A sample:

The Anaheim Ducks won the Stanley Cup in ‘07. Yeah, a hockey team came to Anaheim. Yeah, they built an arena in Anaheim.

Everyone jumped on the poor guy, but to me it was a distilled and perfect piece of local journalism. I mean, accusing a local newspaper columnist of leaden humor, brain-dead solipsism or freakish sentimentality is just a waste of time.

Anyway, Whicker apologized, and in the end I’m with Keith Olbermann, who pointed out that columnists are allowed to have bad days; it’s the guy’s editors whose heads should be on the chopping block.

The affair jogged something in my memory, but it took a few days before it coalesced. Many years ago, back in Chicago, a local sportswriter got off a column, written as well after an unspeakable tragedy, that I personally think deserves to be remembered in a hall of fame right next to Whicker’s.

At the time, I contributed a weekly column on music for the Chicago Reader. (It was called … Hitsville.) I wrote a piece about that column, which drew a couple of funny letters, including one from the guy who wrote it.

Some time went by and I had an occasion to revisit the topic, which generated a stream of letters it pleases me much to read to this day.

The first Hitsville entry came as the second item in a two part column:

Hitsville
May 19, 1994
By Bill Wyman

Bad Sports
A Quincy goes out to Rick Telander, a Chicago-based Sports Illustrated senior writer and a regular on the cable sports-talk show The Sportswriters. The award, its name derived from the famed punk-rock episode of the Jack Klugman TV series (”Why do people listen to music that makes them want to hate, when they can listen to music that makes them want to love?”), goes to people who say stupid things about rock ‘n’ roll. Telander contributed the unctuously written, awkwardly titled story “Sport no nirvana, but structure can be life-saver” to last Sunday’s Trib sports section. The splashily played article’s thesis was that if Kurt Cobain had been involved in sports, the natural bonding mechanisms of the game might have saved him. “There is something about sport that I feel could have helped fill a void in the Seattle grunge king’s life,” wrote Telander. “Cobain was a sensitive, small, and troubled youth, and his parents could not, or would not, give him guidance. And he had no team. And he had no coach.” Hitsville avoids reading sports sections as a matter of course: is this sort of analysis typical? Organized sports consists almost entirely of suit-and-tied strategists telling the players what to do every other second; rock ‘n’ roll is basically a forum for artists to express themselves. Even with this difference, however, there are in rock ‘n’ roll what Telander calls, with unbearable condescension, “authority figures.” Cobain, for example, had a powerful management company (Gold Mountain) and label (Geffen) behind him–and he repeatedly went out of his way to thank them publicly for their help, though it was fairly uncool from the indie perspective to do so. The second problem with Telander’s argument is that Cobain had an instinctive and thorough loathing of male rituals in general and of sweaty, macho corporate sport in particular. “Rock and sports,” writes the addlepated Telander, “are like restive siblings,…two flip sides of a two-metal coin. Those boys who can, play sports; those who can’t, play music.” Barf. Cobain needed sports like he needed a hole in his head.

The letters came in soon after:

It’s a Guy Thing
Surely Rick Telander deserves as much derision as one can heap upon him. If you’ve ever read one of his pompous, overblown articles in Sports Illustrated, or seen that silly Sportswriters show you know what I mean. Del Crustaceans indeed!
However, Hitsville [May 20] earned its own Quincy with the stupid statement that “Cobain had an instinctive and thorough loathing of male rituals in general.” Oh yeah? Then why was he in a rock band?
Despite the proliferation of wimpy college rock R.E.M. clones and wife-core bands (bands that include four members, one of whom is the guitarist’s wife or girlfriend, who plays bass or drums) rock ‘n’ roll is nothing if not a macho male ritual.
From Elvis on down through Hendrix and Paul Rodgers all the way to Nash Kato, B-Real, and most certainly Nirvana, it always has been. And that’s the way it should be. Rock on, righteous brothers!
Robert Heintz
Skokie

This one was from the columnist:

Bill’s Bitchin’
Dear Reader:
I was a little puzzled by Bill Wyman’s review [Hitsville, May 20] of my article on Kurt Cobain, suicide, and sport that appeared in the May 15 issue of the Chicago Tribune. While I welcome intelligent debate on any subject, I am curious as to what got Wyman so bitchy about a 900-word essay that basically asked if there was anything that might have prevented one of the world’s brightest young rock stars from taking his life.

I speculated that the best parts of the sports world–teamwork, discipline, nurturing instruction–might have been of benefit even to a tormented poet like Cobain. The worst aspects of sport–domination, subservience, repression–help no one, of course, and I have written often about this fact.

But there is a structure to games that seems to help athletes cope with bigger problems. NBA player Brian Williams, for instance, was suicidal last year, but his sport, his coaches, and his teammates helped him get treatment for his depression and become productive again. In rock, who tells the superstars no? So you overdosed on drugs, just cancel the concert. Cobain’s people made many excuses for the star, even denying that his near-death in Europe several months ago was a suicide attempt. The glorious freedom of rock is also its biggest pitfall.

I didn’t suggest that Cobain should have been a jock, as Wyman seems to think. I said, rather, that athletes “find shelter in the fabric and discipline of their game.” I only wish Cobain could have found similar comfort.

