The Jackson Five
Well, it was inevitable, wasn’t it?
I had another Friday Five with a really great theme ready to go, but then last night’s news broke and I figured everyone would end up talking about this anyway.
So with a startled ‘Yip!’ and a heartfelt ‘Shamone!’ here’s your Friday Five:
1. What’s your earliest memory of Michael Jackson as a performer?
2. The media is making a great deal of the trilogy of albums Jackson made with Quincy Jones; Off The Wall, Thriller and Bad. Words such as ‘classic’, ‘legendary’ and ‘seminal’ are being used. Discuss.
3. Do you think Jackson’s legacy will be the music or the madness?
4. Heard any good Jacko jokes yet?
5. What would you do with a pet monkey?
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Alien Ant Farm – Smooth Criminal
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Apologies for only putting three songs up on the Friday Five. I got stuck tracking down Jacko covers, and then I got bored. If you think of any more good suggestions feel free to send them through!
songs aren’t working!!!
Given question #1 this really isn’t going to end pretty…
1. ‘insert something witty about ‘Jesus Juice’ here…’
2. I think I’ve heard ‘Thriller’ once or twice, and no doubt most of the others without trying. Erm, it’s not really my kettle of fish, but they’re good pop songs for the most part.
3. Music.
4. All jacksons upcoming dates have been cancelled, including jimmy aged 4 and john aged 6 (via twitter)
5. Oh, I’m not jumping for that one. Take it for walks.
1. The video for Bad.
2. Don’t care.
3. Probably the music
4. What’s the difference between Michael Jackson and Alex Ferguson? Alex Ferguson will be able to play Giggs in August.
5. I’d probably train the monkey as a sound engineer
I know! I’m working on it!
Get on with your five or I’ll get busy with the delete button!
Bandwidth issues on the files – if you’re desperate to hear Chris Cornell’s frankly awful version of Billie Jean you’ll have to come back later.
Sorry!
1. Having to sing ‘Black and White’ in music class in Grade 3.
2. Don’t care either.
3. Hopefully the music.
4. This is an Aussie Rules related joke – What’s the difference between Collingwood and Michael Jackson? They’re both black and white and die mid year.
5. That’s a very personal question.
1. seeing the video for ‘blame it on the boogie’ by the Jackson 5 in the late 70′s
2. Off the Wall and Thriller are kinda undisputed classic, Bad was just Wacko Jacko on his way down.
3. Should be the music, but i’m guessing it’ll be the bonkers fans
4. no
5. call it Dylan
“call it dylan” hahahahaha. sorry D but that’s funny.
“Should be the music, but i’m guessing it’ll be the bonkers fans”
He certainly did seem to attract his own special brand of nutterbutters didn’t he?
Yup, that’s a winner.
1. The video for BAD. Directed by Martin Scorcese, incidentally.
2. Thriller. There’s one track on there thats a duet with Paul McCartney. I can’t be arsed tracking down an mp3, and i can’t remember the title. But, erm, it’s a classic.
3. If by madness you mean raping children, then yes – the madness.
4. Apparently C.P.R is not as easy as A, B, C.
5. Don’t know. But I think this is a perfect opportunity to re-visit this little classic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvP7dT3Dx0
…calling it Dylan that is.
You’re thinking of ‘The Girl is Mine’ Bart.
1. I remember being about eight when the Thriller video came out, and being genuinely really a bit scared. Has anyone else been wondering why the song’s called Thriller when it’s not about the thriller genre, but horror movies instead?
2. I actually agree with Chutters. The first two are genuinely great albums with some truly iressistable grooves. Bad is artificial, arch and pretentious.
3. Someone on the news was comparing Jackson’s death and legacy to that of Elvis Presley, and how Elvis is now remembered more as an iconic performer than a warning against a diet of fried peanut-butter and banana sandwiches. I might disagree with that point in general, I think Elvis is remembered more as the parody he became than the performer he originally was, and he did little to damage his reputation other than get middle-aged and fat. However, more specifically, I feel Jackson’s reputation is tarnished with child abuse and genuine mental health issues played out very much in public. I suspect the music will be a footnote in the Michael Jackson story in decades to come.
