The Hindu : Opinion / News Analysis : A daunting road ahead

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Wednesday, Jun 15, 2005

Opinion

Opinion - News Analysis

A daunting road ahead

Jeff Leeds

EVEN BEFORE being tried on child-molesting charges, Michael Jackson was mired in a declining musical career and a thicket of financial woes. And while a conviction may have barred any chance of a comeback, entertainment executives said on Monday that the not-guilty verdict still left the onetime King of Pop facing a daunting road in re-establishing his credibility as a performer.

"It's an uphill battle," said Londell McMillan, a long-time music lawyer who has helped guide the careers of Prince and Faith Evans. "Culturally, he'll never be the Michael Jackson that we knew him to be. One thing we do know is his voice is permanently ingrained in the minds of most music listeners. But he'll never be the kind of trendsetter and icon he used to be."

Sales of Jackson's albums have dwindled ever since the explosive success of the 1982 "Thriller," which at 26 million copies is the second biggest-selling record in U.S. history, behind a "greatest-hits" album by the Eagles. His last studio album, "Invincible," sold just 2.1 million copies domestically after its release in 2001. And Jackson, 46, must surmount a library's worth of tabloid history that has cast him as a weakened, out-of-touch dance-pop relic — not to mention the prospect of losing control of his music-publishing interests as he struggles with debts recently estimated at $270 million.

But his advisers have long insisted that he could quickly raise millions of dollars by staging an international concert tour and selling his own recordings. And while it has been many years since Jackson embodied the youthful energy and innocence that earned him endorsement deals from Pepsi, he remains a worldwide star — one who inhabits a culture where criminal charges do not seem to worry hard-core fans.

While the jury found Jackson not guilty, early public response to the verdict appeared to show that Jackson, who began his career as a dazzling child prodigy and became a superstar of the MTV era, is now regarded mostly as a pop-culture oddity. Jackson has not toured the United States in more than 15 years, although he has appeared on MTV and performed on a 2001 CBS television special. He last mounted a tour in 1997, playing stadiums overseas, and grossed more than $90 million, according to Pollstar magazine.

"He's always been a genius; now he just needs to maximise his gift," said Rodney Jerkins, the producer who worked on Jackson's last studio album. Attracting today's young fans "is a hard mission to accomplish at his age," Mr. Jerkins said. "I think he should really tour, focus on the fans he has and pick up new fans through word-of-mouth." A return to performing may not be enough to shield Jackson from his debts. He is already finding himself in a complex financial chess match over the fate of his prized stake in Sony ATV Music, the music publishing venture that owns and administers the copyrights to more than 250 songs by the Beatles, one of the most treasured catalogues in music. Jackson's stake is the collateral for a portion of his loans, which Bank of America sold to a New York private equity company last month.

Jackson and his advisers have long waved off suggestions that he might have to sell his stake in the venture — valued by some at $500 million — to cover his debts. But people in Jackson's camp say that with the loan's acquisition by a possibly less patient creditor, it has become far more likely that he will have to sell the publishing catalogue or reduce his stake in it.

However Jackson chooses to deal with his financial problems, there is still no end in sight to his legal troubles. In a lawsuit filed in November and halted pending the outcome of the criminal case, a former Jackson adviser, F. Marc Schaffel, contends that Jackson owes him more than $2 million for personal loans he made to the singer.

Mr. Schaffel says Jackson was "desperate for cash to support his uncontrolled spending habits" and never reimbursed him for expenses, or for loans used — among other purposes — to pay Marlon Brando for appearing at one of Jackson's concerts and to provide jewellery for Elizabeth Taylor, as compensation for her appearing in a Jackson television documentary.

Having delivered the last new studio album owed under a lucrative 1991 contract with Sony Corporation's music unit, Jackson can strike virtually any deal he likes for financing and distribution of his future recordings. His last CD, a greatest-hits collection called "Number Ones," has sold an estimated 906,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan data. It was released the same day authorities raided his ranch seeking evidence for the Santa Maria criminal case.

- New York Times News Service

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