For his legions of fans, he was the Peter Pan of pop music: the little boy who refused to grow up. But on the verge of another attempted comeback, he is suddenly gone, this time for good.
对于他的众多歌迷来说，他是流行音乐界的彼得•潘：那个拒绝长大的小男孩。然而，就在他又一次试图复出之际，他却突然离开了，这次是永远地走了。
Michael Jackson, whose quintessentially American tale of celebrity and excess took him from musical boy wonder to global pop superstar to sad figure haunted by lawsuits, paparazzi and failed plastic surgery, was pronounced dead on June 25th.
迈克尔•杰克逊的人生如一场经典的美国梦，尽享盛誉、恣意纵情。他从一个音乐神童成长为了全球流行乐巨星，然后又沦为诉讼缠身、狗仔追踪以及整容失败的悲情人物，直到6月25日，他的死讯传出。
As with Elvis Presley or the Beatles, it is impossible to calculate the full effect Michael Jackson had on the world of music. At the height of his career, he was indisputably the biggest star in the world; he has sold more than 750 million albums. Radio stations across the country reacted to his death with marathon sessions of his songs. MTV, which grew successful in part as a result of Michael Jackson’s groundbreaking videos, reprised its early days as a music channel by showing his biggest hits.
和“猫王”、披头士乐队一样，迈克尔•杰克逊对音乐界的全部影响是无法估量的。在其事业高峰期，他无可争议地是世界上最耀眼的巨星，他的专辑销量超过7.5亿张。面对杰克逊故世的消息，全国的广播电台都开始马拉松般播放他的音乐，MTV回到它的往昔时光，成为一个播放杰克逊劲歌热曲的音乐频道，要知道MTV的兴起是与迈克尔•杰克逊开创性的音乐电视分不开的。
Michael Joseph Jackson was born in Gary on Aug. 29, 1958. The second youngest of six brothers, he began performing professionally with four of them at the age of 5 in a group that their father, Joe, a steelworker, had organized the previous year. In 1968, the group, originally called the Jackson Brothers, was signed by Motown Records. The Jackson 5 was an instant phenomenon. The group’s first four singles—”I Want You Back,” “ABC,” “The Love You Save” and “I’ll Be There”—all reached No. 1 on the pop charts in 1970, a feat no group had accomplished before. And young Michael was the center of attention: he handled virtually all the lead vocals, danced with energy and finesse, and displayed a degree of showmanship rare in a performer of any age.
迈克尔•约瑟夫•杰克逊1958年8月29日生于加里市，六个兄弟中排行老五。杰克逊五岁时开始与自己的四个哥哥一起登台进行专业表演，这个组合是他们做钢铁工人的父亲乔于1962年创建的。1968年，这支原来名叫“杰克逊兄弟”的乐队签约了摩城唱片，“杰克逊五人组”一炮走红，他们首发的四支单曲——《盼你归来》、《ABC》、《你保留的爱》和《我将在那里》在1970年先后登上了流行音乐榜的榜首，此前从来没有任何组合能有如此战绩。少年杰克逊是大众瞩目的焦点：他实际上是所有歌曲的主唱、他的舞蹈充满活力和技巧，并且展示出了任何年纪的表演者中都少见的表现力。
In 1971, Michael Jackson began recording under his own name, while continuing to perform with his brothers. His recording of “Ben,” the title song from a movie about a boy and his pet rat, was a No. 1 hit in 1972. In 1978, Michael made his movie debut as the Scarecrow in the screen version of the hit Broadway musical “The Wiz.” But movie stardom proved not to be his destiny.
1971年，迈克尔•杰克逊虽然还继续和他的哥哥们一起表演，但也开始以自己的名字录制唱片了。他为一部关于一个小男孩和他的宠物鼠的电影演唱了主题曲《本》，该曲是1972年最热门的歌曲。1979年，杰克逊第一次登上了电影荧幕，在由著名百老汇音乐剧《绿野仙踪》改编的电影版中扮演了稻草人，不过，事实表明杰克逊的命运与电影巨星无缘。
Music stardom on an unprecedented level, however, was. Michael Jackson’s first solo album for Epic, “Off the Wall,” released in 1979, yielded two No. 1 singles and sold seven million copies, but it was a mere prologue to what came next. His follow-up, “Thriller,” released in 1982, became the best-selling album of all time and helped usher in the music video age. The video for title track was an elaborate horror-movie pastiche that was more of a mini-movie than a promotional clip. The album spent two years on the Billboard album chart and sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide. It also won eight Grammy Awards.
