Rolling Stone–great about General McChrystal, wrong about Michael Jackson.
The magazine issued a story today about a new Michael Jackson album for November, with quotes from Frank DiLeo, Michael’s manager.
What RS doesn’t say is that the quotes attributed to DiLeo were given more than nine months ago, and answered to other questions. There’s nothing new. DiLeo tells me the last time he spoke to Rolling Stone was before the movie “This Is It” came out. “Everyone knows Sony’s putting out a new album, that’s not new,” says DiLeo. “No one from Rolling Stone spoke to me for that article.”
In fact, this column broke the story that there would be a new Jackson album several times. Jackson co-executor John McClain has been working on selecting tracks and mixing and re-recording.
But McClain is not Bruce Swedien, who was Jackson’s engineer in the studio for all of his famous recordings. McClain has nixed working with Swedien, I am told, which is not so good because Jackson’s unreleased record, “This Is It,” turned out to be a snore when it was prepared this way. McClain, a long time A&R man at A&M, is strong in artist signing and support but is not a record producer.
So tsk, tsk to Rolling Stone. Now we know how General McChrystal feels!
