Through life and Death, MJ rumors still spread

Here are the top rumors about Michael Jackson that are either just stupid, or have some shred of truth.

Michael Jackson faked his own death

Are they fuckin serious. Excuse the language but let the man have his peace. Tupac did not fake his own death. Elvis did not fake his own death. Let them all have their peace. Thank you

Al Malnik claims he’s the father of all of MJ’s children

This guy is out here saying he’s the father of all his children. He claims he’s also the executor of MJ’s will due to the money he had lent him. I’m guessing he’s trying to get in on some of MJ’s money

One of several molestation charges

Here the guy is now 29, and claimed he was molested and got a 15 million dollar settlement out of it. Now this judge announces no charges have ever been filed. Seriously I think most of those charges against him were false, and it was just the parents looking for quick money convincing their kids to see things that have never happened

If you know of any more rumors that you see that just stupid, spread the word. Maybe eventually people will allow him to finally get the rest that most you people never let him get.

Overdosing

Then here is also the growing rumors that the doctor overdosed him on morphine or Demerol. It doesn’t help that he has a song called morphine. They also say that he was addicted to it… and I’m not gonna lie. Morphine’s a hell of a drug.

Michael Jackson may you rest in peace finally. Your music defined a generation, and you will always live forever within all of us. Thank you for everything. RIP

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

———————————————————————

Now here is my top 5 all time favorite MJ songs. RIP man, we love you

5- Black or White

4- Beat it

3- Thriller

2- Billie Jean

1- Man in the mirror

Honorable mention is of course

smooth criminal

A brand of a band

Throughout my short music career (about 7 years if you include me writing songs and recording artists through a $20 4-track, and $20 radio shack microphone), I had many artists that were a favorite because of their “off camera” lifestyle. They had a brand, an image that has been latched onto them that surpassed their music and sometimes surpassed real life. Their image made them seem larger than life, and it made fans spend money to go see their “god comparative” performances. Where did all that go wrong? It seems now because of the internet, we as fans of music know some things about these artists that they probably forgot. It became so easily accessible that no more were their fanatic fans since we all became one. Being a fanatic takes a lot of work and that “god comparative” performances became just something we can see on youtube now.

Right now there is no god figure because a god would last longer than a year or two. We saw the god in Michael Jackson try to break out and look what happened to him to keep up his “appearance”. What happened to the large marketing teams? What happened to the people that made gods out of musicians? To break a god costs money that not many people have any more with very little return. We turned to demi-gods of niche’s, or the long tale. I finally got to read this book by Chris Anderson and I’m learning that in today’s world there almost can’t be that “hit” no more. We broke genre’s up to the hundreds and now they are breaking into their own thing. Underground rap is not underground anymore if billions have a chance to listen. Same thing with punk rock! You are fighting the “man” yet you are on Robert Murdoch’s myspace.

-Look at the Beetles in their day. They were compared to a religion. They had people who murdered to go to the shows, and had fans that would camp out just to see it.

- Look at Lil Wayne now. He is huge, people want him on their album, and he is willing to put his name out there. Will his fame fade? All depends if he ever decides to quit.

discography

-The Jonas Brothers is now a branding icon. Connecting with Hannah Montanna and DIsney channel has been a merchandisers dream.

Jone Bro’s merch

-Battling the merch and brand even has its branding. One of my personal favorite artists, Immortal Technique is a good example of fighting the mainstream with good results. His music is politically motivated, as well as connecting with millions of americans on day to day issues that they deal with.

Immortal Technique’s 3rd world album

A brand is an image that artists either keep or fall (Name another Sir Mix A lot song other than Baby got Back). People say artists sell out when they break their brand of before mainstream, so starting with a brand is key for any artist or band. A brand of a band is like something you live with. Their are a few exceptions, but that is very few. If there was an emergence of marketing of the brands of bands than I think their is salvage in this industry. Instead of hits we have niche’s and demi-hits, and its about finding your own and making it big there. Specific Branding.

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The music investor

I have read about several websites that have this idea of investing into the artists music, and I have written something about it awhile ago that I have actually removed by accident. I will say it again that it’s almost like the entertainment stock market. You find a artist you like, and you put money into them hoping they can do something with it that could possible get you money as well. It’s all good until you realize the state of the industry and the fact that this artist is working on art… NOT a business. Music is a business, but most artists do not see it as such, and dissipate after awhile for steady income jobs elsewhere. Lets say you have a favorite artist and you invest a large amount, lets say $20,000. The artist goes to the studio and records a nice EP that is fully mastered, has a great marketing plan, and the album goes on iTunes and sells under 5,000 single sale copies, with a few hundred album copies. Lets say the artist we’ll call, The Electric Italiano, makes around $2-3000 in a month. Thats a good months salary and now you want your money back. You make just under a grand back with a $-19,000 mark in your checkbook.  Now what?

I have been blogging, talking about how the major industry is going to shit and indies are the future, individual artists are coming through tough times, and there is a future for music yet. I have worked out a few idea’s than and out, but now I want to do something as well. I won’t get into detail, but I would like to make a social networking site (waiting for gasps as something so revolutionary as that), but instead of joining networks, you join artists. We allow artists for a one time fee to build a full fan site with different levels and we put a price on the levels. Fans can join for free for the basic, but for different prices or “investments” they can receive benefits such such as a free concert tickets, free cd’s, free posters, tee’s, and more. This is a new idea to my head that has probably been done but I will do more research.

