ONTD ORIGINAL: Messiest moments in music, a GIFstory (Moonwalk Edition)
Frank Ocean who? Rihanna who? ONTD's most eagerly awaited comeback is here: part 3 of the Messiest Moments in Music!
In order to calm the waters and not start wank like my last post did, part 3 is dedicated to everyone's unproblematic fav: Michael Jackson!
This story is about Michael Jackson, children, and financial problems. But plot twist: it's set before the 90s!
Remember the good ol' days before I tell you how bad they were. And yes, that is lil Carlton!
Imagine you're a kid in 1984 (ominous date alert!) and ~~~**Jacksons**~~~ are on tour and visiting your next of the woods.
The Jacksons had just released Victory, but wayyyyy more importantly Thriller had just come out so it's hard to overstate how hyped people were for this tour. Michael Jackson was THE draw obviously, but he was hauling along his five brothers (yes, there were six Jackson boys total; youngest brother Randy was not in the original lineup and no, he's not the judge from Idol) so they could make their own money instead of mooching off of him.
MJ really had no interest in doing the tour with his brothers (they weren't close at all at that point and he felt that it was beneath him at that point) but when his mother and father realized how much $$ they could make as co-promoters of a Michael Jackson (& co) tour they coerced convinced Michael to go on tour with this brothers.
So Mama and Papa, who were on the verge of divorce (although they have basically been on the verge of divorce since 1975 so idk), put differences aside to make sure that MJ went on the tour. Papa Joe's technique was all about the reverse psychology: "your brothers can sing your parts anyway, we don't really need you for a tour" he told MJ when MJ initially balked at the idea of the tour. The self-proclaimed King of Pop's ego did not like hearing that. Then, Mama Katherine's technique was the soft sell: "Do it for the family? Do it for me?". MJ loved his mother more than anyone or anything in the world and she knew he would go on a tour he had zero interest in if she asked. So she asked him, and he did.
The tour was happening!
Look how excited MJ is to be there!
Joe Jackson and New England Patriots co-owner Chuck Sullivan were some of the "brains" behind the tour (ominous airquote alert!), and Don King was the promoter for the tour. It was titled "Victory Tour," which is the equivalent of a character asking "what could possibly go wrong?" on an 50s sitcom.
You're probably thinking "only the biggest morons in the world could screw up a tour where Michael Jackson sings his recent hits from Thriller in the 80s". You're not wrong!
So anyway, back to you being a kid in the 80s. THE JACKSONS ARE COMING! Tubular! Rad! Fresh! To the max! Etc. idk I'm a 90s kid. Anyway, time to save up your allowance, mow some lawns and find all the change in the couch cushions you can. Each ticket to the Victory tour was $30, which was wayyy higher than average at the time (for comparison's sake, $12.50 could have gotten you a ticket to see Prince or Van Halen that same year) , but the Jacksons were a big draw so certainly enough kids would be inspired enough to beg for the advance on their allowance needed to cover it. Which would have been fine except…
The Three Stooges, aka King, Jackson and Sullivan, came up with a brilliant way to eke out a bit more revenue from the tour. Instead of letting people buy the tickets they needed for dates they wanted and for seats that were available, they required fans to deposit $120 in money orders on a refundable LOTTERY for a block of four tickets. By definition, this lottery did not guarantee the buyer any tickets (hence it being a lottery, duh), so good luck kiddos!
Oh, and money orders have fees so you had to incur those too.
Oh, and the order form for the lottery was placed as an ad in various newspapers so you'd have to buy a newspaper too (they didn't accept photocopies, probably because the tour had asked newspapers to donate ad space for free and forcing people to buy newspapers was their way of compensating the publishers).
Oh, and you couldn't pick the date of the concert if there was more than one show in your city.
Oh, and if you DID get the tickets, you may not know you were picked until the day of the concert (unless you're one of the unlucky ones that didn't get their tickets in the mail until after the date passed).
Shopping list:
Newspaper: $0.25
Tickets: $120
Money order fees: $8
Postage: $0.20
Total: priceless $128.45, or $295.02 if adjusted for inflation
Ultimately, using all that sweet sweet cash, the tour producers would invest all the incoming funds into a money market account, earn interest, and then in two months return the funds (minus the interest, double duh) to the 90% of buyers who didn't win the ticket lottery.