4. There was one about his (largely plastic) body being melted down and turned into toys – so that the kids could play with him for a change. It wasn’t very good though.
5. Teach it to do something useful. Like dance, for example, (so I could say “Dance, monkey! Dance!” to it) or shoplift.
Say, Say, Say was a duet between McCartney and Jackson too.
Was that the one that ended up on a McCartney album?
Shite song anyway.
1. Something Jackson 5-ish
2. Never really did it for me. I know I’m in the minority but, while I can appreciate he was a bloody good performer for a 5 year old, I always thought the rest was just a bit shit.
3. The hype. He was a living lesson on how fame screws you up. The sad thing is he didn’t have much choice in it.
4. He was genetically programmed to go early – it was his billy gene. And it turns out CPR is not as easy as ABC …
5. The funky gibbon.
1. The “Thriller” video clip. (good way of dating everybody’s childhoods, this one)
2. I’ve always felt that I should go back and listen to these again one day, just to see what if the fuss was warranted, but, well, life is short and there’s a lot of music out there.
3. Surely the two are inextricably entwined.
4. Not really, a status update about someone doing a “mourn walk”; but, unfortunately, I think they might have been serious.
5. Train it to carry out diamond heists.
I like how our answers to number 5 dovetail neatly, Nic.
We can start off with a little light shoplifting and work our way up to a full on diamond heist.
Now all we need is a monkey.
“Chutters!”
see that is not funny…..it’s like little brother repeating the joke that big brother told 10 mins before!!!!
Yes, you could look at it that way, Chutters.
However you’d be wrong.
It’s more correct to look at it from the point of view that I just totally pwned yo’ ass, bitch!
Dance, monkey! Dance!
agreed.
i’m agreeing with chutters for the record.
I’m thinking of equipping my monkey with Mission Impossible-style gadgets, if that influences the decision of who wants to be the monkey?
1. Got to be those great jackson five cartoons way back in the day.
2. Was too busy getting drunk and watching 2nd rate punk bands during the 80′s to care
3. Hopefuly the madness with the iconic picture of him hanging one of his children out of a window being one of many classic images
4. Sorry no jokes besides the ones already printed
5. Send him to Hartlepool to become Mayor, they love thier monkeys down there
1. the moonwalk movie thing
2. don’t care
3. I’ll always remember the hanging the baby off the balcony.
4. RIP…he touched so many, and got away with it.
5. I’d make it my butler and call it Jeeves. It’d be pretty handy for a pick-up line too… “Hi, I have a pet monkey.” Girls would love that, wouldn’t they?
1. Listening to Michael Jackson tapes with my pal Stuart when I was about 4.
2. Good tunes but ‘classic’ is a bit much don’t you think?
3. For youngsters, the baby hanging antics. For everyone else, the tunes. Especially at family weddings.
4. ‘Did you hear that Ticketmaster are offering a 20% discount on Jackson 5 tickets?’. Questionable.
5. It would live on my finger. I picked the one that I want when I was at the zoo on Wednesday on a school trip. It was tiny! It would just hang onto my finger and jump off to bite people that I take a dislike to.
1. Being bought a walkman and Dangerous, and listening to it non-stop on a ten hour car journey. And for MONTHS thereafter. (First music I owned.)
bah, whatever, i just want to get to the joke:
4. The rumour that MJ died of a heart attack is, in fact, incorrect. He was found in the children’s ward having a stroke.
boom boom.
1. My pal Gary O’Brian showing me his moonwalk, I only realised many years later that it paled in comparison to the real thing.
2. Dinnie really like them, although I like it when my pal Neil sings Dirty Diana when he’s drunk.
3. He was a wee bit mental really wasn’t he.
4. Nope.
5. It would brush my teeth when I was too tired, then it would carry me to bed and tuck me in.
1. I’ve signed a court order that prevents me from discussing that.
2. yes, clearly the first two are on the whole classic albums (apart from dire McCartney duets) and the third is patchy but still ok in parts – let’s not talk about after that.
