“The King of Pop” has sold more than 300 million copies to date, is the first artist to chart seven singles in the top 10 from one album, and the only artist to have an album (Thriller) sell more copies than any other in two separate years. He has been described as “biggest-selling artist of all time,” “the single most awarded entertainer the world has ever known,” and “the most popular artist in the history of show business.”

Leading up to his death, however, his personal struggles grew to a tabloid-filled “freak” show, and began to overshadow his iconic accomplishments. Beginning with rumors of him purchasing the bones of John Merrick, the Elephant Man, and sleeping in a hyperbolic chamber to decrease aging, the “King of Pop” became better known as “Wacko Jacko.” Further accusations of child molesting and bizarre physical changes did not help his image either, but these pieces of the Jackson puzzle do not tell the whole story.

Living under the celebrity spotlight since he was five years old, he never had the traditional childhood, telling Oprah Winfrey in an interview he “had no friends as a child, [his] brothers were his only friends.” Virtually skipping the developing years of his childhood, Jackson grew up under extreme pressure from the media, his brothers, and his record company, not to mention the frequent beatings he received from his father. His troubled past became more public through interviews like Oprah’s, however sympathy for him did not. Growing up with such an external demand for maturity and music success, the physiological effects he endured are difficult to compare because of his super-stardom. In the interview, he said:

“I would do my schooling which was three hours with a tutor and right after that I would go to the recording studio and record, and I’d record for hours and hours until it’s time to go to sleep. And I remember going to the record studio and there was a park across the street and I’d see all the children playing and I would cry because it would make me sad that I would have to work instead.”

With no childhood, a violent father, an insecure self-image, and coming out of a dysfunctional group of brothers, Jackson became addicted to painkillers and excessive plastic surgery operations to help cope with such a unique life-style. Even through all of this, the contributions he made to various foundations and charities show his strong humanitarian beliefs.

As listed in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records, Jackson held the record for “Most Charities Supported By a Pop Star”. When touring, he would take time to visit sick children in hospitals. His Neverland home has special rooms for sick and terminally-ill children, and has helped set up the Heal the World Foundation, and supported 39 charity organizations either through donations or sponsorships, and has donated an estimated $500 million to such groups. His devotion to children is said to be the most important thing in his life, which usually goes unnoticed to the “Wacko Jacko” headlines that we always hear about instead.

So who are we to judge the greatest entertainer of all time, if no one can in fact compare their lives with his? None of us went through the struggles he faced with his family, or the constant limelight he lived nearly his entire life under, or the on-going medical attention he faced by his doctors. To expect someone living under these circumstances to turn out like you and me is unreasonable and unrealistic. Perhaps his greatest skill was also his biggest enemy, and his overwhelming success was not worth the depression he lived with for much of his life. What should be taken from his life now that he has passed away is his successful music career and devotion to bettering the world, and maybe “Wacko Jacko” will once again be better known as “The King of Pop.”

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Don Irving of the music department in involved in a spring cultural exchange with the Royal Grammar School of Worcester, in Worcester England. He hopes that the opportunity to travel internationally will foster personal growth in his musicians. The trip gives student musicians the chance to perform with, as well as spend personal time with British student musicians.. The trip includes a joint program as well as some collaboration between RGS Worcester and Worcester Academy’s jazz groups.

Ron Cino is currently engaged in a cultural exchange between Danish students traveling in Massachusetts and the Worcester Academy community. He has witnessed firsthand the enthusiasm of both cultures for each other’s offerings. WA’s students are jumping in to participate in Danish dance demonstrations; Danish students have mastered English in order to give presentations in WA’s classes.

Students who traveled to Costa Rica found that the broad range of technological advances available to them were less available to their Costa Rican counterparts, and thus less relevant to family life.  They brought away from their experiences the importance of “unplugging.” They were reminded that technology, while an important part of their learning experiences, isn’t necessary for daily life.

Pam Lefferts heads up Worcester Academy’s effort in global alumni relations.  In the last six years, WA has quintupled the number of international alumni they are in contact with.  These networks lead to greater communication between current students, their parents, and alumni in at least ten countries around the world.