Beyond his misunderstanding of my point, Wyman used some words that I found unusual. I haven’t seen “addlepated” since Dickens, for instance. And “barf”–whoa, the creativity. But as the old saying goes: those who can, write; those who can’t, be critics.

Rick Telander

All was quiet for a few weeks, until yet another tragedy transfixed the country. I offered up this observation:

Hitsville
June 24, 1994
By Bill Wyman

Bad Sports II
Watching O.J. Simpson’s absurdist flight from the law last Friday night, Hitsville was suddenly struck by a thought: What if Simpson the celebrity had not been born and bred in the uncaring, rough and tumble world of sport, but rather had been nurtured in the more solidarity-minded world of rock ‘n’ roll? There’s something about rock ‘n’ roll that I think might have filled a void in the Hall of Famer’s life. In rock ‘n’ roll, the artist is never truly alone: he or she is surrounded by bandmates, producers, agents and managers and label people, all concerned with his or her well-being. In the world of sport, by contrast, even the most popular figure, like Simpson, apparently had no one around to help him work through his problems. Even after he was accused of a grisly double murder, no one could persuade him to handle the charges sensibly. As a rock star, he would have had a trustworthy and loyal drummer or bassist at his side, or at least a manager and a lawyer to help him out. As it was, Simpson had no authority figures around. And he had no bassist. And he had no drummer. Sure there are some wife-beaters and murderous stalkers in rock music, but they find shelter in the fabric and discipline of the world of music. That, tragically, was something O.J. didn’t have.

Some people remembered the previous exchange; others didn’t. The letters, including another from Telander himself:

The Big Hurt
Editor:
I didn’t pick up the most recent edition of the Reader till today; you must have already received dozens of letters in response to Hitsville’s pointless observation [June 24] of the O.J. Simpson car chase episode. In wondering how O.J. might have handled his life differently had he been in a rock band rather than on a football team, Bill Wyman points out that there are many concerned people around a rock star should he or she have a personal crisis. Wyman surmises that “the fabric and discipline of the music world” could have saved Simpson. I have two words for Wyman: Kurt Cobain.
While I firmly believe in the naive notion of the transcendent, healing power of rock music, with every music biz fatality we are constantly reminded that there is pain that cannot be soothed by anything or anyone.
Lori Malinski
N. Moody

Stupid Ahistorical Drivel
Dear editor:
I do not number myself among Bill Wyman’s detractors regarding his musical criticism, but I am outraged by the obscenely stupid, ahistorical drivel he slobbered recently about O.J. Simpson [Hitsville, June 24]. The obvious idiocies are stunning: first, the history of rock and roll all too plainly shows that managers, agents, producers, and label people do not consistently effuse benevolent “concern” about musicians’ “well-being.” Second, does Wyman seriously believe that O.J. had no manager, no lawyer, no agent? As for bandmates, the tender bassists and drummers lovingly extolled by Wyman, O.J. had teammates, first and foremost of which was his college and professional buddy Al Cowlings, who was his teammate for ten times longer than the average life span of a rock and roll band. Even more obvious, rock and roll bandmates are often less than supportive: Wyman needs to reread his history, sadly lacking for a professional rock critic, about the legendarily acrimonious and often destructive musical partnerships that pass for the “solidarity-minded” world of rock and roll. Wyman’s short-term memory is also deficient: not two months ago he mourned the passing of Kurt Cobain, a troubled rock star who had the full complement of bassist, drummer, agents, managers, etc, but still managed to off himself amid the oh so rosy world of rock music.
However, Wyman’s last statements anger me most. What does he mean that the “potential wife beaters and murderous stalkers in rock . . . find shelter in the fabric and discipline of the music world”? Is he asserting that there aren’t any actual wife beaters and murderous stalkers in rock music? Excuse me? Ike Turner, anyone? More importantly, one of the key aspects of domestic abuse is the way it is hidden, ignored, covered up, and sheltered from public knowledge, something Wyman is contributing to by erasing it from the history of music. Second, what is it these potential beaters and stalkers find shelter from? I would think that the objects of their beatings and stalkings would have to seek shelter from them. I assume that Wyman meant to say that those musicians with the potential to beat or stalk find that, in the nurturing world of rock and roll, they can control their behavior, which is a crock in and of itself. However, his unfortunate phrasing implies that the music world shelters and protects these desires and behaviors, giving the impression that Wyman thinks that the music world’s ability to shelter its wife beaters from harm to themselves, rather than to others, is somehow a laudable thing. Although I hesitate to accuse Wyman of intending this meaning (I do heartily accuse him of extreme stupidity, insensitivity, and at the very least carelessness), it sounds like he is saying that what the potential wife beaters and stalkers in rock and roll actually find shelter from, what O.J. “tragically” didn’t find shelter from, is justice.
Meaghan Parker
Hyde Park

The Critic From Another Planet
Whatever Bill Wyman feels about Rick Telander’s opinion about Kurt Cobain’s lack of a coach [Hitsville, May 20], it is just that–an opinion. Mr. Telander is well versed in the facts of his chosen field, something that cannot equally be said for Mr. Wyman.