他的命运是成为了一名音乐明星，一名空前绝后的巨星。1979年，迈克尔•杰克逊在史诗唱片公司发行了第一张独唱专辑《墙外》，这张专辑中的两首歌登上了排行榜单曲第一，销量达到了700万张。不过这仅仅是个开始，随后，他1982年发行的专辑《战栗》成了历史上销量最好的专辑，并且开创了音乐电视时代。为同名主打歌所制作的音乐电视是一部仿惊悚电影的精致短片，与其说是宣传片，不如说是微型电影。这张专辑在美国《公告牌》杂志排行榜上停留了两年之久，全球销量大约有1亿张，此外，它还获得了八项格莱美奖。
The choreographer and director Vincent Paterson, who directed Michael Jackson in several videos, recalled watching him rehearse a dance sequence for four hours in front of a mirror until it felt like second nature. “That’s how he developed the moonwalk, working on it for days if not weeks until it was organic,” he said. “He took an idea that he had seen some street kids doing and perfected it.”
舞蹈指导和导演文森特•佩特森曾执导过数部迈克尔•杰克逊的音乐电视，他回忆说他曾看着杰克逊为了排练一组舞蹈动作在镜子前连续跳了四个小时，直到这些动作与他浑然一体，如同第二天性一般。“他就是这么练出太空舞的，连续跳几天，甚至几个星期，直到舞蹈与肢体完全融合，”他说，“他曾在街头上看见几个孩子跳舞，他就是从中得到启发并将其完善发展成太空舞的。”
Michael Jackson’s next album, “Bad,” released in 1987, sold eight million copies and produced five No. 1 singles and another state-of-the-art video. It was a huge hit by almost anyone else’s standards, but an inevitable letdown after “Thriller.”
迈克尔•杰克逊第二张专辑《真棒》于1987年发行，销量800万张，这张专辑中诞生了五首排行榜榜首歌曲和另一部极高水平的音乐电视。在他人眼里，从任何标准看，这张专辑都是一次巨大的成功，但与此前的《战栗》相比，它不可避免地成了一次失望之作。
It was at this point that Michael Jackson’s bizarre private life began to overshadow his music. He would go on to release several more albums and, from time to time, to stage elaborate concert tours. And he would never be too far from the public eye. But it would never again be his music that kept him there.
正是从这时候开始，迈克尔•杰克逊古怪的个人生活开始给他的音乐生涯蒙上了一层阴影。他此后又发行了数张专辑，还时不时举办一些精心制作的巡演。他从未远离过公众的视线，但不再是因为他的音乐。
In 1988 Michael Jackson paid about $17 million for a 2,600-acre ranch in Los Olivos, Calif., 125 miles northwest of Los Angeles. Calling it Neverland after the mythical island of Peter Pan, he outfitted the property with amusement-park rides, a zoo and a 50-seat theater, at a cost of $35 million, according to reports, and the ranch became his sanctum. But Neverland, and Michael Jackson’s lifestyle, were expensive to maintain. A forensic accountant who testified at Michael Jackson’s molesting trial in 2005 said Michael Jackson’s annual budget in 1999 included $7.5 million for personal expenses and $5 million to maintain Neverland. By at least the late 1990s, he began to take out huge loans to support himself and pay debts. In 1998, he took out a loan for $140 million from Bank of America, which two years later was increased to $200 million. Further loans of hundreds of millions followed. The collateral for the loans was Michael Jackson’s 50 percent share in Sony/ATV Music Publishing, a portfolio of thousands of songs, including rights to 259 songs by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, considered some of the most valuable properties in music.
In many ways, Michael Jackson never recovered from the child molesting trial, a lurid affair that attracted media from around the world to watch as Michael Jackson, wearing a different costume each day, appeared in a small courtroom in Santa Maria, Calif., to listen as a parade of witnesses spun a sometimes-incredible tale. The case ultimately turned on the credibility of Michael Jackson’s accuser, a 15-year-old cancer survivor who said the defendant had gotten him drunk and molested him several times. After 14 weeks of such testimony and seven days of deliberations, the jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all 14 counts against Michael Jackson. After his trial, Michael Jackson never returned to live at his ranch.
