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Getting Jackson's popularity turned around in the U.S. is a much knottier issue. While he remains a top star internationally--foreign sales of HIStory actually matched those from Thriller, the best-selling album of all time--his draw in America is still slack. Next year Jackson will be recording an album with Kenneth ("Baby Face") Edmonds, one of the hottest producers in the music business. Says an Alwaleed adviser: "We've got to make him hip again, and how you do that is all about perception."
For his part, Ben Ammar complains that no matter what Jackson does, it tends to come out negative in the press. For example, Ben Ammar says, Jackson's recent tour--42 gigs in Europe and South Africa--was a commercial smash, yet it received mainly sniping coverage. According to Ben Ammar, the tour matched the $100 million gross brought in by Jackson's 1996 swing through Asia, and was even more profitable, because operational costs were slashed 50%. Ben Ammar says Jackson netted $15 million instead of going in the red. That is music to the ears, even in Saudi Arabia.
--By Scott MacLeod