Michael Jackson's estate (cha-ching!) and Sony Legacy Recordings want you to know that they will be re-releasing Wacko Jacko's debut album Off the Wall, on Feb. 26. The album has already sold 30 million copies worldwide. This offering is purely a case of a greedy record company molesting one of their favorite cash cows once again -- it has nothing to do with Michael Jackson as an artist or his music. If you think it has anything at all to do with celebrating Jackson as an artist, then you're exactly the type of person that big business loves.
In order to improve sales of the CD, Sony Legacy Recordings is going to include a documentary on "M.J." that was created by the infamous loudmouth, Spike Lee. The "joint,"
which is titled Michael Jackson's Journey from Motown to Off the Wall, will also be shown on cable television channel Showtime on February 5.
A press release issued by Sony Legacy Recordings makes it a point to remind everybody that the release of the Off the Wall CD and documentary package is being released during Black History Month. Zero dollars and zero cents of each CD/DVD combo sold will be donated to an African American charity.
If my readership were larger, that last sentence might "shame" Jackson's beneficiaries and/or the record company into making a tiny donation to the NAACP or a similar organization. Luckily for them, I can't afford (at this time) to have a real website with substantial readership numbers. The few of you who are reading this could be thinking, "So what? Why should they have to make a donation?" The reason is simple, really: they mentioned Black History Month and the CD "in the same breath" to stealthily suggest to people that they should run right out and buy Off the Wall (again) to show that they're down with the black cause.
My suggestion to you is that you don't buy the Off the Wall CD and documentary package on Feb. 26. Better yet, don't buy it on any of the days that come after Feb. 26, either. You can record the documentary on your VCR or DVR if you have Showtime and you can listen to all the songs from the album on youtube. If you don't have Showtime, I'm sure that if you wrote to Spike Lee and asked him for a free copy of the movie, he would send you one. OK, Lee probably wouldn't read a letter from anybody unless it was regarding putting more money in his pocket book, but it would be fun to try.
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