To cancel or not to cancel MICHAEL JACKSON? Person to person, human to human, I'm in no position to tell you. It's none of my business what you do or don't do when "P.Y.T." or "IN THE CLOSET" shows up on your car radio or plays in the background at the department store where you're shopping for socks. I don't know you. I don't know what those songs and others meant to you 10 or 20 years ago, and you may not yet know what those songs mean to you now. I don't pretend to think there's an automatic, universal, correct answer. I'm sure there isn't. I know only this: If you're not iin some way thinking about what might have changed over the course of 10 or 20 years, if you're not considering what your response to the music means today, if you're not puzzling through what it means to move your body to "BILLIE JEAN" as you are, in fact, moving your body to "Billie Jean," whether voluntarily or involuntarily, you may be doing yourself, and the culture, a disservice. Which is to say, I'm no position to tell you your answer. But person to person, human to human, I like to think I'm in some position to suggest the question. I love this essay by NPR MUSIC's ANN POWERS, who assigned herself to listen to Jackson's entire catalog after watching DAN REED's documentary LEAVING NEVERLAND, "noting what thoughts arise while encountering these overwhelmingly familiar songs, what feelings I can't resist and which I immediately want to suppress." An important read about the private act of listening to music in a connected world... One of every 13 tourists who traveled to South Korea in 2017 was there because of BTS. This astonishing stat about the economic and cultural power of K-pop's biggest act is from a 2018 research report, which resurfaces in this piece about a unique "ticking clock" challenge that BTS and the country's other boy bands face: Eventually everyone in the band has to enlist in the military... Two big obstacles for promoters of the endangered WOODSTOCK 50 festival, besides the lack of evidence that there's any demand for such an event: the promoters' hubris, and the regulations New York State introduced decades ago largely in response to the original Woodstock... Very mildly spoilery GAME OF THRONES music meme of the day (several people did some version of this because how could they not?)... One band I've seen at a gig/concert and six lies: DR. TEETH & THE ELECTRIC MAYHEM, the WYLD STALLYNS, STILLWATER, SEXUAL CHOCOLATE, JOSIE & THE PUSSYCATS, OTIS DAY & THE KNIGHTS, STEEL DRAGON... RIP SUSAN BESCHTA, HELLABANDZ and CHRIS ALBERTSON.