An Exclusive Report by Robin Meltzer, London, UKWith the exception of the BRIT Awards, which have tried in recent years to shed their image of chaos and disorder, the UK does not play host to many music industry awards ceremonies. So when it was announced that the World Music Awards (WMAs) – unique among award ceremonies for its focus on sales alone – were coming to London, interest was aroused.
Interest went through the roof when it was revealed that the star guest would be Michael Jackson, who would be presented with the Diamond Award - a World Music Award presented infrequently to artists who have sold over 100 million albums in their career.
Michael Jackson could actually have been presented with seven diamond awards because it was revealed in the run-up to the ceremony by Raymone Bain, Michael’s manager/press office, that the WMAs would recognise an astonishing 750 million records sold since he was eleven.
The day before the ceremony, it was announced by the Guinness Book of World Records that the album ‘Thriller’ alone had sold 104 million copies since its release at the end of 1982.
Those statistics would have been enough to almost guarantee some positive news for Michael following his rare public appearance to the UK to attend the awards. That should have been the story: factual, precise, undeniable.
However, in the two weeks prior to the event, staff at the World Music Awards used Michael’s attendance shamelessly to create a sense of expectation that spiralled completely out of control. Earls Court is a large venue – one of Britain’s very biggest – and it was not quite full. It would have been even less full had the WMA website not placed Michael’s name and image at the top of their list of performers. Of course fans would have attended and been extremely grateful to have seen the man in person, but it would not have been the kind of event that it eventually became.
In addition, a confusingly worded press release issued by the WMA promised that Michael Jackson would “appear on stage as part of a spectacular tribute to ‘Thriller’ produced by Quincy Jonesâ€.
What exactly did that mean? He would take to the stage and perform the song “Thriller� Alone? With others? One song out of many from the ‘Thriller’ album? Or just that song? Who was in the tribute? What was Quincy Jones’ involvement? Would he produce the spectacular, or was that just a reference to the fact that he produced the album?
Staff at the ceremony, and informal contacts of Michael’s, also confirmed to fans and fan clubs that Michael would be performing but there were mixed rumours as to what he would perform.
Fans went crazy, waiting in line outside Earls Court box office when they were mistakenly told by organisers that no standing tickets would be available on line or on the phone. In the event, the tickets were issued through the normal channels so the waiting was unnecessary. But fans shrugged it off – “so what if some of us had to queue in the cold for tickets,†they probably said. “This is a Michael Jackson performance!â€
None of this is particularly surprising on its own. Events of this size are frequently beset by ticketing chaos – with misinformation occurring as a result of the number of people involved in making money from the public. Promoters, tickets agencies and of course the WMAs themselves – all these were getting a slice of the action and this was not the first time that such establishments had demonstrated their communication problems.
No, the astonishing thing – especially now in hindsight of course but actually some of us were already saying this in the lead up to the show – was how no-one in Michael’s camp, nor from the WMAs, sought to dampen some of the press expectation that was only ever going to lead to disappointment.
By Monday, two days before the ceremony, anyone conducting a Google news search for Michael’s name would have been presented with a choice of some 300 news stories about his upcoming performance of “Thrillerâ€. Of course most of those stories were just replicas of each other, but nevertheless, the news was out there – and it was becoming an international event. Notably, many of the stories were largely positive – or at least neutral.
Michael had arrived in London on the Sunday before the Wednesday night ceremony, and the British press were definitely interested. His smiling face and the mobbing fans featured extensively in the press, on the internet and even on the television news. There were the usual stories about eccentricity and ‘wacko’ behaviour but essentially the press were playing along. Here was a true world star, back in our country, and about to perform here for the first time in nine years.
At some point during this period of fun, unnamed WMA officials told journalists that the performance Michael was due to give was “something of a comebackâ€. Not attributed, but never denied.
This bandwagon kept on rolling. It picked up more and more people as the Wednesday night of the show approached. Before long, the incredible career accomplishments that Michael was actually in London to celebrate were taking a back seat. Few seemed to care that he had sold 750 million records. Incidentally, even fewer seemed to care that it was ludicrous to bill Michael’s performance as part of a 25th anniversary of ‘Thriller’ when it was actually 23 years and 11 months since the album’s release. No, the important thing here was the ‘COMEBACK’.
As far as I have been able to discern, at no point did anyone from Michael Jackson’s team try to protect their employer by maintaining a normal relationship with the press in order to play the oldest game in the PR rulebook – managing expectations. Rarely has this complete lack of any public relations strategy had more damaging effect for Michael’s status as an artist. Put quite simply, there is more to public relations than issuing rebuttals to crazy tabloid stories. That’s part of it. But you also have to manage the journalists, court them, give them information and treat them with respect – even if you have to hold your nose when you do it. It is completely inexcusable that no-one sought to calm the hysteria that the media and the staff at the World Music Awards conspired to build.
