Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness

 Michael Jackson: The Magic and the Madness




I had been putting this off but we have to address the elephant man in the room - Michael Joseph Jackson.


Mr. Jackson had one of the biggest-selling records of all time. I don’t know if it attracted any country music fans but fans of rock and pop music of all styles cottoned on to Thriller like nothing before. 


  While he didn’t invent the “moonwalk” he created a sensation when he debuted it on television. Dancing had always been part of Michael Jackson’s game but he took it to new levels during the 1980s.


Michael recorded with a who’s who of the music business. McCartney, Jagger, Freddie Mercury, Diana Ross, Eddie Van Halen, and the list goes on and on and on.


A lot of questions have been asked about Mr. Jackson and I was asking them too. Well, Mr. J Randy seems to have some answers, and some uncomfortable ones at that.


Some of the not-so-uncomfortable truths include the attempted purchase of the elephant man’s bones and his hyperbaric chamber experiment. Both of these incidents were creations from the mind of Jackson himself. 


This kind of stuff seemed to amuse Mr. Jackson to no end. Apparently, Jackson read a book about . . . P T Barnum and took to heart the idea that there is no bad publicity.


Is there no such thing as bad publicity? 1993 might say “Oh you bet there is!” 


But I’d rather talk about his obsession with his nose. It seems his family used to make fun of him calling him BIG NOSE. Now you know why he underwent so many surgeries on his proboscis, poor guy. You gotta feel for him . . . at least as far as his nose goes. Families can be cruel. 


There was a fun story about how the Unification Church of Korea, popularly known as Moonie after their leader Sun Myung Moon, was offering up to 15 million to get the Jacksons. They wanted the guys - Michael and his brothers had a little thing called the Jackson 5 and then just the Jacksons - you might have heard of them. 


None of the Jackson women were needed regardless of how many hit songs they might have had. The moonies wanted the Jacksons because they were seen as wholesome. That didn’t age very well . . .

There are so many stories in the book and there are some uncomfortable discussions of the issues that have plagued the young Mr. Jackson. 


When legends of 20th-century pop music are spoken of, the name of Michael Jackson will always be near the top of any list - so will Frank Sinatras’ name for that matter.


Jackson is one of the best-selling artists of all time. And that’s why you should read Michael Jackson: the magic, the madness, the whole story. 



J. Randy Taborrelli goes deeper than most biographers have a right to. While these are long, long books don’t be afraid because Mr. Taborrelli writes in an easy yet compelling manner. He weaves stories together from first-hand sources and previously published material. 


Unless you are a massive fan, you might find this a little long, and J Randy does talk about some uncomfortable truths about Michael and his relationships. So there is that.

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