Bill Wyman states, “Organized sports consists almost entirely of suit-and-tied strategists” whereas “rock ‘n’ roll is basically a forum for artists to express themselves.” What utopian planet does Bill Wyman live on? I’m sure many musicians would love to go live there too.

Sure, maybe at the level of bar bands and small indie labels music may be played purely for art’s sake–people who play ball in college and the minor leagues may play for the love of the sport. But once you sign to a major label you become part of a giant selling machine that refers to you and your music as “product” and your talent is assessed by how many “units” you sell. Who do you think caused Nirvana and Jane’s Addiction to change the cover of their albums for K mart? A bunch of their buds going “Whoa dude, I find this kind of offensive”?

Maybe the Reader should have Steve Albini write your music column. At least he knows what the music business is really like.

Mark Springer
Chicago

Rock vs. Jock
Dear Reader,

It was with great annoyance, and little amusement, that I read Bill Wyman’s latest volley in the continuing juvenile pissing contest between himself and Rick Telander (”Bad Sports II,” Hitsville, June 24). Shame Bill’s tongue, fat with promise. Telander’s piece on Kurt Cobain’s death was pretentious and misguided; Wyman’s initial response [Hitsville, May 20] was based on a misinterpretation of Telander’s point and appeared strangely defensive. The attempted chastising of Telander in last week’s O.J.-based missive was nothing more than unnecessary one-upsmanship. I read Hitsville every week to learn interesting things about the national and local music scene, not to read grown men quarrel like a couple of children on a playground. Since Telander has already been awarded one, Hitsville should give itself a Quincy and move on.
Brian Beck
Chicago

Sports and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll
Dear Reader:

OK, I give. Hitsville psychologist Bill Wyman is right: sports are evil. Just look, as Wyman has [June 24], at what playing football has done to O.J. Simpson. Never mind that Simpson hasn’t strapped on a helmet in nearly 15 years, he clearly is representative of the athletes of the world.

Kurt Cobain killed himself while high on heroin, but as Wyman wants us to know, that’s just one of those little speed bumps on the road of rock creativity. Cobain couldn’t have handled somebody in a position of authority and respect offering him good, stern advice. Nah. After all, he had fellow junkie, er, wife, Courtney Love to guide him. And there was all that advice he could get from those other great Seattle band members, people like Stefanie Sargent of 7 Year Bitch or Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone. Huh? They’re dead, too, of overdoses? Darn.

One of Cobain’s problems was increasing friction with Nirvana bass player Krist Novoselic. Cobain should have solved that by using the bassist from Hole, his wife’s band. Her name is Kristen Pfaff, and . . . what? She OD’d on smack two weeks ago?

Well, nevermind. Rockers are artists. They need no guidance. But beware those World Cup soccer players. Thanks for setting us straight, Dr. Wyman.

Rick Telander
Sports Nut

My argument for what’s really going on, or at least the beginning of a series of them, is currently up at Splice Today.

The result is a long—too-long probably—detailing of the five central issues that I contend are at the heart of the collapse of daily journalism. To me it’s incredible that they are almost never detailed in mainstream accounts on the troubles of the industry—because there’s no way to fix the problems if it’s not acknowledged what they are.

Part I is up now. Part II will be up later today. I’d welcome, of course, comments, criticisms and other thoughts on the industry.

But her financial troubles … those are something different. Her affairs were in such disarray that she turned to a company that specializes in art-related loans and borrowed some $24 million against her homes in Manhattan and her personal archive. The loan is now apparently past due and the company is suing her.

In a NYT story on the issue Leibovitz refuses to comment; in another, a Reuters  dispatch on the case, her spokesperson quotes her as saying the allegations are “false and untrue.”

Hmm … false and untrue.

Most folks my age grew up with her Rolling Stone portraits—intriguing, revelatory and era-defining. As time went on, she slipped over into celebrity photography, a much different thing. Originally, she was a true journalist, finding in her work meanings separate from the stars. Later, however, you could feel her alliances shift, to where she became complicit with the celebrity masks. Her ambitions in this area soon transcended even that of her mentor, Jann Wenner, which is saying something, and she shifted over to being Vanity Fair’s celebrity portraitist-in-chief.

As her brand coalesced, she expanded her work into the extremely remunerative world of magazine advertising, and cornered a distinctive and celebrity-friendly corner of the market; most recently, there was her mega-expensive Disneyland campaign and the recent Louis Vuitton series, with appearances by Keith Richard and Francis and Sofia Coppola.

I find both of those campaigns repugnant: They are classic samples of celebrity and corporate porn, stuffed with pompous intents, mincing self-regard, and opulent excess.

The purchasers of them are the true judges of their effectiveness, but they also don’t seem very useful to me; the Disney ones, particularly, don’t call to mind Disneyland at all. They are weighted, dark, insular, and almost fetishistic in their handling of their celebrity faces. Indeed, they seem more about branding the celebrities (like Whoopie Goldberg’s tiresome simper) than the product.