3. Both. But predominantly the music because without that he wouldn’t have been famous in the first place.
4. Have you heard the one about the McJacko burger? Not typing that onto the internet though.
5. Spank it.
1. I must have heard his music
2. They’re all great albums, admittedly with some rubbish tracks but then again who hasn’t produced rubbish who has spent forty years in the music biz? If people only listen to whute boys playing guitars then they haven’t heard some of the great music out there over the last few decades
3. I hope it’s the music, and that people can focus on the early stuff…suspect it won’t be…
4. None that are in good taste. Oh, hang on…
5. See if I culd swap it for a labrador.
That should read:
1. I must have heard his music before but the ‘Bad’ video made quite an impression on me.
I think I prefer your first go at question 1, Ed.
“I must have heard his music.. Not sure though… Can’t quite place him… Is he the one sits in a rocking chair with a banjo?”
1. Billy Jean video .. Mummy .. can I have a floor that lights up when I step on it?
2. Meh. Some people say that ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ is … hang on … I better not go there.
3. Music.
4. I heard that the auction of MJ’s stuff is now back on. Glitter and King have put in a joint bid of a million for his PC.
… and I heard that he is indeed donating the plastic parts of his body to various organisations. Disney will be getting his chin to make into ink for use on Pocahontas beachballs .. he always wanted his chin on kids balls. The rest will be going to children’s cosmetics manufacturers to be made into shampoo bottles and combs so he can continue his grooming and squirting of pearly substances into the hair of toddlers.
…. Do you think the undertakers in Los Angeles take plastic?
I could continue .. but I won’t.
5. Train it to make the perfect G&T.
1. Stringing the stereo out of the window into our garden, which was a long, thin, downhill strip. Phillip from down the street would push our scooter to the top, then give the secret hand signal, and I would press play just when he goes “Speed Demon,” at which point Phillip would whizz down the hill on the scooter. I never got to be the Speed Demon, as Phillip wasn’t very good at pressing play on demand. Phillip looked like the Milky Bar Kid.
2. I was too little really, and can’t say I’ve gone back since. However, they’re playing about one MJ song for every 4 this morning, and aside from Earth Song each MJ one has beaten the four preceeding it hands down. You can’t reallty compare it to anything other than pop, and it is certainly pretty awesome pop. He hasn’t had to face Girls Aloud yet though…
3. I had forgotten about the baby thing! So I guess it’s probably the music.
4. Only since I came here. A very upset lady came onto Forth One asking everyone to stop telling insensitive jokes though, so there must be more out there. All this stuff about music dying today is pretty funny.
5. Buy a bigger spoon?
(Can I just say that Forth One is the only radio station I can get reception for on our crappy ancient tissue culture room stereo. And it is marginally better than the sound of my own head)
Michael Jackson was supposed to do an interview with me next week, so fuck him, his corpse, & the Friday fucking fives, the selfish cunt.
see you next week then DC
DC! Rules!
Becky, I think I’ve found a photo of you at work…
Dammit…my cover is blown!
Or is that just the works’ canteen?..
1. What was that video that has a long intro where Michael (yes, were on a first name basis) smashes car windows and turns into a jaguar or puma or something? That one.
2. I think those are all great albums. I disagree with the general panning that Bad appears to be getting.
3. That’s a good question. Music, I guess. He was spectacularly odd, though.
4. Just heard news from Coroner’s Office: Sunshine, moonlight and good times were all ruled out, the coroners official verdict on the cause of death was “Boogie”. (Sorry if that has already been posted here, I didn’t notice it.)
5. Love and cherish it.
1. The video to thriller. I was probably about 8, and it used to really scare me..
2. Well, for me, a classic would have to be somehow genre-breaking or defining, and I don’t know if they were either?
3. Sadly, the madness. No question.
4. Yes, all of the above!
5. Experiment on it
Yes! DC does RULE!!
And Tim’s joke about plastic childrens’ toys does too!
Your “king” is dead little ones, long live Marvin Gaye.
1) That all the cool kids listened to Bad endlessly and I thought it was shite. Then realising every R & B song I could tolerate was sung by him 8 previously.
