>Is whether they were in the height of their career or not.

Yes, that's what makes things shocking. They decided that shock was the factor of this list. Thus, why I raise that point.

>Legacy has nothing to do with it.

They have close to equal legacies. If Jackson is #1 (he is), then John Lennon is #2. Relative on the scale of music, they are at the extreme top of the pile. And at the time of Lennon's death, he had the biggest legacy of nearly any artist (maybe other than Bob Dylan... maybe). So the argument of legacy cancels out, since John's legacy at the time of his death was as big as Michael's at the time of his. Michael's is bigger overall, but you have to consider the relative weight at the time of death when factoring the amount of shock.

> Worldwide reach has nothing
>to do with it.

While Jackson is more popular overseas now by a longshot, in 1980 John Lennon was as hugely famous in Asia and overseas as Jackson is now. He was the biggest artist of his era.

> Humanitarian intentions have nothing to do
>with.

John Lennon, once again, was the most humanitarian friendly top music celeb of his era, just like Michael Jackson was the top of his. Lennon released "Give Peace a Chance" and "Imagine" for fuck's sake. You can't act like he didn't do a thing. Jackson did more to date, sure, but at the time, just like Jackson was #1 now, Lennon was #1 then. So again, relatively, when considering WHEN they died, these are roughly equal, which is which I didn't stress this point.

> The fact that they were both still relatively young had
>nothing to do with it.... Oh aight.

Lennon was more than a decade younger. So yes, this is a measuring factor in shock value, of course.

>This sounds like a case of... "Cause I said so," to me. Seems
>like you chose the measuring tool and it's just THE measuring
>tool because you said so.

No, height of popularity and age and manner of death are just the natural factors when measuring shock. While Michael had been playing in Neverland the better part of the decade (sorry, I wish he'd been making records but it's true) when he died suddenly, John was out and about dropping #1 hits and promoting agendas of worldwide peace when he was murdered outdoors in public.

I'm not saying Michael shouldn't be a Top 10 most shocking. And certainly in the span of time, Michael in my opinion is bigger than the Beatles, especially on music today and pop culture today.

But John dying the way he did is like if Michael had been shot to death in public right after releasing Bad. It's simply more shocking.