Jackson Couldn't Face Man in the Mirror

Response to 'This Is It' tepid from critics, all over the place from fans

(NEWSER) - Michael Jackson’s posthumous single was released to much hype, but the critical response is lukewarm and fan reactions are mixed. A sampling:

• In a roundup of fan comments on Michael Jackson’s website, the Times reports that while some are pleased—“This single is great, even better than I thought it was gonna be”—many others are calling it “garbage.”

'This Is It' was written in 1991 but left off Dangerous

(NEWSER) - Michael Jackson's first posthumous single premiered this morning on his website, featuring backing vocals by his brothers. "This Is It" was written for the 1991 album Dangerous, but was cut before the album was released; it will be the only new song on a double CD coming later this month. The midtempo ballad is a plea to a lover, but the late King of Pop begins on a grander scale: "This is it, here I stand, I'm the light of the world." Click the link at left to listen. More»

'This is war,' says Antonio Manfredi

(NEWSER) - It's an incendiary protest. More than a month after an Italian museum director first burned art to protest budget cuts, Antonio Manfredi is still regularly incinerating works at his Casoria Contemporary Art Museum. "This is war for the arts," Manfredi explains. "We want the institutions in Italy and around the world to understand that culture is very important. It's not possible when there is an economic problem in the world that the first that the government destroys is art." More»

Showcases darker tones of earlier work

(NEWSER) - For the first time in five years, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam has added a new piece to its collection—and it looks a little different from your standard Vincent van Gogh. This one is an 1882 watercolor whose tones are much darker than those the artist later adopted. The painting shows what van Gogh called a "lonely and melancholy" dead willow leaning over a pond near the Hague. The young artist immediately wanted to paint it: "I'm going to attack it tomorrow morning," he wrote to his brother. More»

Plus: Michael Jackson's last words

(NEWSER) - In a Today interview airing tomorrow and Friday, Dr. Conrad Murray finally explains why he didn’t call 911 as soon as Michael Jackson stopped breathing—although his explanation may still leave you with a few questions. Emergency responders wouldn’t have been able to come through the gate, the doctor claimed: "No one is allowed to come upstairs except for Mr. Jackson." When Savannah Guthrie pointed out that Murray could have called Jackson’s bodyguard and asked him to meet them at the gate, Murray said he didn’t want to "leave a full explanation on the phone" and started CPR instead. More»