But it’s the weight that stays with you; the ads do seem heavy to me, weighed down with ad-agency over-thinking, brand-consciousness, celebrity handlers, and, finally, the egos—Jesus, the egos!—the celebs’, Leibovitz’s own, and the bloated ones of the guys running these useless companies.

It all combines for an overwhelming feeling of decadence.

As the years went on Leibovitz became extremely thin-skinned—fruitlessly suing the producers of The Naked Gun movie series, for example, for an ad parody of her shot of Demi Moore pregnant. Meanwhile, like some real-life version of a Mick Jagger character, she looked for darker and darker photographic kicks, like her recent fuck-me shots of fifteen-year-old Miley Cyrus.

Isn’t decadent what Leibovitz had become? Her financial troubles, according to the Times, long predated her personal ones, which again, should not be wished on any one. She was careless with expenses for decades; her handling of her own finances had resulted in tax leins and at least two lawsuits for nonpayment of debts.

As you can expect, while she doesn’t comment her amen corner is trying to spin the story her way, notably making the case that she did not live in a profligate fashion, though that is hard to reconcile with someone who owned three town houses in Greenwich Village and a summer home besides.

Instead of just keeping an eye on the loot she made playing around with bad actors and international conglomerates, she let it all go, and in the end essentially pawned everything she owned and had created. We’ll have to see how the case plays out, of course, but the chain of events in the Times story is pretty unappetizing. If as seems likely she ends up losing her personal archive, I’ll feel sorry for the nimble and innovative young photographer—but not so much for the suck-up to the stars.

The device is expected to be launched alongside new content deals, including some aimed at stimulating sales of CD-length music, according to people briefed on the project. The touch-sensitive computer will have a screen that may be up to 10 inches diagonally.

Those “content deals”?

Recording industry executives said Apple planned to use the larger screen to offer new services such as interactive booklets and liner notes that come along with purchases of entire music CDs.

While iTunes moved legal sales of digitised music into the mainstream, the digital take-up for full CDs has disappointed the industry. Consumers usually select just one or two tracks.

Wow—liner notes and interactive booklets!

Whenever I read the word “interactive” it reminds of me of last year, during the presidential campaign, when everyone I knew was following electoral college scenarios on various news websites. A friend of mine told me he liked the one at LATimes.com. “They have an interactive map,” he said.

It wasn’t until later, after more discussions, that I realized he didn’t know what “interactive”meant—that he could, in this instance, click on the states to turn them red or blue and so change the electoral vote totals. He just liked the colors and accepted that it was, somehow, “interactive.”

All of which is to say that such packages aren’t going to do anything for digital sales of full CDs. People buy just their favorite songs from their favorite artists because, now, they can.

In the great pop era coursing through the first decades of the last century, people bought sheet music—of songs, not albums. In the first ten or fifteen years of the rock era, too, they mostly bought songs, in the shape of 45s.

There followed, in a happy confluence of commercialism and art, the album era, which lasted right up until 2001. It was a good thirty years for the record industry—particularly when it got folks to rebuy their collections on cassette and then CD—but it’s over now. We’re back to people buying songs, and there’s no reason it’s going to revert.

My theory? Steve Jobs is tossing another handful of gossamer dust into the eyes of the industry. The last time was when he allowed the prices of music at the iTunes Store to rise.

It seemed like a defeat for Apple. In fact, to the extent the increase—up to $1.29, from its previous across-the-board 99 cents—drove people back to the file-sharing networks and undercut the music industry’s sales even more, it worked to his advantage.

(I won’t be surprised, should the fancy-schmancy new album packages come to fruition, if the labels charge a premium for them. How much more would you pay for an “interactive booklet”?)

Whether the tablet will be a hit or not no one knows—there’s an argument against it here—but I do know that music fans are not going to go back to shelling out $10-plus for filler-laden hour-plusses of music, interactive or not.

The LAT says he’s sold nine million around the world since his death. The Jackson operation, leaking to a hometown newspaper, has always used the world figures whenever the national one aren’t that hot, but let’s take it at face value. Next question: How many CDs, how many digital albums? How many digital tracks?

The story doesn’t say, doesn’t say, and doesn’t say.

Of U.S. sales, the story says this:

Nielsen SoundScan said Jackson’s albums sold 1.1 million copies over the last seven days and had combined to sell an impressive 2.3 million in the U.S. in the nearly three weeks since he died.

Meanwhile, the NYT reports similarly that he sold 1.1 million copies of his solo albums, but then says:

Almost 1.9 million tracks, separate from albums, were sold as digital downloads.

That makes it sound as if he sold another 200,000 albums’ worth digitally.

The sales aren’t insignificant, and I don’t mean to be cranky, but I don’t see them as particularly strong. Boy bands used to sell a lot more than a million albums in a week, though sales overall are a lot lower these days, of course. Finally, a crank will of course note that about half the sales are of two latter-day greatest-hits repackagings, Essential and (the hyperbolically titled) Number Ones.

Now, read Billboard closely, and you can see that Jackson sold 1.1 million for the week total, physical and digital album equivalents. The story says he sold 400,000 copies in the chart half-week immediately after his death, and then 800,000 last week, with a total since his death, three weeks ago, of about 2.3 million. Digital sales were high last week because retailers ran out of physical product. Now they are back in the pipeline.