Can you see the NAGLness from a mile away? That a bunch of millionaires with a not insignificant contingent of urban, young and minority fans would inflate the prices of their tickets, require their fans to pay for money order fees and extra tickets that they don't need and/or may not even get, and not return their money for months if they don't win the lottery? Then congrats, please travel back in time and manage this tour better than they did.
This stunt would have gone viral in 0.08 seconds if they tried to pull it today (Black Twitter, where were you when we needed you?), but it took a little longer (a month or so) for the media to reach peak outrage. Backlash was fierce, and it was such an ugly mess that the Jacksons had to reverse course. MJ made a public speech declaring that the lottery system was over and that he was donating all his personal proceeds from the tour to charity. He credited a girl named Checkers LaDonna Jones for writing him a complaint letter that changed his mind.
UPI, July 1, 1984
To be fair though, a great deal of the credit for the bad decisions had to go to all the Jacksons not named Michael. The brothers were all inexplicably given equal voting power to Michael on major tour decisions, so in many cases when Michael didn't want to eke out a few extra bucks in an exploitative way (it's easier to not be tacky when you're rich lbr), he was handily outvoted by his bros who didn't have the same cash reserves he did. Democracy's a bitch when you're outnumbered!
The lottery was just one fiasco of many on the Victory tour. The other major impact their cheapness had was on the scope of the tour. Despite the grand-ness of how this all sounds, the Victory tour only went to 12 cities. 12! Those are Walmart parking lot tour numbers! But lots of cities simply wouldn't take them. And who can blame them? The Jacksons and their team asked cities for the world.
Knight-Ridder, July 1, 1984
Seethe FIFA! Seethe IOC!
The tour lost any momentum it had left by the end when the promoters overextended the number of shows beyond demand leading to half-filled arenas, Michael was set on fire (see below) and suffered from exhaustion and dehydration, Sullivan had a heart attack, shows had to be canceled when Jermaine had the flu that incapacitated him (whether it was the flu or the "flu" that artists catch when their tours flop who knows), permits to perform were denied last minute, Jackie missed most of the tour with a leg injury after (allegedly) his wife ran over him with her car after catching him with another woman, they all straight up hated each other and were barely talking and staying on separate floors of the hotels...typical Jackson family drama.
In the end though, the saddest legacy of the tour didn't have to do with any of the above shenanigans (ha ha, made you read). The tour expenses were so damn high* that MJ had to do Pepsi commercials that King had signed him up for to subsidize the costs. MJ had as much interest in doing the commercials as he did doing the tour: zero. He thought it was dumb. His bffs Jane Fonda and Paul McCartney told him that doing a commercial was tacky. MJ didn't even drink Pepsi! But a man's gotta do what his promoter asks him to do so he can do what mom wants him to do.
It was during the filming of the Pepsi commercial that his hair caught fire due to some pyrotechnic issues, and many people close to MJ cite this as the beginning of his destructive relationship with prescription medications that eventually led to his death.
*I don't know how they could have had financial issues when they were getting everything wholesale and overcharging everyone, but if anyone could suspend the laws of financial physics it's the Jacksons
Fun fact: no songs from the Victory album were sung during the Victory tour.
Illuminati fact: the tour was such a financial flop that it forced the Sullivan family to sell the New England Patriots and Foxboro Stadium to cover their losses. Is Michael Jackson responsible for deflategate?
Not fun fact: Michael was so fucking pissed off about his head getting caught on fire during the filming of the Pepsi commercial (lol drama queen amirite) that he threatened to release the footage (see video above) to the media unless Pepsi gave him $1.5 million. Of course Pepsi was of the position that they weren't at fault, that it was the fault of Michael's choreography blocking/his flammable hair product/technicians' timing/various lawyerly excuses, but when faced with the prospect of being the cola that kids would associate with Michael Jackson being set on fire, they decided to pony up the $$.
Blackmail: it totally works!
ontd, how much would you pay to see ur fav in concert?
