people magazine and the death of elvis and michael

There was an interesting article yesterday on David Hepworth's blog yesterday about the death of Elvis Presley, and how little of it was shown on the front cover of People Magazine, the USA's top selling magazine at that time.  As he said, although Elvis was a legend, celebrity death was not such a huge deal at the time, and just before his death, he was only popular with his old die hard fans.  I remember he was openly mocked for his appearance and shambling stage appearances just before his death, and no one was really interested in his new records. He was, to all intents and purposes, a joke.  Elvis died on August 16th 1977 (a month before Marc Bolan fact fans!), so the August 15th magazine above was obviously out before his death. However, it took until the September 5th issue before it was even mentioned (in a round about way), and even then, just in the top left hand corner.  How times have changed, and when you consider Michael Jackson, the circumstances are very similar.  A legend who became an oddity/laughing stock, who most people just wanted to see in concert (at the planned O2 gigs) so they could say they had seen him, but expecting a possible shambles.  His records had stopped selling, and there were also the child abuse allegations following him around.   When he died though, the papers, magazines and TV knew what was expected of them, and the droves rushed out to buy his product.


toodle pip