We have found that Worcester Academy’s opportunities for student cultural exchange are an integral part of the learning experience, and one the students embrace enthusiastically. It gives them a live look at the breadth and depth of cultural diversity in the global arena, and makes that diversity relevant to their personal experiences.

It has been a while since Apple’s iTunes and music store launched in early 2001, revolutionizing the music industry. iTunes makes it easy to organize and sync you’re music library and make it portable. Up until a couple months ago, all the audio files were sold as protected files for 99 cents, making it impossible to put iTunes store bought music on anything except for an iPod. In a way, Apple was forcing iTunes users to use iPods in order to listen to their music on the go. Now however, the 7-year tradition has changed. Apple has recently removed the DRM protected file format enabling people to share and copy music to their phones as mp3 files. People in the music industry have anticipated this change for several years with endless possibilities for sharing their music with others. This change however does not come with out a price. Along with the removal of DRM protected format, iTunes has begun offering music at two different prices, $.99 and $1.29 for certain tracks.

The price hike can be looked at in both a good and bad light. Apple reports the reason for the change is because every song is available in the highest quality moving from 128 kbs to 256 kbs. This is great but could the average person listening to their iPod with ear bud headphones really be able to tell the difference between the two qualities? In my opinion, there should be an option to upgrade to the higher quality if one chooses to do so instead of being forced to pay the extra $.30. This however does not fully explain why some songs are more expensive than others. The real reason for the price hike is because the DRM protection has been removed, People are more willing to by songs from iTunes since they can easily organize songs and use mp3 players other than iPods. Apple simply sees it as a way to make more money off popular songs that people are willing to spend more money on especially if the quality of the song is better.

This could prove to be disastrous to iTunes however people could also see a rebound in the CD industry. Now that people are forced to pay more per song for the convenience of staying home, CD prices have been lowered to try and draw people in. Now that the music store prices have gone up, music fans might prefer going to their local CD store to save a few bucks. Because several of the iTunes music store’s customers are teens and college students who often times don’t have much expendable money, there will probably be some negative effects due to the entire price hike. During an economic downturn like the one that is present today, do people really have the money to buy songs? Even though $1.29 is not considered a lot, when you have thousands of songs on your iPod, it adds up.

Photo of CD by Rebopper

Photo of iPhone by Powerbooktrance

Photo of iTunes gift card by Heck Meck

However, these long eight years have not gone unnoticed (obviously) by the music industry. Just when the art of the protest song was presumed dead, or at least M.I.A, a new generation of musicians channeled their inner Bob Dylan and sung out against the commander in chief. Everyone from mainstream radio pop to underground rap to indie to old ‘60s classic rock have chimed in on W’s policies over the past eight years. Good thing George gave them a lot to talk about.

10.  DJ Shadow and Radiohead -“Would You Buy a War from This Man?”

Add Radiohead’s eerie track from their 2003 release, “Hail to the Thief”, entitled “The Gloaming” with Dubya spitting out phrases like “nuclear holy warriors” and the infamous “weapons of mass destruction” in a speech to springboard the USA into Iraq. “Would You Buy a War from This Man?” could be the theme song to our dystopian world; where we are constantly paranoid about the declining state of life and how one slipup can lead to mass death with a single push of a button.

9. REM – “Living Well is the Best Revenge”

Kicking off 2008’s “Accelerate” with a politically charged, guitar driven anthem was symbolic to the way Michael Stipe has gone about writing music in recent years. Stipe seems to be the square peg in a round hole when juxtaposed with Bush’s policies: he is an anti-war, pro-environment, homosexual songwriter. Talk about being the black sheep in this Bush-topian world we live in. “Living Well is the Best Revenge” directly reflects these frustrations. Stipe howls singing, “you set me up like a lamb to slaughter/the gospel according to who? / I lay right down”. The REM front man refuses to change his way of life, and decided that living well, is in fact, the best revenge against the former President’s demands.

