Jacko's Millions（在线收听）

Jacko's Millions

So how did ¹⁾Jacko ²⁾hit the jackpot? Well, it was as easy as this: Whether you actually like the shape of his ever changing nose or not, there is no doubt that Michael Jackson can smell a hit and a good business deal. Music has been the ³⁾baseline for every cent of Jacko's fortune. But the ⁴⁾mega ⁵⁾bucks only started rolling in from his ⁶⁾solo career with his new record label CBS, though the boss took some convincing.

Walter Yetnikoff (Former President, CBS): Michael then, his big song was a song about a dead rat, named Ben, if you recall that one. And I said, "I ain't giving millions of dollars to these kids and the lead is singing about a dead rat." You know, I don't know if I want to do this. But we did anyhow. At the beginning, the first album or two as the group were not all that great ⁷⁾in terms of sales.

But in '79, Off The Wall blew all those doubts away. Jacko's first solo album on CBS sold an impressive 15 million and produced four big hits.

Paul Cambaccini (Music Expert): He'd grown up, he'd made it. I mean, you actually thought when Off The Wall was a success, Michael Jackson was now an adult, his "Jackson 5" youth was behind him.

No prizes for guessing what Jacko produced next -- Thriller, the album of the ⁸⁾decade.

Walter Yetnikoff: It was unbelievable, something like that had never happened before. We were selling in the United States alone a million albums a week. You maybe make five bucks a record, you are making five million dollars a week, so you are making 20 million dollars a month and worldwide we were making even more because money was pouring in from everywhere. And there was another one of those phenomenon's where sometimes you're better off just taking your hands off and letting it go.

Thriller sold more than 50 million copies, a figure that has never been topped. The king of pop had won his ⁹⁾crown.

Walter Yetnikoff: I don't think he had in mind, you know, a particular number. But he wanted to be the biggest artist in the world and earn more than anybody else, and have a higher ¹⁰⁾royalty than anyone else.

Seth Riggs (Voice Trainer): Michael sings more high c's in one song than some of the opera singers in an entire opera. He uses his voice sometimes very cussedly. You know, all those little ¹¹⁾yelps and things he does, you know, and then he calls and sometimes he just out loud goes and goes "oooh", you know, just things like that. Just crazy little things that he has become identified with. But he constantly is trying to find different things to do with his voice.

The triumph of Thriller, one album, seven hit singles, reached its peak with Motown's 25th birthday celebration. Jacko and the moonwalk went ¹²⁾stratospheric. Thriller's success was truly astonishing. The album earned Jacko 127 million dollars, nearly 88 million pounds and he was well on the way to conquering a new ¹³⁾spin off, the pop video.

Paul Cambaccini: MTV had just opened up and America, in particular, was just getting this ¹⁴⁾diet of music videos and Michael established himself as the king of the music video, right place, right time, right talent.

Vincent Paterson (Choreographer): You know, I got the opportunity to work with Michael a lot during what I call "the ¹⁵)heyday". You know, and, at the point everything was always a rush, especially as a choreographer/director because you knew that, first of all, your work was going to be seen by half the people on the globe. The fun part of the years I worked with Michael was that, in every video, we sort of played with different techniques, I mean, I took stuff from Smooth Criminal and gave him the first bit of partner dancing that he had ever done or that most people had ever seen on MTV as well as some effect things, you know, with those guys leaning over and all. When I did Black and White, I put in dancers from all over the world and then Michael learned little ¹⁶⁾snippets of pieces that were international folk dances basically. So Michael has never shied away from any form of dance at all. He's the best male dancer that has ever appeared on music videos, ever, in the history of music videos, and probably ever will be.

Brett Pulley (Financial Expert): There is no doubt that Michael Jackson is one of the kings of the big spenders. I mean, an extremely ¹⁷⁾lavish lifestyle.

Taking into account absolutely everything he shelled out last year, Jacko spent on average, wait for it... more than $100,000 a day, 69,000 quid! That's a Barret starter home every twenty-four hours. But now he just can't afford it, so Jacko's been borrowing big time.