Sources: Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story (read it!)|wiki|my local library
In order to calm the waters and not start wank like my last post did, part 3 is dedicated to everyone's unproblematic fav: Michael Jackson!
This story is about Michael Jackson, children, and financial problems. But plot twist: it's set before the 90s!
Click to viewRemember the good ol' days before I tell you how bad they were. And yes, that is lil Carlton!
Imagine you're a kid in 1984 (ominous date alert!) and ~~~**Jacksons**~~~ are on tour and visiting your next of the woods.
The Jacksons had just released Victory, but wayyyyy more importantly Thriller had just come out so it's hard to overstate how hyped people were for this tour. Michael Jackson was THE draw obviously, but he was hauling along his five brothers (yes, there were six Jackson boys total; youngest brother Randy was not in the original lineup and no, he's not the judge from Idol) so they could make their own money instead of mooching off of him.
MJ really had no interest in doing the tour with his brothers (they weren't close at all at that point and he felt that it was beneath him at that point) but when his mother and father realized how much $$ they could make as co-promoters of a Michael Jackson (& co) tour they coerced convinced Michael to go on tour with this brothers.
So Mama and Papa, who were on the verge of divorce (although they have basically been on the verge of divorce since 1975 so idk), put differences aside to make sure that MJ went on the tour. Papa Joe's technique was all about the reverse psychology: "your brothers can sing your parts anyway, we don't really need you for a tour" he told MJ when MJ initially balked at the idea of the tour. The self-proclaimed King of Pop's ego did not like hearing that. Then, Mama Katherine's technique was the soft sell: "Do it for the family? Do it for me?". MJ loved his mother more than anyone or anything in the world and she knew he would go on a tour he had zero interest in if she asked. So she asked him, and he did.
The tour was happening!
Look how excited MJ is to be there!
Joe Jackson and New England Patriots co-owner Chuck Sullivan were some of the "brains" behind the tour (ominous airquote alert!), and Don King was the promoter for the tour. It was titled "Victory Tour," which is the equivalent of a character asking "what could possibly go wrong?" on an 50s sitcom.
You're probably thinking "only the biggest morons in the world could screw up a tour where Michael Jackson sings his recent hits from Thriller in the 80s". You're not wrong!
So anyway, back to you being a kid in the 80s. THE JACKSONS ARE COMING! Tubular! Rad! Fresh! To the max! Etc. idk I'm a 90s kid. Anyway, time to save up your allowance, mow some lawns and find all the change in the couch cushions you can. Each ticket to the Victory tour was $30, which was wayyy higher than average at the time (for comparison's sake, $12.50 could have gotten you a ticket to see Prince or Van Halen that same year) , but the Jacksons were a big draw so certainly enough kids would be inspired enough to beg for the advance on their allowance needed to cover it. Which would have been fine except…
The Three Stooges, aka King, Jackson and Sullivan, came up with a brilliant way to eke out a bit more revenue from the tour. Instead of letting people buy the tickets they needed for dates they wanted and for seats that were available, they required fans to deposit $120 in money orders on a refundable LOTTERY for a block of four tickets. By definition, this lottery did not guarantee the buyer any tickets (hence it being a lottery, duh), so good luck kiddos!
Oh, and money orders have fees so you had to incur those too.
Oh, and the order form for the lottery was placed as an ad in various newspapers so you'd have to buy a newspaper too (they didn't accept photocopies, probably because the tour had asked newspapers to donate ad space for free and forcing people to buy newspapers was their way of compensating the publishers).
Oh, and you couldn't pick the date of the concert if there was more than one show in your city.
Oh, and if you DID get the tickets, you may not know you were picked until the day of the concert (unless you're one of the unlucky ones that didn't get their tickets in the mail until after the date passed).
Shopping list:
Newspaper: $0.25
Tickets: $120
Money order fees: $8
Postage: $0.20
Total: priceless $128.45, or $295.02 if adjusted for inflation
Ultimately, using all that sweet sweet cash, the tour producers would invest all the incoming funds into a money market account, earn interest, and then in two months return the funds (minus the interest, double duh) to the 90% of buyers who didn't win the ticket lottery.
