R.I.P. The King of Pop

I used to be a total academic loser in the latter part of my secondary school days, and, to made things even worse for myself, those non-complying, always-go-against-the-flow attitude of mine hadn’t won me a whole lot of friends in that small social circle that was high school either.

Naturally I was an easy and obvious target to be slapped with harsh comments or even personal attacks by some of the less-than-nice peers around me; it is suffice to say that this part of education history is one of the darkest chapter in my life so far.

One fine day, for reason I can no longer recall now, I got my hands on a piece of music--a tune that really shook me up and struck a strong chord in me:

“I'm Gonna Make A Change/ For Once in My Life/ It's Gonna Feel Real Good/ Gonna Make A Difference/ Gonna Make It Right . . .

I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror/ I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways/ And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer/ If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place/Take A Look At Yourself/ And Then Make A Change “

Man in the Mirror [BAD] (1987)

From that point on, whenever I found myself in desperate need for some morale boost or a good kick in the butt, especially during those pre-exam nights when it became absolutely necessary for me to stay awake and keep the midnight oil burning, I would play this track over and over again—the old-schooled, analog way of repeatedly rewinding a CASSETTE TAPE and then press the WALKMAN’s PLAY button at the exact starting point of the song really kept me up and going all night long.

After a while, I decided that I’ve had it with the short lifespan not to mention lack of sound quality of CASSETTE TAPE, which prompted me to an important decision: Embrace the technology of COMPACT DISC!

So, armed with cash I saved from skipping lunches and being thrift on all expenditure I deemed unnecessary, I bite my tongue all the way to the mall and handed over my money to the cashier for a jewel case that contains a booklet and a piece of COMPACT DISC, thus officially losing my CD-buying virginity to it.

Things got a little more intense from there as I started to become fanatic and made it a personal mission to collect all CDs and videos I could laid my eyes on, which is an enormous task since optical disc product was a big deal back then not to mention a little uneconomical for a student with a shoestring budget for entertainment.

(The Music of the King of Pop)

But it was totally worthy because you can’t really put a price on a work of art that rubs you in all the right places and never fail to provoke the strongest emotions you didn’t even know you had, on each and every indulgence.

“Stop Pressurin' Me/ Just Stop Pressurin' Me / Stop Pressurin' Me / Make Me Wanna Scream”

Scream [HIStory – Past. Present & Future - Book 1] 1994

Goodbye, and Thank You for all the good times you bestowed upon us.

(The Forever King of Pop – Michael Jackson)


“Born To Amuse, To Inspire, To Delight/ Here One Day/Gone One NightLike A Sunset/ Dying With the Rising of the Moon/ Gone Too Soon”

Gone Too Soon [Dangerous] (1994)

REST IN PEACE, MY FOREVER KING OF POP!