Tabloid Junkie" (Harris/Lewis/Jackson).HIStory -- Past, Present and Future, Book I is a double album by American singer Michael Jackson released in June 1995 and remains Jackson's most conflicting and controversial release. The album featured one disc of greatest hits from the singer's previous fifteen years, while the second disc featured mostly newer songs with the exception of "Come Together", which he recorded in 1987.
It is the best-selling multiple disc album ever released by a solo artist with worldwide sales of 18 million copies (36 million units).[citation needed] HIStory is Jackson's second best-selling album of the nineties but is actually his top grossing album of the nineties.[
[Promotion]
To promote the album, Jackson embarked on the successful HIStory World Tour,[2] which was attended by more than four and a half million people. Jackson also made a promotional "teaser" music video showing him marching with thousands of military personnel as well as shipping statues of himself on boats around Europe[3] and 30 million dollars were spent on its promotion by Sony.[4]
Controversy
"HIStory" remains Jackson's most controversial album as seen by a number of events.
The music video for "You Are Not Alone" was controversial in that it featured an almost nude Jackson and his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley. Additionally, two Belgian songwriters, brothers Eddy and Danny Van Passel claimed to have written the melody in 1993. In September of 2007 a Belgian Judge ruled the song was plagarized from the Van Passel brothers and the song was subsequently banned from airwaves in Belgium.
Controversy arose when a verse in "They Don't Care About Us" ("Jew me/sue me/everybody do me/kick me, kike me/don't you black or white me") raised suspicion that the singer was anti-Semitic, charges Jackson denied. To make up for it, he edited the verse on later issues of the album.
The original music video for "They Dont Care About Us" showed Jackson singing the song in a prison.[5] MTV took the video off its playlist because it showed scenes of violence.[5] Jackson and video director Spike Lee released another version of the video set in Brazil, which was actually shot before the "prison version".[5]
At the BRIT Awards in 1996, Michael Jackson was given a special "Artist of a Generation" award. At the ceremony he performed "Earth Song" with a grandiose stage show, with Jackson portrayed as a Christ-like figure surrounded by adoring children. Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker mounted the stage in protest at the act. Cocker ran across the stage, lifting his shirt and pointing his (clothed) bottom in Jackson's direction. Cocker was subsequently questioned by the police on suspicion of causing injury towards three of the children in Jackson's performance, although no criminal proceedings followed. The performance saw the song and album rise back up the charts