Despite this news flooding the “blog-lines” this morning, I had to post this to show my grief for the king whom I started listening from much younger days. His tunes were simply awesome, and I got hooked to all his albums in no time. I started with his Dangerous album, and backtracked to Bad album and also the Thriller album. I moved forward to Blood on the Dance Floor, HIStory and so on.

Paramedics were called to the singer’s home around midday local time on Thursday after he stopped breathing. He was pronounced dead two hours later after arriving at hospital in full cardiac arrest.

Speaking on behalf of Jackson’s family, his brother, Jermaine, said doctors had tried to resuscitate the star for more than an hour without success.

He added: “The family request that the media please respect our privacy during this tough time.”

“And Allah be with you Michael always. I love you.”

Jackson, who had a history of health problems, had been due to begin a series of comeback concerts in the UK on 13 July.

For detail reports and videos, check out BBC.

It has been almost 8 years since Armin’s first episode of A State of Trance. This Thursday, the 400th episode will be broadcasted live from 3 locations in Germany, England and Netherlands. This would probably be the largest ever episode of this series, consisting of a total of 72 hours of Trance!

This massive DJ set across 3 different locations will feature a radio show in the day and live sets at night, featuring Armin Van Buuren himself performing for 3 hours per night and the rest filled with renowned DJs such as Roger Shah and Markus Schulz. Pretty amazing; I wish I was there. It starts from 16 April 6am CET (GMT+1) and stretches all the way to 18th April 8pm CET.

View the official schedule here.

I’m not sure which internet radio will bring those tunes live to Singapore, but I’ll probably torrent the show when it’s done. Learn more about ASOT here. Also check out ASOT400 - Behind the scenes in Birmingham.

I just finished listening to Armin Van Buuren’s ASOT yearmix 2008. ASOT (A State of Trance) is Armin’s weekly radio show, featuring mixes of trance and progressive tracks from various producers and DJs. I always look forward to YearMixes, as it contains favorites of the whole year, all wrapped up in a special 2 hour show.

That’s 80 favorite tracks in 2 hours. Thus, an average of 1.5 mins is given for each track. The YearMix 2008 is simply awesome. There’s a lot of melodic tunes and the blending of tracks is done seamlessly. You can’t stop rocking your head throughout this 2CD compilation. Check out the official site here and click “read more” for track listing. You may get this compilation now in major stores or your favorite to**ent site

OK, is this another rumor? Couple of years ago we all heard this rumor about Michael Jackson converting into Islam. It seemed as a pretty solid rumor at that time. I even got a copy of an Islamic song sung by him. Yeah.. it was him alright. I couldn’t share this piece as it was direct from our local media and I didn’t wanna get screwed over copyright issues.

Anyways, The Sun has more news on this:

“The singer wore traditional Islamic dress as he pledged his allegiance to the Koran at a friend’s home in Los Angeles, The Sun reports.

Jackson, who was raised a Jehovah’s Witness, reportedly decided to convert after discussing religion with a music producer and songwriter on his new album - both of whom were converts to Islam.

Yousef Islam - formerly knowns as Cat Stevens - turned up to help Jackson celebrate.”

I hope it’s not a rumor this time and I wish MJ all the best in embracing the religion. Read all about it here.

When it comes to Bollywood music, I’m kinda picky and it’s usually 1 nice track every 1-2 movies. For the rest, I’ve got the fast-forward button (also depends on which heroine on screen ).

I managed to get hold of the soundtrack to one of the latest Bollywood movies, Fashion. Here’s a synopsis:

“Set against the glittering backdrop of the glamorous but ruthless world of haute couture fashion, this is the story of a small town girl with big dreams. Meghna always knew she was meant to be famous, but she was about to find out the hard way that success came at a price. Fashion is the tale of what happens when the price of success becomes too much to pay”

It’s gotten a good review at IMDB and I can’t wait to watch it. And yea, the soundtrack rocks. All the tracks are worth listening to. My favorite would be “Fashion ka Jalva” sung by Sukhwinder Singh in all the highs. More info on the soundtrack in Bollywood Hungama.