole the show right out from under his big brothers. we saw him 2)morph into a modern-day song-and-dance man, so light on his feet he seemed to be moving on air. we danced to his beat until he began to change, and we weren’t sure what to make of it. then we witnessed his long, strange 3)fall from grace. ann powers: he’s like elvis, you know. he’s that big. ann powers, music critic at the los angeles times. for her, the death of michael jackson has a special 4)poignancy. powers: the first album i bought was jackson 5’s maybe tomorrow. i grew up with him as an icon. the thing in my head right now is “i’ll be there,” you know, that tender, delicate yet strong voice of michael jackson. michael jackson was not even six years old when his father set out to make his sons famous singers. by 1968, the jackson 5 had been signed on to the motown label and had a string of hits. but michael was clearly the star, and eventually he set out for a solo career. quincy jones (music producer): he knew everybody’s songs; he knew everybody’s steps. i’ve never seen somebody that…that could just absorb so much so quickly and so 5)involved. and then i said, “i’d like to take a shot on your album.” the 6)collaboration with jones 7)unleashed jackson’s creativity as both a singer and a dancer 8)culminating with the 1982 release of the hugely popular album thriller. thriller stayed atop the billboard chart for 37 weeks, and jackson’s performances of the songs on video and on television were, well, thrilling. jason king: i think the word that you’ve got to use is “9)electrifying.” it was absolutely electrifying. he wasn’t just singing about “thriller,” he actually was a thriller in every sense of that term. jason king is a music professor at new york university. king: i think it’s the voice 10)in conjunction with that incredible sense of rhythm and timing and 11)innovation that made him the icon that he will always be. thriller provided the dance beat of the ’80s with hit singles like “beat it” and “billie jean.” jackson’s next album, bad, sold 22 million copies around the world. but – despite his fame and wealth – jackson was never able to 12)duplicate the success of thriller. in the 1990s, his strange behavior began to draw as much attention as his talent. finally, in 2005, he was tried on charges of child 13)molestation. though 14)acquitted, jackson’s reputation and finances never fully recovered. powers: he didn’t seem able to live in the world. but, at the same time, i think we feel uncomfortable even thinking about that aspect of michael jackson because there is a sense of, like, “did we do this to him? did we damn him to this fate?”
转贴于论文联盟 http://
jackson had hoped his concert tour would be the start of a comeback.
questions around jackson’s death
host: since the death of michael jackson, as many questions as 15)tributes to the king of pop have emerged – questions about his kids, his 16)estate, his debts, his doctor and how exactly he died. reporter: his finances were always kind of a closely guarded secret. we do know that he was millions of dollars in debt. but he kept being 17)bailed out by various hedge funds注 and advisors. and what was going to really 18)salvage his empire was this tour, this “this is it” tour. it was going to produce a huge amount of money. host: and i understand that just in the past few days the value of his estate has already gone up. amazon has sold out of…of many of his recordings, for example. reporter: right. it’s been a boom, a 19)bonanza of sales of michael jackson records, of michael jackson 20)memorabilia, anything people can get their hands on. now there’s a hint that there may be a film of some kind, which would be based on the video tapes of the 21)rehearsals for the “this is it” concert. it’s like people look back and they say that elvis was a richer man in death than he was in life, and michael jackson may be the same story.