For the nine million figure to be correct, Jackson would have to be selling almost four times as many CDs around the world as he is at home, a rate that, as we have seen, would far exceed his previous sales patterns.

Update: After nosing around, and checking in with worldwide sales expert Guillaume Vieira, I think it’s fair to say that Jackson has sold about seven million total worldwide in the weeks since his death. Vieira said specifically that the nine million figure is pieces shipped. In other words, the LAT—whose trumpeting of nine million sold was attributed to “a source”—was carrying Sony’s water.

Oh, wait:

[H]ere’s why the CBS Evening News is struggling in the ratings, how it can turn things around…and why none of it is Katie Couric’s fault.

That’s not the latest love letter to Katie Couric from Tom Shales or Howard Kurtz (or the LAT’s Matea Gold, or the NYT’s Jacques Steinberg …); that’s from Mediaite, the just-launched site that wants to give us the no-holds-barred, behind-the-scenes scoop on the media!

The title to that article is “The Current State of the CBS Evening News: Don’t Blame Katie.” After a no-doubt dogged series of interviews, the writer, Steve Krakauer, as the excerpt above indicates, set out to tell us what’s really wrong in what used to be called the Tiffany Network, before MTV bought it.

Now, as I read it, Krakauer after that big setup has exactly two reasons Couric is not to blame.

I know this because they are labeled “#1″ and #2.”

The first is “Politics.” The network, he says, is viewed as liberal.

Krakauer is referring to the image of the network when Dan Rather was the anchor. Funny thing. Times have changed and now, as you might have heard, NBC is the liberal network. The CBS image may no doubt linger, particularly among the senior-skewing evening news audience. But it has doubtless eased in recent years, particularly with the adoption of senior-friendly Katie Couric as anchor.

The other prong of his argument is that CBS’s audience is redder than the other networks. He cites a Time story on The Mentalist that makes the argument that CBS has “a lock” on throwback entertainment designed for the more traditional TV audience.

James Poniewozik is a strong analyst of TV, of course, but you could make the argument that he was, in effect, making the argument for The Mentalist. The hydra-headed amped-up CSI franchise on CBS is the opposite of everything The Mentalist is supposed to be. So is Survivor. So is Big Brother. So is The Big Bang Theory.

In other words, Krakauer’s argument a) isn’t true and b) to the extent it might be was supposed to have been eased by Couric.

Krakauer’s second argument (”Lead-in”) for Couric is that she has poor lead-ins from some CBS affiliates in LA and Chicago. Well, fine. She has some weak lead-ins from affiliates. But does that explain why her ratings have been dropping?

Here’s the case against Couric, none of which Krakauer acknowledges:

1) Her background is not substantive enough to be a network TV anchor. 2) Her experience is in the realm of infotainment*. 3) After that burst of publicity on her ascendance to the position, her ratings quickly dropped, and have consistently been far below that of her predecessor, Bob Shieffer. 4) The audience checked her out and decided it didn’t like her. 5) Her one big ratings bounce up came … after the last election, suggesting that America viewed her as a comforting lap to sit on when there wasn’t any real news out there. 6) Then they went down again. 7) Then they went down some more, to the point where she is now breaking her own record of the lowest ratings ever for the newscast. 8 ) For her reported $15 million salary, the network could hire 100 reporters and producers to, you know, report the news. 9) Instead of productively working to deal with these issues, she’s embarked on a long-running PR campaign, which, having exhausted all other venues, has now dripped down to internet startups looking for a little celebrity juice.

When, as seems inevitable, Couric gets dumped by CBS, shouldn’t Mediaite want to be ahead of that curve, rather than behind it with the likes of Howard Kurtz?

————–

* In an early post on Couric, I detailed some of the creepy stuff she did on the Today Show and referred to her, justifiably, as “the public face of a skanky network infotainment franchise.” More recently, I referred to her as a “skanky infotainment specialist“; a friend, offended, pointed out that I used the word to describe her. It’s a subtle difference, but it’s a fair comment; I shouldn’t call Couric herself “skanky.”

————

Previously in Hitsville:

Couric’s ratings: It gets worse
Confidential to Tom Shales and Howard Kurtz: Katie Couric’s ratings are in the tank again!
Couric Watch: Ratings plummet!
Paging Katie Couric!
Dear Tom Shales
Katie Couric—Where America Turns When the News Is Over™
Katie Couric, the News Anchor That Nobody Watches™
Couric and CBS, lying
Should CBS jettison its news division?
Katie Couric’s ratings hit a new low
Howie hearts Katie
Kurtz the lame
Couric, the debate, and the vaporization of CBS News
Katie Couric, a year later 

Us has been promoting the footage widely; the NYT today ran a short story saying that Pepsi claimed no knowledge of how the footage was leaked.

Wherever could it have come from?

The accident is a footnote to a footnote (the Pepsi campaign) to the batshit craziness that surrounded Jackson and his ludicrous family in the year or two after Thriller came out. The Victory Tour embarked upon by him and his brothers was one of the biggest organizational debacles in entertainment history.