1988年，迈克尔•杰克逊花了大约1700万美元购得了加州洛斯奥利沃斯镇（洛杉矶西北125英里）一处面积为2600英亩的农场，并以《彼得•潘》中神秘岛屿“梦幻岛”为其命名。据报道，他耗资3500万美元为农场配备了游乐场的骑乘装置、一家动物园和一个50座的剧场，他让农场成为了自己的圣地。但是，不管是梦幻岛还是迈克尔•杰克逊的生活方式，要维持下来所需开支都极其庞大。一名曾在2005年幼童骚扰案中出庭作证的法务会计师说，迈克尔•杰克逊1999年的年度预算中包括了750万美元的个人开支和500万美元的梦幻岛维护费用。至少在20世纪90年代末，他就开始高额举债以维持自己的开销和支付债务。1998年，他从美国银行贷款1.4亿美元，两年后增至2亿美元。此后巨额债务滚滚而来。这些贷款的抵押物是迈克尔•杰克逊在索尼/ATV音乐发行公司的50%股权。其资产包括数千首歌曲的所有权，当中有259首约翰•列侬和保罗•麦卡特尼歌曲的版权，这些歌曲被认为是音乐行业中最有价值的资产之一。
从许多方面看，迈克尔•杰克逊一直没有从幼童骚扰案中恢复过来，那场耸人听闻的风波吸引了全世界媒体的注意力，大家一直关注着杰克逊每天换上不同的服饰，出现在加州圣玛丽亚镇狭小的审判庭上，然后去聆听一溜证人精彩地讲述一个不时让人觉得难以置信的故事。案件最终的焦点集中到了迈克尔•杰克逊案的原告——一位15岁大、曾身患癌症的小男孩指控的可信度上，他指控杰克逊曾把他灌醉，然后数次骚扰他。但是，在长达14周的证人作证和7天商议后，陪审团对迈克尔•杰克逊的所有14项指控都做出了无罪判决。审判结束后，迈克尔•杰克逊便再也没回到他的农场居住。
On the day he died, many who knew Jackson described him as “gentle,” which seemed to be a kind of code, an explanation, an excuse. In fact, he seems more like a character in a show he had no control over, a boy turned into a man too soon and a man who tried to become a boy all over again. His greatest performance may have occurred June 25, when sudden death ensured that we will always wonder who he really was.
在得知杰克逊死讯的当天，许多认识他的人都形容他是个“温和的人”，这听起来像是一种暗示、一种解释或一种辩解。事实上，他看上去更像是他无力控制的一场演出中的一个角色，一个成长得太快的小男孩和一位总想回到童年的成年人。6月25日或许是他最伟大的演出，他的突然离去将让我们永远无法知道他究竟是谁。
Peter Pan 彼得•潘，苏格兰小说家、剧作家J.M. Barrie（1860—1937）笔下人物，他拒绝长大，居住在梦幻岛（Neverland）上
legion 大批的人，大群的人
for good 永远地
quintessentially 完美典范地
Elvis Presley 埃尔维斯•普雷斯利（1935—1977），美国摇滚歌手，绰号“猫王”，他的音乐融合了乡村音乐、布鲁斯音乐以及山地摇滚乐各种曲风，让摇滚乐如旋风般横扫20世纪五六十年代的世界乐坛，猫王的女儿后嫁于杰克逊为妻
Beatles 披头士乐队（又译“甲壳虫乐队”），英国摇滚乐队，披头士乐队影响了自20世纪60年代以后数代摇滚乐队的音乐和思想，后文提到的约翰•列侬和保罗•麦卡特尼均属于披头士乐队
MTV 全球最大的音乐电视网之一， 1981 年创立于美国，现已发展到世界各地
pastiche （文学、音乐或电影的）模仿作品
“Bad” bad在美国口语中有“好的”的意思，杰克逊专辑中的“bad”也从此意，故该专辑通常译作《真棒》
letdown 令人失望的事物
forensic 律师的，法庭的