The final proof of the ineptitude with which this entire project was managed occurred of all places on the red carpet in the entrance to the ugly Earls Court building in London SW5. Incidentally, organisers had told media the day before that Michael would be arriving on the red carpet – so the media were camped outside the venue as well as inside it. The mania surrounding him was, by all accounts, so intense that it would have been impossible for him to stop and chat to fans in the same manner that Tom Cruise always does when he attends films premieres in Leicester Square. The media and the public are particularly excitable in the presence of Michael Jackson, so if the reports of Michael Jackson fans booing him as he entered are true, it is difficult to excuse such rude behaviour because his movement would have been severely limited. It is more likely that those who booed were simply ‘red carpet whores’ who wait to get a glimpse of anyone with more charisma than them, and not predominantly fans, who would have been inside the venue waiting for the great ‘comeback’.
So, as he arrived, journalists managed to ask Michael if he was performing. Some asked if he was singing. Others asked if he was singing Thriller. And here we have the most ridiculous and humiliating part of this entire saga:
It was left to Michael Jackson himself to tell journalists, 90 minutes before he was due on stage, that there had been “a misunderstanding†about his appearance on stage.
A catalogue of failures on the part of the people he employs combined with an excitable media being fed blatant untruths by the World Music Awards had led to the indignity of surely the most famous person on the planet having to correct days of inaccurate reporting himself. I do not know Michael Jackson so I have no idea if he appreciates the ridiculousness of that, nor whether it dawned on him that he should not have been the person that had to issue that press announcement. But I’m pretty confident that, at the very least, he must have been aware that something was not right.
Is it any wonder that the overwhelming mood in the media lounge after that was bewilderment? That the negative headlines were penned even before Michael took to the stage? That the audience in the venue who checked the internet on their mobile devices and saw those headlines spread the word around the arena that Michael was about to disappoint?
How can it be that an audience in London, watching an American super-icon accept an award officially confirming his status as the most successful entertainer of all time, was about to descend into boos some moments later?
Can it all be explained by the combination of factors I have outlined above?
Well, no. There is also the fact that after accepting his award, Michael took to the stage again to close the show by joining a choir who had already sung two choruses of We Are The World. He shook hands with members of the choir, sang a couple of choruses with them and then appeared to have his microphone switched off due to what was later claimed to be a ‘curfew’ issue at Earls Court?
There are so many things wrong with this scenario that it’s hard to know where to begin.
Firstly, the choir and Michael were singing over the commercially available version of We Are The World. You can buy an instrumental version of that song on eBay for five bucks. Bob Dylan’s dulcet tones were heard echoing around the arena before Michael even entered the stage. This was the type of thing that people expect at school concerts. “Oh, let’s just sing over the original track, it’ll be fine.†How has the man who has worked with the world’s greatest producers and sound engineers been put in this position, and who is responsible? Where are the people, either in his own organisation – whatever is left of it – or in the WMAs who tried to prevent it?
It is baffling that Michael’s microphone appeared to be cut off. It allowed the press the next day to speculate (wrongly, of course) that it had been cut to save the embarrassment of his bum notes! If there was a curfew to consider, had no-one thought about this beforehand?
The great thing about We Are The World was that Michael took the time to fully interact with the fans that had spent the entire day in line at the venue waiting to get near the stage. He walked right down the catwalk, with the choir behind him, threw his jacket out to the adoring crowd, took some banners and let himself be touched by his fans. These are the things he does naturally. He would have done that whether he was performing or not.
There was simply no need for the people around this superb artist and this lamentable ceremony to build up the idea of a performance if Michael was unable or unwilling to deliver more than a chorus of We Are The World. It turned what should have been a celebratory evening for Michael as a world-record breaker into a disappointment for thousands of people.
Michael Jackson’s position as a living legend was consolidated when Beyoncé presented him with the Diamond Award. She said that without Michael Jackson, she would never have become a performer and she said that an enormous amount of other performers all over the world feel the same. Michael responded with a short but sweet speech, thanking his family and those who had stood by him. At the end of it, looking at him holding his award, it was apparent what a legacy this was for Michael and how unobtainable his achievements are to any other artist.
He should have been floating on air that night.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of many, he also consolidated his image as someone whose time has passed. Many of the people who had come to see the show to get a rare glimpse of Michael performing would not describe themselves as ‘fans’ – they are just music lovers who are interested in seeing a legend in the flesh. When Chris Brown attempted to recreate the ‘Thriller’ video before Michael received his award, no-one could deny his talent but neither could anyone deny the disappointment of seeing him dressed in the red ‘Thriller’ suit and performing a song made famous by the man who was waiting in the wings dressed in very different clothes for a night of award-receiving rather than performing. There was also the uncomfortable feeling or fear that they would never again be able to see Michael performing like Chris Brown.
And yet surely those people were wrong. In months or years to come, of course Michael Jackson can release more music and entertain people in sold out arenas – if he wants it. The over-riding impression left by the World Music Awards 2006 is that right then, he didn’t want it.
So why on earth did everyone else connected to this poorly-produced production allow the myth to perpetuate that he did want it? Why was it left to Michael himself to correct that myth? Why don’t the people who care about Michael as a person take the actions that are necessary to protect him as an artist?
Until those questions can be answered, we should be gravely concerned about the ability of Michael to overcome the hurdles necessary to take to the stage properly – when he really does want it.