2) I think they are great pop albums, and if I’m listening to pop on the radio I’m happier when they come on than anything else in the genre.
God I sound like a twat!
3) Music. Without a doubt. The music will be played over and over again, and it will be loved.
4) Is there a more glaring case of where the lines between victim an predator have been more ritualistically blurred by greed avarice, cowardice and plain corruption. The number of lives that have been mutilated by people in his life either of his own choosing and instability and people exploiting him for their own ends is a real indictment of business in the 20th and 21st centuries.
So you have to laugh really. Especially when you realise that that every time a man goes mad and bleaches his face, and invites a large number of children into his bed for a sleep-over another parent is looking at him saying “God I want that life for my child”. You have to laugh really, or you’ll cry.
5) Teach it to mix drinks. And Kung – Fu
Tart! Rules too!
Five Tart. Post your five!!!
Aarghhh, my eyes! A five-less post!
Did you hear that they are pulling Michael Jackson out Children In Need?
hehehe I care not about your little rules in my moment of mourning!
Ben!
Stop it! Both of you!
This not what Michael would have wanted!
Won’t someone think of the children?!
You know Tart, every time you post without first submitting a five a pop star dies.
I think Tim’s “I wonder if LA undertakers take plastic” is the clerverst joke I’ve heard in a long time (it not only works with Jackson, but also with the California/LA/Hollywood location/implication).
A very well realised gag.
Kudos, Tim.
1. the light up floor in Billie jean
2. popularity is no reflection of quality
3. music
4. yes, here.
http://songbytoad.com/2009/06/the-jackson-five/
5. have it chase the Mexicans off my lawn
The title of this post is quite brilliant in it’s simple elegance.
The Coroner has ruled that MJ died of food poisoining. Autopsy revealed 13 year old nuts in his mouth. (via twitted, paraphrased by moi)
Yes, it’s important to get these in during pub time, Ben!! xoxo
So wishing it was pub time
Tart good God! Don’t you care at all if you kill someone? What if the next to go is Brittany, or Miley or…
Nah, fuck it. Carry on.
MJ is just further proof that America is truly the land of opportunity. Nowhere else can a poor little Black boy grow up to be a ridiculously wealthy white woman. (paraphrased from Adam’s recounting from a message board)
Thanks Tart and thanks DC .. you guys rule.
Are you sure he was poisoned by 13 year old nuts? I heard he choked on a small bone.
1. The moonwalker sega megadrive game.
2. Never been a fan but theres some good pop songs on there
3. Obviously both but I can’t think of many great artists who were completely sane.
4.
5. What did the money say when he got in the bathtub and the water was too hot?
Ooooh…ooohh…ahhh…ahhh…ooooh…oooh…ahh…ahhh
1) listening to a vinyl copy of Off The Wall in a to-be-girlfriend’s living room, aged 11, trying to muster up the courage for the first kiss. We listened to the album about 4 times before we puckered up.
2) I was more a Prince fan & he did far more in pushing the musical envelope than MJ ever did (Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade, Sign ‘O’ The Times anyone?). Prince wrote, performed, arranged & produced ALL his own music. End of.
3) Let’s wait 3 months, after he’s been burnt, buried, or stuffed, & see how many of those parents & kids (who were paid off to keep schtum) start the book deals & TV interviews re: the otherside of the ‘truth’ about those molestation accusations…
4) (this is an OLD one) What do Michael Jackson & Malt Whiskey have in common? They both come in tots.
5) Open a piano delivery service.
DC
Then wait two years until those books have left the pound-a-book bin at ASDA (wallmart) and they are still playing Smooth Criminal on Magic 106.
No one cares about the kids once the criminal is dead.
You must mean this guy.
What harm has he ever done to anyone?
1. 1970 or ’71, I was 6 and MJ was 11 and I argued with an older playmate (and lost) about whether “ABC” and “I’ll Be There” were better songs than anything by the Osmond Brothers. That, coupled with the fact that my daddy said all Black children were born with tails and if you kissed a Black boy your lips would swell, made me a lifelong follower of Soul and Funk music. (Neither of which MJ made, take note)
2. Seriously, everything that DC said and also remember that MJ doesn’t even come close to the genius of James Brown.
3. The moonwalk
4. I think I’ve covered this, but I reserve the right to sound in with more, crasser jokes later tonight.
5. Give it to Dylan. Seems he knows what to do with one.
I care, Ben. I care.
too cool for school….i am….oh yes….i am…..my word is gospel…you know nothing….oh no you don’t….too cool for school.