The allegedly in-control Jackson was pressured by his family to go on tour with his brothers. Fair enough. But instead of simply hiring a promoter and setting up a simple and potentially astronomically lucrative MJ/Jacksons tour, Jackson let his brothers be in charge of it.

The first thing they did was hire Don King, which set the tone for the events to follow. For some pointless reason, Jackson’s parents were enlisted as producers, allowing them to skim a percentage off the top. Jackson quickly grew to distrust King in particular (who started the process off with a buffoonish press conference) and the set-up in general, and started bringing in his own producers, which created the predictable organizational chaos.

King had sold the Pepsi commercials on his own. (The Pepsi deal is often cited as an example of Jackson’s alleged brilliant business sense.) Jackson didn’t want to do them, and apparently tried to get out of them, and when he couldn’t limited his appearances as much as possible.

The fire happened when a small incendiary device went off too close to Jackson’s head. The footage looks a little scary, and the Jackson camp played up the injury mightily. But J. Randy Taraborrelli’s The Magic and the Madness says that the third-degree burn that resulted ultimately turned out to be the size of a quarter. I’m not minimizing the danger to Jackson, just relating the facts as they’ve been reported.

Jackson held up Pepsi for a while, and finally settled for a payment that was double of what he was making for the Pepsi commercials. (Taraborrelli says he donated the money to charity.)

So, two points: One, Where did the footage come from?

Taraborrelli: “As soon as the accident occurred, [Jackson manager John] Branca’s partner, Gary Stiffelman, seized the tape from the cameramen and took them. Pepsi didn’t have any footage. Michael had it all.”

I have two theories. One, a member of the Jackson family had a copy of the tape and sold it, LaToya style, to Us. Two, Branca, back in the picture as the executor of the Jackson estate, slipped it to the magazine.

So who stands to gain from its release? The angle Us is taking in its coverage, that the Pepsi accident got Jackson started on painkillers, points toward Branca, who might have released it with an agreed-upon editorial angle to jump-start a campaign to repair the mightily tarnished Jackson image.

If, a year from now, tawdry details of Jackson’s drug use have been dribbling out from the various medical and police investigations, a meme floating around that it all goes back to a tragic accident will give Jackson’s fans something comforting to think about when the truth is a little grimy.

Finally, it should be noted that the commercial itself featured a rewritten “Billie Jean,” with words like “It’s a whole new generation” replacing “Billie Jean is not my lover.” Jackson was pimping out the best song he would ever write to sell his fans sugar water.

Anyway, the plain ol’ paying for stories is now a little passé, but when the Jackson family is back in the news it never gets old. First up: The ever-enertaining LaToya, last seen at the Michael Jackson memorial wearing a hat the size of a manhole cover, and shown here to the right in a new ad for an Australian malt liquor.

She told the News of the World that her brother was murdered and she knows who did it:

As she posed a series of vital questions about 50-year-old Jacko’s sudden death 17 days ago at his rented mansion in Los Angeles, La Toya said the pop icon was:

• FED a series of addictive drugs to keep him submissive and controlled.
• KEPT from his family by manipulative people who blocked their visits.
• WORKED to exhaustion even though he DIDN’T want to do the gruelling string of 50 shows due to start at London’s O2 arena tomorrow.
• ROBBED of TWO MILLION in cash and gems as he lay dying.

Jackson never actually poses any “vital questions,” and never names her suspects, though she says she knows who they are:

“A couple of years ago Michael told me he was worried that people were out to get him. He said, ‘They’re gonna kill me for my publishing. They want my catalogues and they’re gonna kill me for these.’

“I knew something terrible was going to happen.”

Brushing her long dark hair back from her face—features that closely resemble her tragic brother’s—soft-spoken La Toya added: “Michael was being inappropriately treated by people who got him hooked on drugs.

“I can’t say who I believe is responsible as I don’t want to jeopardise the police investigation. But not everybody had Michael’s best interests at heart.

With that exhaustive data, I first assumed he was a Sony employee, based either in Britain or France. MJDangerous was kind enough to respond to an email I sent him. It turns out he is French, just recently out of school and working as an engineer. His name is Guillaume Vieira. He’s not in the business at all, but rather a fan who for the last six years has been collecting press releases, Billboard stories and sales data and collating them into a coherent and persuasive portrait of an elusive beast: Legitimate accountings of worldwide record sales. I found the information he had at his fingertips impressive*.

We had the following chat over the weekend. I rearranged it a little and did some minor editing. 

Hitsville: Thanks for taking the time to talk about this. What’s your experience in collecting worldwide sales figures? They are notoriously difficult to discern, aren’t they?

Guillaume Vieira: Figures are difficult to discern in the beginning, but I faced enough of them to discern them immediately and quite easily now. I’ve checked charts, certifications and officially reported sales of over 10,000 albums in the last six years. When a figure is said to have been officially reported but hasn’t, I know it instantly. As I said, it is easy for me—I already know all the figures that have been really reported.

Hitsville: As you’ve no doubt noticed, the New York Times after Michael Jackson’s death stated flatly that he had sold 750 million records worldwide, and that Thriller had sold an “estimated” 100 million. Every other news outlet in the land, not to mention the indefatigable U.S. cable channels, cited similar figures. Are they accurate? What’s your best estimate about Thriller?