Roger Friedman (Fox News): His biggest investments are in his song catalogues and in ¹⁸⁾Neverland, real estate and music, which on the face of it would seem very good investments, but unfortunately he uses them constantly to borrow against. His debts are threatening to suffocate him.

Jackson was forced to settle some debts with Sony, by selling the company half the ¹⁹⁾lucrative Beatles catalogue. Albeit at four times what he paid for it, but his debts, especially with Sony, still run to a quarter of a billion bucks, 172 million pounds. That's a hell of a lot of ²⁰⁾I.O.U's!

He's simply spending more than his earning. With one of his main forms of incomes, record sales, on the slide. Remember, Thriller sold more than 50 million copies, then there was Bad that did 25 million. Good. Dangerous did 26 million. Then we're down to History which did 15 million; quite good for most artists but for Michael Jackson, sorry, not good enough! Then there was Blood on the Dance Floor down, to the lower numbers, 4 million and finally Invicible a measly 2 million.

He's earned over half a billion dollars, but what's left after tax and all that excessive spending? Well, take those monster debts from his lucrative investments to discover our exclusive ²¹⁾liquid assets total. Today the King Of Pop is worth a disappointing third of a billion dollars, just 225 million pounds. He is hardly on the ²²⁾breadline, but it's not much for thirty years at the top of the pop world!

算算迈克尔·杰克逊的身家

    小杰是怎么赚来巨额财富的呢？这个很简单：

    他的鼻形千变万化，你喜不喜欢都好，迈克尔·杰克逊对好歌好生意的嗅觉灵敏，这是压根无庸置疑的。音乐为小杰带来每一分钱进帐。不过他是在事业发展到与哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）签约出新唱片后，巨额红利才开始滚滚而来，但是老板还需要被进一步说服。

沃尔特·耶尼科夫(CBS前总裁)：如果你还记得的话，当年迈克尔唱红的一首歌是关于一只名字叫本的死耗子。我曾经说过：“我才不会拨几百万美元给这群小孩子唱一只死耗子的主打歌。”我拿不定主意做还是不做。不管怎么说后来还是出了唱片。刚开始的时候，杰克逊兄弟组合的第一、二张专辑销售并不理想。

但到了1979年，《Off The Wall》推出后让顾虑烟消云散。小杰在CBS出的第一张个人专辑卖出1500万张，令人刮目相看，并唱红了其中四首歌。

保罗·肯巴西尼(音乐专家)：他成长了，他成功了。我是说，从《Off The Wall》的畅销，令人真的看到迈克尔·杰克逊长大了，他超越了“杰克逊五兄弟” 时期的青涩。

猜中小杰的下一次成功是什么了吗？没有奖品给哦！《Thriller》成为那十年中最畅销的专辑。

沃尔特·耶尼科夫：太难以置信了，这样的事是前无古人。单在美国，我们一周就能卖出一百万张唱片。如果每张赚五美元的话，你一星期就赚到五百万美元，一个月赚回两千万，再说我们在全球赚到的还更多，因为钱一直源源不断地从各地涌来。有时候遇到这样的情况，我们最好放手别管。

《Thriller》卖到五千多万张，从没有哪张专辑打破过这个纪录。杰克逊摘取了“流行天王”的桂冠。

沃尔特·耶尼科夫：我认为他并没有想过要卖出具体多少张。但他想成为全球巨星，想比任何人赚的钱更多，想比任何人拿的版税更多。

塞斯·里格斯(唱声教练)：迈克尔在一首歌中唱的高C部分，比许多歌剧演唱者在整出歌剧中唱出的还要多。有时他用嗓方式非常古怪。他急声尖叫，他的喊声，有时候他就这样高喊“噢”。这些古怪唱腔竟然成了他的代表风格。他也在不断探索新风格。

《Thriller》大获成功，一张专辑里唱红了七首歌曲，在Motown公司的25周年庆典上这成功达到巅峰。小杰的漫步月球舞步风靡一时。《Thriller》的成功是空前的。这张专辑给小杰赚了1.27亿美元，也就是差不多8800万英镑，然后他转而进攻另一新领域——音乐电视。