My steaming fucking arse!
How about spatchcocked, marinated in lime and garlic then slapped on a hot grill?
Oh, realized that my 1. might not be all that clear. I argued for the Osmonds, she argued for the Jackson 5ive. I came to see the light. And I never listened to what my daddy told me before or after that.
How about a new post, boys? Get us off this stupid subject before someone loses an eye, xoxo
1. Probably the video for ‘Bad’. Although it might actually have been the video for ‘Fat’ by Weird Al Yankovic.
2. The only Michael Jackson album I’ve listened to in it’s entirety is ‘Off The Wall’. It’s very good. I’ve never got round to anything else by him.
3. I reckon it’ll be the music. With the odd reference to SCANDAL.
4. I’ve heard loads of these today. My friend received about 20 texts from his brother. My favourites being…
Michael Jacksons death has meant he’s had to cancel his upcoming dates. Thomas (aged 9) and Martin (aged 11) are said to be very disappointed…. Oh wait… that one’s shit. Erm…
Farrah Fawcett arrives at the gates of heaven. St Peter tells her before entering heaven she can have one wish granted. She wishes for all the children in the world to be safe. That’s shit too, but two celebrity deaths for the price of one!
5. Call it Pedro, make it a little waistcoat and treat it like a real person.
1) My Dad, not really a fan, nevertheless bought the single of Black Or White. I remember loving that aged 4.
2) Off The Wall is fucking sensational. As is Thriller.. Bad has some great tracks (Dirty Diana, Man In The Mirror! Don’t deny it) but it’s just not the same.
3) Probably a bit of both..
4) Michael Jackson tried to get into heaven.. God told him to beat it. I was told that by a taxi driver minute after leaving work, and only an hour after the announcement. That and, they tried to cremate him, but he just melted.
5) Sell it and buy a cat instead. And call it Thriller.
Thriller is a good name for a cat.
[...] Song By Toad finds three covers, too; the speed metal Alien Ant Farm version of Smooth Criminal is as far as it gets from folk, but it’s long been a guilty pleasure. [...]
1. I’d completely forgotten about the Jackson 5 cartoon but I think it must have been that. The first song of theirs I have a definite memory of loving is, unsurprisingly, I Want You Back
2. I think there’s a good argument to be made that ‘Thriller’ was instrumental in changing the way major recording artists marketed and released their work. I don’t think he’s made a breakthrough record since then, though, and there’s been a lot of exciting stuff going on elsewhere whilst he’s just stagnated, to say the least.
3. I think the hagiography is madness – I’ve gone on about this over
here and will undoubtedly repeat myself here and there given half a chance but will limit myself to saying again here that when you use your power, wealth and influence to buy off serious criminal allegations, you’re off the team.
4. The coroner quickly moved to rule out sunshine, moonlight and good times.
5. I really don’t want a pet monkey, firstly because I’ve already got a daughter called Phoebe and I don’t want to look like a ‘Friends’ freak, but mainly because a pet monkey would be such hard work. I have two cats who live in the garden and top up the meagre living I provide them with by catching rats, mice and bats. They are fine for me.
Bloody arse html nonsense arse.
this is all bull crap the pictres of michael in a hipergenic chamber was because of the pain he was suffering from the 2nd and 3rd degree burns he had on his scalp and the picture of his nose falling off is fake that never really happened it is all computer technoligy and i think that who ever put that on the internet needs to take that off because it is mean and if michael saw those pictures he would be very upset and it is possible he would find out who put then up on the internet and he would probly sew them so don’t mess with his spirits feelings leave him alone and let him rest in peace!
Please leave my brother michael alone what yall are doing to him is cruel and harsh how would you like it if someone did this to you. LEAVE HIM ALONE!!!!!!
LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE!