HISTORY: PAST PRESENT & FUTURE BOOK I (2CD)

I turned 12 on Nov.20th 1995.  So I was 11 when Michael Jackson's not-a-comeback album (after such high hopes...) HISTORY: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE BOOK I was released and I didn't begin listening to it until my absentee father bought it for me late in the year or sometime in 1996.  I was attending school at a remote area that agreed to facilitate a place of education for seriously emotionally disturbed (S.E.D.) youth.  So I spent my days around crazy people, basically.  And my mother was also crazy, and my sister was also slowly losing her mind, thankfully it never went off the deep end, she's kind of the glue that holds my family together to this day.  But anyway; I knew of MJs alleged child abuse, so the explosively emotional content in Disc 2 made sense to me.  Oddly enough, a couple of years before this album came out, I was involved in a conspiracy to steal pornography.  The store owner was "kind" enough not to prosecute me.  Is he a child abuser for putting magazines containing pornography in a section of the store where kids can not only reach them, but reach inside and see what's in them???  I'd love to see him try and press charges. :/)  Anyway, I still sometimes listen to it, on sites like Rhapsody/Spotify.  Putting "Billie Jean" at the beginning was a smart move.  I never cared a whole lot for "Wanna Be Startin' Something", so i rarely listen to THRILLER.  I might put up with "WBTS" the same way I put up with "She's Out Of My Life" during playback of this album if it weren't at the very beginning.  On the downside, you miss all but 4 songs from the magnificent BAD, which, btw, is NOT out of print(winkwink).  Everyone seems to favor THRILLER and some favor OFF THE WALL, though the only song from OFF THE WALL I like is "Rock With You", thankfully included here.  OTW was a transitional album though if my 31 year old white male self is perceiving the pre-me past accurately.  I mean, he was a solo artist b4 OFF THE WALL, but, to me anyway, his solo stuff gets confused with his Jackson 5 material.  OFF THE WALL was the beginning of the end of that.  Disc 2 starts off with "Scream", the hit duet with his sister Janet and picks up from there with the smoldering intensity of "They Don't Care About Us", which has since been censored b/c of MJ's use of a certain antisemetic word [deleted]...I'm not sure the use of that word can be aptly apologized for to the people who are offended by it, being as the Jewish people have suffered the largest mass offense to humanity ever carried out and I don't blame them for being a wee bit touchy about it.  I'm sure MJ felt the same way I did when I first heard about it, something along the lines of "Me, racist?  But I'm not a racist!"  I mean, the holocaust was unthinkable.  I, at least, cannot wrap my head around how such a movement took place.  I don't get how similar yet scaled down (mostly) behavior toward kidnapped Africans became accepted in North America.  It's not logical, despite certain people's half brained attempts to justify it.  Anyway, as far as the other 13 tracks, most of them are good to great.  "Tabloid Junkie" is basically just MJ saying "please quit reading the tabloids".  I don't like tabloids, they're tasteless, almost comical, and not anymore entertaining than real news or, better yet, a novel or a movie.  [Names and places have been changed so that Michael Jackson doesn't sue us for talking trash about him even though me may be aware that it's him we're talking about...oh did we strike a nerve, Michael?  THE OFFICAL RESPONSE FROM MICHAEL JACKSON'S ATTORNEY: "Since the writer claims to have written a work of fiction and this story does not mirror the actions or mind of Michael Jackson, there is nothing for Michael or his family to say in regards to rumors circulating about it"]