保罗·肯巴西尼：MTV那时刚出现，特别是美国人正好对这类音乐电视趋之若骛，迈克尔奠定下音乐电视之王的地位，靠的是地利、天时和天才。

文森特·帕特森(舞蹈指导)：我和迈克尔合作过多次，我把那段日子成为全盛时期。工作每每十万火急，尤其是我当时同时身兼舞蹈指导和导演，而你知道，全世界有半数人会看到这个作品。我和迈克尔合作的那几年中，有意思的是我们在每个音乐电视片中都做创新。比如我在《Smooth Criminal》中，首创让他与拍挡双双起舞，很多人是第一次从MTV上看到这种手法，还有一些让舞者作人体倾斜的效果等等。在制作《Black and White》的时候，我加进世界各地的舞者，让迈克尔学跳各国民族舞蹈。迈克尔是非常乐于尝试各种舞蹈风格的。他是有音乐电视以来最好的男舞蹈演员，是音乐电视史历来最好的舞者，也许永远都是。

布莱特·普利(理财专家)：无疑迈克尔·杰克逊也是消费天王。我认为他的生活方式是极尽奢华的。

将他去年的所有花费算在一起的话，小杰平均消费了，且慢……他每天消费了10多万美元，即6.9万英镑！时时刻刻都在花费。可这样的花法小杰现在也承受不住了，他靠借债度日。

    罗杰·弗里德曼(福克斯新闻人)：他的最大投资是披头士的歌曲版权和住房，房产和音乐从表面上看似乎是相当不错的投资，可不幸的是，他经常用这两者来抵押借钱。现在他是债台高筑，逼得他连喘息的余地都没有。

为了清还所欠索尼公司的部分债务，杰克逊被迫把赢利的一半披头士歌曲版权转卖给索尼。尽管卖价是他买入价的四倍之多，可他的欠债，尤其是欠索尼的债款依然高达2.5亿美元，即1.72亿英镑。真是债务满天飞啊！

如今他是入不敷出。作为他主要收入来源之一的唱片销量也在往下滑。要记得，《Thriller》曾劲卖了5000多万张，《Bad》卖了2500多万张。很好。《Dangerous》卖了2600多万张，然后《History》跌到1500万张。许多艺术家来能做到这已经算不错了，但对于迈克尔·杰克逊来说，抱歉，还不够好！接下来的《Blood on the Dance Floor》是400万，更少了。最后一张《Invincible》只得可怜的200万。

    他赚到手的有5亿多美元，在除去纳税和一切花销后还剩多少呢？唔，用他的投资收益减去高额债款，然后我们算出了独家的迈克尔身家总数：流行天王今日所剩只有10亿美元的三分之一，即2.25亿英镑，相当令人失望。虽然他还用不着靠救济维生，但以雄霸了流行乐坛三十年来看，这点身家实在算不上多！

注释:

1) Jacko是Jackson的昵称

2) hit the jackpot 大获成功，发大财

3) baseline [5beislain] n. 起点，基础

4) mega [5me^E] n. 百万

5) buck [bQk] n.  (口语)美元

6) solo [5sEulEu] a. 单独的

7) in terms of 在……方面

8) decade [5dekeid] n. 十年，文中特指20世纪80年代。

9) crown [kraun] n. 王冠

10) royalty [5rCiElti] n. 版税

11) yelp [jelp] n. 叫喊

12) stratospheric [7strAtEJ5sferik] a. 最高部分的

13) spin off 派生出的副产品

14) diet [5daiEt] a. 日常大量接触到的东西

15) heyday [5heidei] n. 全盛期

16) snippet [5snipit] n. 片断

17) lavish [5lAviF] a. 奢侈的

18) Neverland是杰克逊在洛杉矶附近的家，取名自童话《彼得·潘》中的梦幻岛。

19) lucrative [5lu:krEtiv] a. 有利的

20) I.O.U即I owe you

21) liquid assets 流动资产

22) breadline [5bred7lain] n. 等待分配救济食物的队伍