A Play by any other name... is less important than Shakespeare apparently.

Why are there some people, be they writers, musicians or filmmakers, who automatically have to be held up in high regard? People like the Beatles, Martin Scorsese, Charles Dickens... why are they considered better than their peers? (I'm not picking on any of them in particular, I'm just showing examples. Although I do think that at least two are overrated to some degree) Shouldn't it be judged on the work alone? And why, Brawny, are you bringing this up now? (That last question was the one you're all asking. I know you are. Go on, admit it. ADMITTT ITTT!!!)

Well, it turns out that there's a new Shakespeare play. Except it's not new. It's been around for 300 years. But it wasn't credited to him. Now, however, according to Shakespeare expert Professor Brean Hammond (And yes, that is his name, not a typo) "I think Shakespeare's hand can be discerned in Act One, Act Two and probably the first two scenes in Act Three of the play"

Let's ignore the multiple jokes I could make at this point involving Shakespeare's disembodied hand, working alone, and just focus on the ridiculousness. It had been assumed it was written solely by John Fletcher, whom it has been established also co-wrote Henry VIII and the Two Noble Kinsmen with Shakespeare (although, how it can be established is beyond me. Presumably they do some clever comparison of the writing and figure out the likelihood of it. Or maybe they hired a medium to speak to them and clear the situation up. Who knows?) even though "Theatre impresario Lewis Theobald presented the play in the 18th century as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play but it was dismissed as a forgery." So it looks as if Lewis Theobald was ahead of his time. By about 200+ years....

My point is, who cares? The play's existed for 300 years, and it's no different today than it was yesterday. The text is still the same, the plot is still the same, the dialogue is still the same. It's just today it's been published in a collection of Shakespeare, so people will now instantly love it.

Another artist who suffers from this is the late Michael Jackson. Regardless of his personal issues or problems, it can't be denied he was an important force in popular music, and therefore his musical reputation is, by and large, deserved. However, today news comes that his estate has signed a massive record deal . I'm not necessarily saying I'm against posthumous albums in general (although they're rarely the artists best work) and I'm not particularly surprised that there was interest in his unreleased material. However, it's this sentence that is disturbing. "The deal reportedly involves 10 album projects over seven years - including one of previously unreleased material. "

Hang on a minute, TEN albums?? And only ONE is previously unreleased material?? What are the other nine going to be? Well apparently they're likely to be "revamped packages of old hits." Forgive me, but didn't we get that at the point he died?? This seems like overkill to me. Even The Beatles, who are several light years above Michael Jackson in contribution to music terms, only released three double posthumous albums, and they all had stuff on that die-hard fans wanted to hear (mostly demos and out-takes). So one wonders how they're going to fill ten albums. And how many of them will have versions of Thriller on them.

Seriously. I imagine that the unreleased material comes from late in his life, and who can honestly say he was at his best then? Keeping with the Beatles example for a second, who rates Free as a Bird as one of their all time best Beatles songs? Answer, not many.... (At least as far as I know!)

It's just depressing. In an age where it's harder than ever to be a new artist, Sony will give $200 million for albums of rehashed stuff they've already released before.

Not much to say really. Just disappointed in them.