8. Ted Leo and the Pharmacists – “Bomb.Repeat.Bomb”

Ted Leo mixes his own brand of gritty guitars with political satire and sarcasm about the upper class and the deception of political leaders to create one of the finest Bush protest songs. Alluding to old Vietnam theories that “you could mobilize a million troops/but a thousand could probably get the job done”, Ted Leo is able to intertwine the roots of revolution rock to modern times. The War in Iraq is the new Vietnam, and you simply can’t “Bomb.Repeat.Bomb” in order to devastate a population and call it “peace”.

7. Against Me! – “From Her Lips to God’s Ears”

Hands down the most powerful of the Bush protest songs, simply for its brutish force and screams of “Condoleezza”, Against Me! shines light on the hypocrisy of the War in Iraq and the illusion of what freedom truly is. Tom Gabel delivers the song’s (and arguably the album’s) most powerful line, “after all this death and destruction/do your actions really advocate freedom?” Do thousands of American and Iraqi lives justify democracy and does this system truly reflect freedom? Gabel’s rhetorical question may never be answered but it seems that the price of democracy is not worth its value in life.

6. The Decemberists – “16 Military Wives”

Colin Meloy may not be the archetypical spokesperson for the War in Iraq, but with “16 Military Wives” Meloy is able to demonstrate how the media and celebrities take precedent over the war on the television waves. Describing the public as “fourteen cannibal kings” who feast upon celebrities and the pain of the “sixteen military wives”, Meloy is able to reveal America’s necessity for celebrity gossip along with bad news to add reality into their own worlds which may be conquered with boredom and self-loathing.

5. Immortal Technique – “Bin Laden”

One of underground rap’s most prominent lyricists and by far one of the most informed, Immortal Technique raps about the motives of America and how asking questions and demanding truth can be deadly. Immortal Technique preaches of the faux “American Dream” and how beneath its idealistic surface it is filled with greedy politicians (or “professional liars”) and ulterior motives used for financial gain. Being a religious skeptic as well, IT does not believe in the separation of church and state, he believes they are working in unison in order to generate propaganda against the Muslim religion in order to repay for past mistakes. “I am baptized by America/and covered in leeches” exemplifies Immortal’s belief that this “perfect society” is indeed tainted and loaded with corruption.

4. Neil Young – “Let’s Impeach the President”

The song title could not be any more straightforward, it practically spoon feeds you the message Neil Young is trying to portray. Singing in a church-like chorus about Bush shipping all our money to fund a massive war machine, his absence during Katrina, and using religion to his benefit, Young creates a sing-a-long song that actually has depth to it. It is incredibly simple in structure but this simplicity adds to the overall message of the song: by committing injustices against mankind, you do not deserve to be the head of a nation. Amen.

3. The Thermals – “Here’s Your Future”

Who knew the Bible went hand in hand with Dubya’s presidency? Drawing connections to the Great Flood and the crucifixion of Jesus, The Thermals are able to exhibit how our turbulent times are somewhat connected to their religious uncertainty. Katrina is simply our version of the Great Flood and George W. Bush is Jesus-like when answering to a higher authority (God), who he believes gave him advice to invade Iraq.

2. Arcade Fire – “Windowsill”

The rising tensions of our “one click” world, cyber salesman, and the growing need for soldiers in the “holy war” all begin to impede the standard of living. Win Butler mixes string arrangements along with dark ominous tones which create a feeling of isolation while he weeps “I don’t want to live in America no more.” The perfect anthem for paranoid escapists who plan to flee the country to save themselves and their families.

1. Bright Eyes – “When the President Talks to God”

Using his shrill voice, his old acoustic, and a powerful message that perfectly captures President Bush’s dependence religion to make decisions; this is truly the most powerful of the various anti-Bush tunes. Oberst questions if God tells Bush to “rape our women’s right” and to “send poor farm kids off to die” or if the voice is just inside his head. The song is beautifully simple and raw allowing its message to ring clearly and prominently. Symbolically, Conor Oberst is one man standing against an army of thousands, holding only his guitar and his own opinions in line.

Even though poking fun at Bush is like shooting fish in a barrel, hundreds of artists from around the world have pitched in their opinions to bash the former chief. Bob Dylan and Odetta may no longer be the front runners for the political revolution, but they passed the torch to the new generation who are updating the standards of the modern protest song. Dylan would be proud.

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