Can you see the NAGLness from a mile away? That a bunch of millionaires with a not insignificant contingent of urban, young and minority fans would inflate the prices of their tickets, require their fans to pay for money order fees and extra tickets that they don't need and/or may not even get, and not return their money for months if they don't win the lottery? Then congrats, please travel back in time and manage this tour better than they did.
This stunt would have gone viral in 0.08 seconds if they tried to pull it today (Black Twitter, where were you when we needed you?), but it took a little longer (a month or so) for the media to reach peak outrage. Backlash was fierce, and it was such an ugly mess that the Jacksons had to reverse course. MJ made a public speech declaring that the lottery system was over and that he was donating all his personal proceeds from the tour to charity. He credited a girl named Checkers LaDonna Jones for writing him a complaint letter that changed his mind.
UPI, July 1, 1984
To be fair though, a great deal of the credit for the bad decisions had to go to all the Jacksons not named Michael. The brothers were all inexplicably given equal voting power to Michael on major tour decisions, so in many cases when Michael didn't want to eke out a few extra bucks in an exploitative way (it's easier to not be tacky when you're rich lbr), he was handily outvoted by his bros who didn't have the same cash reserves he did. Democracy's a bitch when you're outnumbered!
The lottery was just one fiasco of many on the Victory tour. The other major impact their cheapness had was on the scope of the tour. Despite the grand-ness of how this all sounds, the Victory tour only went to 12 cities. 12! Those are Walmart parking lot tour numbers! But lots of cities simply wouldn't take them. And who can blame them? The Jacksons and their team asked cities for the world.
Knight-Ridder, July 1, 1984
Seethe FIFA! Seethe IOC!
The tour lost any momentum it had left by the end when the promoters overextended the number of shows beyond demand leading to half-filled arenas, Michael was set on fire (see below) and suffered from exhaustion and dehydration, Sullivan had a heart attack, shows had to be canceled when Jermaine had the flu that incapacitated him (whether it was the flu or the "flu" that artists catch when their tours flop who knows), permits to perform were denied last minute, Jackie missed most of the tour with a leg injury after (allegedly) his wife ran over him with her car after catching him with another woman, they all straight up hated each other and were barely talking and staying on separate floors of the hotels...typical Jackson family drama.
In the end though, the saddest legacy of the tour didn't have to do with any of the above shenanigans (ha ha, made you read). The tour expenses were so damn high* that MJ had to do Pepsi commercials that King had signed him up for to subsidize the costs. MJ had as much interest in doing the commercials as he did doing the tour: zero. He thought it was dumb. His bffs Jane Fonda and Paul McCartney told him that doing a commercial was tacky. MJ didn't even drink Pepsi! But a man's gotta do what his promoter asks him to do so he can do what mom wants him to do.
It was during the filming of the Pepsi commercial that his hair caught fire due to some pyrotechnic issues, and many people close to MJ cite this as the beginning of his destructive relationship with prescription medications that eventually led to his death.
*I don't know how they could have had financial issues when they were getting everything wholesale and overcharging everyone, but if anyone could suspend the laws of financial physics it's the Jacksons
Fun fact: no songs from the Victory album were sung during the Victory tour.
Illuminati fact: the tour was such a financial flop that it forced the Sullivan family to sell the New England Patriots and Foxboro Stadium to cover their losses. Is Michael Jackson responsible for deflategate?
Not fun fact: Michael was so fucking pissed off about his head getting caught on fire during the filming of the Pepsi commercial (lol drama queen amirite) that he threatened to release the footage (see video above) to the media unless Pepsi gave him $1.5 million. Of course Pepsi was of the position that they weren't at fault, that it was the fault of Michael's choreography blocking/his flammable hair product/technicians' timing/various lawyerly excuses, but when faced with the prospect of being the cola that kids would associate with Michael Jackson being set on fire, they decided to pony up the $$.
Blackmail: it totally works!
ontd, how much would you pay to see ur fav in concert?
Sources: Michael Jackson: The Magic, the Madness, the Whole Story (read it!)|wiki|my local library