Rolling Stone and their bias against Michael Jackson: a thread 🧵🪡 For context, Rolling Stone launched in 1967 as a magazine for rock music fans.

Their first cover featured John Lennon. Its early coverage was overwhelmingly focused on white rock artists, often sidelining Black musicians or treating them as “crossover” acts rather than central figures in music. Neither Chuck Berry nor Little Richard (both black Rock artists who are foundational figures in Rock & Roll) got the same amount of coverage as white artists who were literally inspired by them, like The Beatles.

Clearing misconceptions & understanding the significance of the Sony/ATV Catalog (commonly known as the “Beatles Catalog”)

with credible sources: a thread 🧵🪡 To understand the context: John Lennon and Paul McCartney had little ownership over their own work from the start of their careers in the 60s.

In the early 1960s, Lennon and McCartney were still young and inexperienced in the business side of music. Their manager Brian Epstein and music publisher Dick James helped set up a company called Northern Songs Ltd in 1963 to publish their compositions.

This was meant to let the Beatles benefit from owning their publishing rights instead of signing away everything immediately to a third‑party publisher. However, the share structure was not in their favor. Lennon and McCartney together held only a minority of the shares, while James and his partner Charles Silver controlled a much larger block.