Music is truly a universal language and a gift to the world. For many of us, music is an escape – a great way to get away from the stresses and routines of daily life. Music also carries with it the capacity to transport us back in time, when hearing a song from our past, as what we choose to listen to throughout the years becomes the personal soundtrack to our lives. Beethovenonce said, “Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life,” and he couldn’t have been more right.

Concerts are one of the best ways to enjoy music. The atmosphere that comes from being surrounded by thousands of like-minded people drawn together in one place to enjoy the same thing can be a wonderful experience and the feel of music being played live and in the moment captures us in a way far different than when booming from our stereo. Below is a list of the 10 most successful music tours in terms numbers of people attended. And if you haven’t given yourself the chance, go buy a tikcet for your favorite bands next tour. You won’t regret it!

• 1. The Rolling Stones: A Bigger Bang 2006 -   4.68 million attendees
• 2. U2: Vertigo 2005 – 4.62 million attendees
• 3.  Micheal Jackson: History 1996 - 4.5 million attendees
• 4. Micheal Jackson: Bad 1988 – 4.4 million attendees
• 5. U2: Popmart 1997 - 3.94 million attendees
• 6. Madonna: Sticky Sweet 2008 – 3.5 million attendees
• 7. Cher: Living Proof / The Farewell Tour – 3.5 million attendees
• 8. The Rolling Stones: Licks 2003 – 3.43 million attendees
• 9. U2: 360 2010 – 3.07 million attendees
• 10. Tina Turner: Wildest Dreams 1997 – 3 million attendees

*** The Michael Jackson History tour held nearly 40 fewer shows than any other tour on the list. Advance ticket sales for his ill-fated “This is It” tour scheduled for 2009 suggest he would have more than doubled the attendee numbers for the Rolling Stones Bigger Bang tour if not for his untimely death.

The face of the music industry has entirely changed over the last ten years, and people simply do not buy music they way we used to. With file share sites, MP3 downloads, itunes and more, the days of going to the music store are fast being lost to an evening at home sitting in front of our laptops. With the advent of the CD, the industry hit its high note in terms of sales, but by the end of the 90s the boom had gone bust. This being the case, the list of the top selling albums of all time below will most likely never change. They came at a time when people had little choice, but to go out and buy them. Most albums have conflicting estimates of sales figures. In this list below, the highest sales figure reported has been used. Sitting high atop the mountain is the late Micheal Jackson, with more than double the sales of his nearest competitor. Jackson being on top won’t surprise many, but a few other entries are sure to catch you off guard.

• 1. Michael Jackson – Thriller (1982) 110 million
• 2. AC DC – Back in Black (1980) 49 million
• 3. Pink Floyd – The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) 45 million
• 4. Meat Loaf – Bat Out of Hell (1977) 43 million
• 5. The Eagles – Greatest Hits (1976) 42 million
• 6. Various Artists - Dirty Dancing Soundtrack  (1987) 42 million
• 7. Various Artists – The Bodyguard Soundtrack (1992) 41.5 million
• 8. Andrew Lloyd Webber – The Phantom of the Opera (1986) 41 million
• 9. Backstreet Boys – Millennium (1999) 40.5 million
• 10. The Bee Gees – Staying Alive Soundtrack (1977) 40 million

Few issues can bring the Arab and Western World together these days. Religious, cultural and social differences, both perceived and real, run amuck - each region’s respective media doing its very best to manipulate all concerned. Every once in awhile, an event occurs that brings the base level humanity of all of us to the surface of our being. An event of global magnitude unfolds that reminds people across the planet that we are more similar than different, more alike than we can even begin to understand or, in some cases, would like to admit. On June 25th of this past year, both the Arab and Western Worlds came to a sudden halt upon witnessing the death of an American.

Michael Jackson had such a dramatic and tragic life. In so many ways he represented, in an extreme fashion, the full spectrum of our collective human experience. From the simple joys of childhood innocence, to the craving for acceptance, approval, and love from others, to the somber loneliness and bitter emptiness of our broken souls; many of us looked upon him and without ever realizing it, saw a reflection of us all.

From Dubai to Amman, from Beirut to Cairo, people watched the news of his death unfold on their televisions and remembered his music. Jackson was a truly global star and many thirty something Arabs looked back on their childhood’s and recalled how the gloved one ruled the world. His videos and songs were played; his moves and his dancing were emulated, not only in the streets of America, but in the deserts of the Middle East.

