Wacko Jacko Whacked?

La Toya Jackson's claims that her brother Michael was murdered for financial reasons has been given credence by a top music industry insider. "There's no doubt that, like many artists, Jacko's worth more dead, than alive," opines former record company executive Barry Buttclinch. "It isn't just the back catalogue, there's always a big sales boost when an artist dies, but there's all the other merchandising - the memorial T-shirts, the books, the retrospective TV specials, the whole damn lot!" Buttclinch, whose now defunct label, Stiffed Sounds, put out material by such seminal pop acts as Men Without Trousers, The Cock Rings and Golden Shower, believes that pop performers are generally far more attractive to record companies when they are dead, than when they are alive. "Let's face it, most of them are complete assholes to work with," he says. "Always demanding this or that shit, too off their faces on drugs and booze to perform, wrecking hotel rooms - they're just impossible. But once they're dead, all that shit stops. Believe me, it's all so much simpler. Not to mention cheaper. With no pushers, pimps and other hangers-on to pay off, the profit margins increase beyond all belief!" Dying can also be highly beneficial, career-wise, for most artists. "Face it, most of the dumb bastards go on too long," Buttclinch muses. "There's the inevitable late career decline into mediocrity, alcoholism, child pornography and a sordid death in a dumpster. All of which completely destroys their reputation, puling down sales of the back catalogue for years. If they snuff it fairly close to their peak, their reputation stays intact for all time."

Buttclinch refuses to say whether he has ever had any of his own acts 'offed' for their own good, he strongly suspects that many other record executives have authorised such action against their artists. "Hell, just look at Hendrix, Jim Morrison and John Lennon," he declares. "They all had to go in order to protect their legacies. The first two were getting just too crazy, while Lennon was threatening to go off in a new musical direction - promising several new albums of career destroying mediocrity." However, not all pop stars have to be assassinated by their record companies or management, some apparently arrange their own deaths i order to prolong their success. "Look at Charlie Watts from the Rolling Stones - he's been officially dead since 1970 for tax purposes, on the advice of his accountant," says Herbert Boobfondler, an expert on celebrity death scams. "Apparently it has saved him millions! Of course some artists go even further than simply having themselves declared administratively dead, actually faking their own demise." Boobfondler, a private detective based in Crawley, Sussex, has investigated several such cases on behalf of top clients, and has reached some startling conclusions. "Trust me, my extensive enquiries have established, beyond any doubt, that Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Lennon and Elvis, most definitely didn't die under the circumstances claimed," he reveals. "They simply adopted new identities and continued to enjoy the financial rewards of their past work, without having to endure any of the disadvantages of celebrity - no stalkers, no need to keep the public and record companies sweet, no performing. Who can blame them?" According to the private eye, Hendrix and Lennon are still alive, although both now of pensionable age. Most startlingly, Boobfondler has claimed that the supposedly dead celebrities spend their time sailing the oceans aboard the Titanic. "Believe me, it's sinking was faked, for tax reasons, and it has spent the last century secretly sailing the world from a secret base in the Antarctic," he says. "It's become a secure paradise for the great and the good - it isn't just supposedly dead pop stars. It's passengers have included politicians like the Kennedy brothers, actors like River Phoenix and celebrities like Anna Nicole Smith. Only recently, top fashion designer Alexander McQueen joined the passenger list!"