The King of Pop - June 26, 2009
King Of Pop
Michael Jackson is dead at 50, no doubt due to some weird circumstances or a medical condition that will be clearly detailed by the media over the next few months. Jokes are rolled out--he's starring in Thriller 2, little boys' pants are being flown at half-mast, etc, etc.
The thing about this is, people should not mourn the passing of the man Michael Jackson. Dude was, at worst, a pedophile, and at best a weird dude with some goddamned kids. He can be pitied or hated, or if you're feeling really empathetic you can blame that noise on his dad. Not my game, but do what you'll do.
The music should be remembered, though. This was a dude who made Free Willy 2's soundtrack shine. He was the best child prodigy since Mozart, yeah, I said it, bringing soul music to new heights when it was already at new heights, and the dude could barely piss in a toilet. Thriller and Bad were completely brilliant. He may be the only pop artist to become as popular as the Beatles while still being artistically valid. Sure, he was commercial, too, and weird as hell, but that doesn't affect the music.
When I heard that the King of Pop died, I could have cared less. He's not making another Bad. I have no desire to buy his new products and endorse his fucked up ideas and fucked up life. My first feeling was relief--awesome, he's done. He can't do anything else. No more Jacko.
It made me go watch the Thriller video again, though, and somewhere during those electrifying 14 minutes I thought to myself, damn, we should have been mourning for the last 20 years. Because somewhere along the line, a musical genius died, and it sure as hell wasn't of heart failure yesterday.
You got guys like John Lennon, who was by all rights an asshole, and you can say, "it's alright, because he tried to better himself and helped move peace forward." And that's completely true. And you've got guys like Phil Spector, who is an asshole, and you can say, "looking back on his contributions, they really weren't that great, and we realize that now that he shot a woman." Fine.
Michael Jackson, though, was a genius who spun too far out of control, and he may have been a terrible, awful, or simply misguided human being in his last few years, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying when he looks up at his date with cat eyes and yells "GET AWAY!". It doesn't stop your feet from moving involuntarily, tracing out invisible light-up flooring. It doesn't stop your mind from instantly queing up the music, including every single instrument down to the most minute detail, when you read the words "I Want You Back," in this article, little Michael's voice swooping up to hit the high notes and making little girls swoon all over the country, back when it wasn't all creepy for him to want that to happen.
And yeah, there are the trials, the masks, the balconies, the fires, the Pepsi, the Jesus juice, the monkeys, but let's keep that in a different annex of our little culture, okay? Let's mock the man all we want, but don't miss out on the music just because the dude was weird.
Michael Jackson is dead at 50, no doubt due to some weird circumstances or a medical condition that will be clearly detailed by the media over the next few months. Jokes are rolled out--he's starring in Thriller 2, little boys' pants are being flown at half-mast, etc, etc.
The thing about this is, people should not mourn the passing of the man Michael Jackson. Dude was, at worst, a pedophile, and at best a weird dude with some goddamned kids. He can be pitied or hated, or if you're feeling really empathetic you can blame that noise on his dad. Not my game, but do what you'll do.
The music should be remembered, though. This was a dude who made Free Willy 2's soundtrack shine. He was the best child prodigy since Mozart, yeah, I said it, bringing soul music to new heights when it was already at new heights, and the dude could barely piss in a toilet. Thriller and Bad were completely brilliant. He may be the only pop artist to become as popular as the Beatles while still being artistically valid. Sure, he was commercial, too, and weird as hell, but that doesn't affect the music.
When I heard that the King of Pop died, I could have cared less. He's not making another Bad. I have no desire to buy his new products and endorse his fucked up ideas and fucked up life. My first feeling was relief--awesome, he's done. He can't do anything else. No more Jacko.
It made me go watch the Thriller video again, though, and somewhere during those electrifying 14 minutes I thought to myself, damn, we should have been mourning for the last 20 years. Because somewhere along the line, a musical genius died, and it sure as hell wasn't of heart failure yesterday.
You got guys like John Lennon, who was by all rights an asshole, and you can say, "it's alright, because he tried to better himself and helped move peace forward." And that's completely true. And you've got guys like Phil Spector, who is an asshole, and you can say, "looking back on his contributions, they really weren't that great, and we realize that now that he shot a woman." Fine.
Michael Jackson, though, was a genius who spun too far out of control, and he may have been a terrible, awful, or simply misguided human being in his last few years, but that doesn't make it any less terrifying when he looks up at his date with cat eyes and yells "GET AWAY!". It doesn't stop your feet from moving involuntarily, tracing out invisible light-up flooring. It doesn't stop your mind from instantly queing up the music, including every single instrument down to the most minute detail, when you read the words "I Want You Back," in this article, little Michael's voice swooping up to hit the high notes and making little girls swoon all over the country, back when it wasn't all creepy for him to want that to happen.
And yeah, there are the trials, the masks, the balconies, the fires, the Pepsi, the Jesus juice, the monkeys, but let's keep that in a different annex of our little culture, okay? Let's mock the man all we want, but don't miss out on the music just because the dude was weird.