His painful final years will forever be connected to the Arab world and the tiny desert nation of Bahrain. Sheik Abdulla bin Hamad Isa Al Khalifa, a son of Bahrain’s king and an aspiring songwriter, befriended Jackson after the singer was found innocent of all child charges laid against him in his infamous 2005 circus of a trail. He invited him to live in Bahrain and showered him with money. Jackson lived there for approximately a year and kept a low profile. He never performed in any way and always stayed within arms reach of his royal freind and the entourage he brought with him. After Jackson left Bahrain in 2006, the sheik said Jackson failed to fulfill his part of what was to be a music venture. Jackson denied the charge, saying he understood the time and money spent on him and his children to be a gift. The two settled the dispute in a November deal and parted ways amicably.

When I was an eleven-year old boy, Michael Jackson was the coolest human being on the planet. The slightest glimpse of him on the television drew me in like a tractor beam. I tried to dance like him, to dress like him, to be like him. This past weekend my beautiful wife and I went to Mercato Mall in Dubai to see see Jackson’s concert rehearsal film “This is It.” My wife grew up a world away from my hometown farming village in the empty deserts of Doha, but she too listened to him as a young girl. In fact, the whole world did. And there we were, two souls who came together against all odds, but who had in fact been joined in spirit by the man we watched on the screen in front of us. So very far away from our childhoods, we were transported back to our beginnings one more time, by a man we both grew up in awe of… this time side by side.

What I saw onscreen was far from the frail and gaunt portrayal of the man often employed by the media in the days leading up to what was to be his grandiose return. His appears fit, strong and even vigorous. At times, I found it hard to believe he was 50. His choreography was tight, built upon precisely-timed movements and cues. It looked exhausting, but Jackson never shows any signs of being tired. It was clear he was a man entirely in charge of the physical instrument that was his body, making all he did seem as natural as taking an afternoon stroll. He was also so very patient and encouraging to his troop of young dancers, but the command in his voice reveals how much creating a new and different world on stage meant to him. I saw man in tune with everything aroud his presence, approaching even the most minute details of his upcoming performance with ferver and passion.

Jackson did not appear to be a man about let down his investors, his fellow performers or his fans. There is no doubt, he was fully prepared for his opening night. That I will always believe. Simply put, he was at the top of his game.

What stayed with me as we walked out of the darkened theatre was Jackson’s disinterest in engaging the cameras and how this only added to both his mystery and his legend. He did not want to acknowledge the camera, because then the world he was creating, the world in which he felt safest, would not be real. Michael Jackson lived in his own world, a world that was far away from all the prejudice and abuse he faced in this one, because that’s what he needed to do. Anyone who went through what Jackson did each day would have to somehow escape to another place, a place somewhere within the far reaches of the mind, if for no other reason, but to shelter his own sense of humanity. Being called a wacko and a freak, again and again, for years on end took its toll on the man. In all the time we knew him from afar, he rarely granted interviews, rarely spoke at all, placing himself into a protective cocoon of isolation. And nowhere did he feel safer than when he was on stage. In effect, throughout “This Is It” he was always performing, but not for those who might see what was being filmed; he was performing for the attending masses at his never-to-be performed sold out show that he saw in the deepest regions his neon kaleidoscope imagination. And what a show it would have been.

This amazing, kind, eccentric, intriguing, bizarre, talented giant  is no longer with us, but the entire planet will never forget. And in that sense, Micheal Jackson, just like his life long hero Peter Pan, has reached his own form of immortality.

There were times throughout the film, upon realizing I was in fact watching the final hours of the man’s life, that tears welled up in my eyes. I miss him already and a part of me always will. 

From David Anthony Hohol…

From Nora Fakim…

Home to around 44 million people, Colombia is best known for its lucrative drug trade and violent, internal conflicts. But a growing number of passionate and vocal musicians are keen to show their country in a new light.

Straddling the Pacific and Andean Oceans, Colombia also has Andean mountain ranges and densely populated cities like Bogota, the home of Bomba Estereo, one of the most popular electro acts to emerge from the country.

Liliana Saumet Grab from the group says, ‘What we’re doing is mixing rhythms from the Atlantic, Colombian folklore from the Atlantic Coast, along with a little bit of electronic music, hip hop, and rock… in an organic way…. and as a result… we got a sound that we’ve defined as ‘Bomba Estereo’

It’s the natural, organic nature of Bomba Estereo’s fusion which works so well, mixing beats from 2009, while staying loyal to the sounds of Colombia.

Simon, also a member of this fusion group says that ‘ Colombia is a centralised country where many people come to live… most often to Bogota, the capital city. They come from the Atlantic Coast and Pacific south end for different reasons… and this generates a cultural movement. What’s happening now is that people are getting united from different parts of the country and region, each with different views on life… they get together and suddenly generate new forms of music.’                                                                                                    

Another example of musical cultural fusion, the mixing of Western music with Indian sounds results in a light and entertaining beat. Below is the hit from the “Slumdog Millionaire” soundtrack.