Vieira: The figure of “over 100 million” for Thriller came out, just like the figure of 750 million for Jackson, in November 2006 at World Music Awards. The last reported figure by Sony was 54 million worldwide, during the HIStory era, while the Guinness Book of World Records reported Thriller at “over 50 million” worldwide. In 2006, his management team reported it sold 104 million worldwide—54 million in the US according to the RIAA and 50 million elsewhere according to Guinness!

Thriller indeed sold over 28 million copies in the US. It was a giant blockbuster there (37 weeks #1). But to sell 100 million it would have to be even more successful in every other market than in the US, which represents 40 percent of international sales. It was for sure a blockbuster, but that much was simply not possible!

In UK, its shipment is up to 4,12 million copies with last week’s sales.

In France, it sold a record breaking 3,3 million copies (1,8 million by Feb 1984 according to Billboard; 2,5 million by 1988 according to SNEP—the French equivalent of the RIAA. Then we have documented sales for recent years).

Italy, 1,19 million up to 2001, published by Sony Music. Thriller 25 is Gold there, as a whole it sold 1,3 million in this country by now.

Germany, 3xPlat (1,5m**) since 1995, not many figures since that time but chart performances put it around 2 million.

Sweden, recently certified 4xPlatinum, 400,000, plus 20,000 copies for Thriller 25.

Netherlands, 800,000 copies by 1996 (8xPlatinum, highest certified album ever), by now over 1 million.

Austria, 400,000, 8xPlatinum, again highest figure ever reached (local albums included).

Belgium, 550,000, 11xPlatinum, second to Helmut Lotti’s Goes Classic only.

Spain, 500,000 by 1984, around a million currently.

In Europe, it sold close to 17 million copies. This figure is massive—more impressive than 28 million in US. Since IFPI introduced album certifications for Europe in 1994, no album ever reached even 10 million. The only one studio album that reached 10 million in Europe in the last 20 years is Dangerous, by Michael Jackson himself, released in 1991, which sold 12 million copies in the old continent. That album, regarded as half a flop in the US, is to Europe/Asia/Oceania the equivalent of Shania Twain’s Come On Over in the US—The biggest album released in the last 2 decades.

Billboard recently reported a figure of 2,5 million copies in Japan for Thriller (it sold 1,616,000 copies while charting in 83/84 alone, without counting imports, 30% of sales of foreign acts). It sold around 6,5 million in Asia.

Over a million in Australia, recently certified 14xPlatinum (980,000). In South America, it is the best selling album ever for a foreign act: more than 600,000 copies in Argentina, over 1,3 million in Brazil, 400,000 in Chile and a million in Mexico. Then over 3 million in Canada. In Africa, it sold 600,000 copies in South Africa alone, 300,000 copies in Turkey, over 2 million in the continent.

Then we only have to add figures: US 28,5m, Europe 17m, Canada 3,3m, Asia 6,5m, Latin America + Oceania 6m, Africa 2m, total around 63 million. As you can see, a lot of accurate data is actually known; the jigsaw is far from being as obscure as people may think. Give or take a maximum of 2m, this figure of 63 million is correct.

Hitsville: What’s your ballpark estimate of how many records Jackson sold worldwide?

Vieira:

Albums -  at least 205 million, at most 225 million
Singles - at least 105 million, at most 120 million
Digital singles - at least 19 million, at most 22 million
Music Videos - at least 14 million, at most 17 million
Ringtones - 2 million, give or take a few thousands (1,4 million in the US)

All those figures don’t include sales of the Jackson 5/Jacksons, except for Digital singles. The group sold:

Albums -  at least 45 million, at most 60 million
Singles - at least 40 million, at most 55 million

All together, that puts a ballpark at 430—500 million, but since some figures may be a bit too high, and others too low (they aren’t all in the low side or all in the high side), a more correct one would be worldwide records sales somewhere between 450 million and 480 million.

That’s around 80 million more than Elvis Presley, 40 million under the Beatles***.

Hitsville: Those are impressive figures, even if they don’t approach those big round numbers the papers were tossing about. Let’s talk about the Jackson Five for a minute. It’s funny—while I hadn’t published it, I was working on a post discussing whether the figure of 100 million sold for the Jackson Five, as is claimed, could possibly be right. To be honest, I thought it couldn’t; their heyday lasted about 18 months. In the U.S. they’re the equivalent of, say, Three Dog Night. On the other hand, I also remember Michael Jackson perhaps in the Martin Bashir documentary, recalling that as a 12-year-old he would get royalty checks of $200,000, which I thought was a large figure a) at the time and b) considering infinitesimal royalty rate the group was getting from Motown. But it makes sense if the group was selling records at those levels. Did they really sell anything like 100 million records?

Guillaume: The Jackson 5/Jacksons did sell around 100 million; they sold around 50 million of each singles and albums. But that is up to now! When that figure was first claimed in 1977, they were obviously, far, far from reaching it. That claim even supposed they were the second group reaching that milestone after the Beatles—outselling even the Rolling Stones, which was not true at all (and still isn’t!). Their single sales in the US were massive; even up to now they still are close to Madonna in this area, and outsold acts like Whitney Houston.