If a fan who enjoys an artists music so much that they purchase an album, why can’t they get to know the artist more? Know why the artist wrote each song, the background of the artist past their bio, a chance to speak to the artist such as The Electric Italiano (a combination of The Electric Fetus (a record store here), and Italiano Coffee… words that I randomly saw on the wall here), and possible a chance to meet up with other fans of the artist. I want to bring fan interaction to a whole new level but set it up as a template like a social networking site that would litterally be for networking instead of picking up underage kids by the likes of copykat michael jacksons (myspace). I will have a full blueprint that I will work on, and hope nobody takes this idea because it is only partial on what I have an idea for in the back of my head.

Remember music is a way to express your soul, and it can get to be expensive. Most fall out the game because of money problems, but those who stick it out and call music a career and not a hobby will prosper. Its a matter of patience and perseverance, for outlasting this depression in the music industry will be difficult but if we can find a way to settle differences we can do this. Music will once again be a source of enjoyment instead of stress soon. We just have to work together.
From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

A Blanket license to keep warm or spread disease?

There has been talk about a blanket license to cover all music everywhere. So instead of 99 cents a song it would be added to your taxes or possible your internet charges as a way to pay the labels, managers, ISP, and maybe the artists. Now I don’t know anybody like this, but maybe you do. Somebody who just does not like music, they prefer silence over something like soothing jazz like Coltrane, classical music like yo yo ma, conscious hip hop like Talib Kweli, Indie rock like White Light Riot or even nature sounds like the forest and you. I believe other countries are trying out an optional blanket license from what I read here at ars technica.

Now if they are successful we may not know for awhile, but I believe that if we payed a music tax, or something called a Creativity tax we could allow artists to be payed by the government and allow more time to the art of creating music rather than contracts and lawyers. Figure out an algorithm to add the radio plays, restaurant plays, cd sales, internet sales/ plays and pay them to the indie or major labels where they would have a new department where they figure out their percentage of the figures the government gives. Billboards top artists in plays across the board would finally mean something, rather then this artist got 1.6 million downloads with 5 thousand legit downloads. All downloads would be legit, and would all be paid out by the government by the creativity tax. I’m sure they can make it sound better, but technically this would take the majors pull that prevents breakouts of usually better artists.

The downsize is of course the tax part. Like i said before about the people who do not like music, (If you know anybody like this get them help, a psychiatrist or maybe an ear transplant) they may resist the tax. Another maajor downsize would be how much is the right amount? Take a percentage of how much you make or have a standard amount? In the website I mentioned above they have also been trying a 3 strike rule; Where if they catch you downloading illegally 3 times they sue you. This is where it gets difficult and all the benefits get thrown off the 35W bridge. How would you regulate who pays and who doesn’t? There will be people who fight the tax, fight the 3 strikes, fight the man, fight the bull, and even the artists who will fight for the excess of money that they have seen in the past.
The only way to see change is to start over. New plan and new strategy. Possible an overhaul of the whole system, and not just small changes of the body that could lead to ugly results… right Michael Jackson? I don’t have the statistics at hand to get into detail about how much this plan would either keep the artists nice and warm at night, or prevent further growth that could spread like disease. I’m just saying that it would be a great idea and help fight against what the industry part is trying to blame for the fall of music, when in reality it is jsut the fall of excess money in their laps

From the mind of

Keveeno Reeverts

The breaking point

I am a avid blog reader of the music industry. Before I even thought I was reading blogs, I was enjoying them. The original blogs are reviews. Thats what blogging is right? A review of a certain point, a product, or even a review of how people dress. Well I loved reading music reviews, editorial reviews in magazines, and even reviews in the comment section of what people thought of that review. All that was what blogging was back in the day. Now its a market, with an industry, with people making a job out of it. I don’t know the exact figures but I’m pretty sure its competitive with newspapers and magazines going out of business. Which brings me to my point, I’m here to review a collection of blogs I’ve read over the past 2 years that have a similar topic, but is missing something. They all say that the record industry is failing miserable with failed attempts to make profit, and they lose 20 some million dollars every year. They are all missing the breaking point.

When a business loses money, they look to find a way to keep their doors open and if they don’t they close the doors. I wonder if people finally realize they can make their own coffee (or cawfee, however you pronounce it), would Starbucks close their doors? They closed 600 of them, but if people stopped giving them money and eating it like off of the Quiznos commercial (or drinking it for my previous example), then what would their breaking point be? Would Starbucks close all of their doors? Or would they finally go back to their roots and make coffee thats actually coffee? Will KFC ever make non genetically mutated chickens if people learned how to genetically mutate chickens them selfs? I mean people already know how to make music them self, how to get it for free, how to burn and bootleg it, and even how to get free promotions from fans. What is this breaking point that will come of this industry? I said it before, I’ll say it again, downsize to Indie labels or do it your self if you want to work business and music which is difficult as hell. Now when I say downsizing I don’t mean that in a bad way, I just mean there are people who do one thing then retire, and they should not be getting more than a quarter of a percent of royalties. Thats why I like Indies, because from what I’ve seen everybody is a family working together. The majors pay a lot of people and here is some stats I got from Coolfer.com, from their Tuesday Business link section, and their other blogs.

“Digital distributor The Orchard reported a loss of $800,000″

“Napster has an accumulated deficit of $199 million.”

Thats just this week on their Q3 earnings. Every week though, they state who was #1 artist this week from billboard, and always compare it to this time last year in sales and it has dropped. At this trend will their be a year it just stops. Nobody buys music anymore, and people just go to shows, but even those have dipped recently with rise of gas and even ticket prices. I can go on about this forever, about how the major industry’s are failing, if their going to collapse, how Indies are increasingly becoming a much better option, how even though Michael Jackson looks like an ugly woman he still does better music than most people, and how this reccession is messing everything up (I won’t get into politics because I get enough of it in life but I’ll just say that every business has a breaking point. Ex, Tower Records and Simon Delivers. What is the Record Business’s Breaking point?

From the mind of Keveeno