The Null Device

The world is in shock today as Michael Jackson was charged with sexually abusing a 12-year-old boy, believed to have been a cancer survivor relying on Jackson to pay for treatment. Everywhere you go there is a stunned silence as people struggle to come to grips with the possibility of Jackson having done such a thing. And with the King of Pop's career in ruins, the world of pop music has been particularly hard-hit, and now faces an indefinite period of anarchy and turmoil.

In other news, Phil Spector has been charged with murder.

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A recent interview with Phil Spector (who came out of seclusion to produce the new album for next-Oasis-candidates Starsailor) in which he talks about his psychological problems.

"I take medication for schizophrenia, but I wouldn't say I'm schizophrenic. But I have a bipolar personality, which is strange. I'm my own worst enemy. I have devils inside that fight me."

And the Graun has a brief biography of the gun-toting studio genius.

(What is it about music producers and guns? First Joe Meek went berzerk in the '60s, then Martin Hannett started shooting telephones, and now Phil Spector's gun-waving antics have come to a tragic denoument.)

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Legendary record producer Phil Spector, best known for pioneering the "Wall of Sound" production technique in the 1960s, has been charged with murder after a woman was shot dead in Los Angeles.

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