Hitsville: In the context of Motown, the Jacksons were the label’s 5th or 6th biggest act. As I look over a crude marker like the biggest chart acts of Billboard, its strikes me that Berry Gordy oversaw the careers of close to ten percent of the biggest acts in history. Do you have an off-the-cuff sense of how many records Motown sold?

Guillaume: Motown sales were truly gigantic in the 60s and 70s. Single sales were huge at that time and to be honest they were definitely dominating that sector. Album sales of Motown acts are very often not that impressive: First because the market wasn’t big at the time, second because their acts are more remembered for their singles than their albums in general, third because Motown releases the same hits packages again and again, cannibalizing sales of original albums. Only Stevie Wonder, and later Lionel Richie, sold loads of albums while signed by Motown. It is hard to guess the entire sales of the label (especialy since I haven’t studied several of their key acts), but let’s check a few of them:

- Jackson 5 - 70 million (not including sales of the Jacksons, who weren’t on Motown anymore)
- Michael Jackson - 20 million
- Stevie Wonder - 170 million
- Lionel Richie - 85 million
- Diana Ross/Supremes - 190 million
- Commodores - 60 million
- The Temptations - 110 million
- Marvin Gaye - 110 million
- Four Tops - 40 million
- Miracles/Smokey Robinson - 55 million

A total of 910 million - most of them were singles. With all their acts, it is safe to say the Motown label sold well over 1 billion records, which is an incredible total.

Hitsville: Now, if it’s fair to toss in the Jackson Five’s sales with Michael’s, it’s fair to toss in Paul McCartney’s with his previous band. What’s his totals compared to Jackson’s? Diana Ross’ totals as a solo artist combined with with the Supremes?

Guillaume: Diana Ross/Supremes total is ahead, not that far from 200 million records sold. Paul McCartney is the master. He sold around 170 million records on his own, added to over 500 million with the Beatles; that is over two thirds of the road to a billion! Obviously, on such a list, Michael Jackson wouldn’t be at 2, considering the three other Beatles would be ahead of him. Macca with 670m, Lennon with 620m, Harrison with 550m and Ringo with 525m, then Michael Jackson with around 465m. When we see how hard it is to sell 10 million records (and despite what most people think it has always been very hard), those numbers are from another world!

Hitsville: Janet Jackson gets overlooked sometimes in the Michael hoopla, but she is a top-tier star in her own right, isn’t she? What’s your best estimation of her worldwide sales and her ranking worldwide?

Janet sold 45 million singles and 65 million albums, which ranks her among the top 60 best selling acts ever, quite an achievement already, definitely a star on her own. She is in par with the likes Nirvana, Journey, and the Who in terms of album sales and sold many more singles than them.

Hitsville: What are the second and third best-selling albums worldwide, behind Thriller?

Guillaume: Dark Side of the Moon, by Pink Floyd, is the second-best-selling album ever. It is now up to 42 million and still selling very well year after year. It is harder to say which album is at three—a trio of soundtracks sold about the same at 40 million: Grease, Saturday Night Fever and The Bodyguard. Grease looks like having the lead yet and anyway is the one that is still selling the most so it will end at 3 sooner or later.

Jackson’s Bad ranks in the top 10 while Dangerous sits inside the top 20. Interesting to note that despite their relatively small sales in the US compared to Thriller, in the rest of the world they were almost as massive as Thriller and are among the seven and eight best-selling albums ever, along with Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms, Dark Side of the Moon and the three soundtracks previously named. All those albums sold 20 to 23 million outside of the US, except Thriller, which sold close to 35 million.

———–

* I have no way of checking the authenticity of his figures but, to give an indication of the extent of the data he’s working with, a single post in this forum detailing Jackson’s sales just in the UK runs some 7200 words.

** Outside the U.S., platinum certifications are done somewhat proportionally smaller in the different markets.

*** Hitsville would like to point out his rough estimates on Jackson’s sales jibe roughly with Vieira’s.

———–

Previously in Hitsville

• “Michael Jackson, Steve Jobs and the culture of Popism”
• Creeping Elvisism
• More crazy Michael Jackson math!
• Joe Jackson makes his public debut
• The Jackson family: Bring on the wills!
• MJ: The will battle is joined
• John Branca to the rescue?
• Where there’s a will …
• The death of Michael Jackson: Topics for further discussion
• Elvis and Michael: The Lost Boys
• Ongoing thoughts on Michael Jackson
• Michael Jackson and the ultimate crossover
• Can Michael Jackson play live?
  
• Catching up with Michael Jackson’s finances
• A footnote to the Neverland auction
• Thriller (and “Billie Jean”) 25 years later

The Moby Quotient on this will be low; no one cares about the song and the product isn’t that bad. But Bono has more money than god right now; note how the band went the extra mile for its tour sponsor by actually appearing in a TV ad for the product. And the worst thing is not only is the ad pretty derivative of that Coldplay iPod spot, as Maura Johnston points out—it’s not even as good.