Why Michael Jackson is worth all this hoopla.
This is something I never thought I'd be writing. It's not that somewhere in me I didn't think someone like Michael Jackson could die.. Honestly I knew better. But... it's got that surreal quality. This makes it real.
Michael Jackson wasn't my first major concert, but he was maybe the second. At the memorial sports arena here in LA. it was 1989. I had yet to turn five. At that point I had never seen anything greater in all my life. Even from the distance I was at, where Michael was about 3 inches high, he held my interest for the full two and a half hours or whatever it was. Every second. It was all I could talk about for months. I told my teachers at ballet, at preschool, strangers I saw when I was out with my grandma, and every single person in between. I lorded it over my cousins as we danced to his music out on our sidewalk on my Fisher Price tape deck.
He was never far. In the dance classes I took as a child, we studied his moves. Janet's too, even the Jackson 5. In one jazz class we learned the choreography to Bad. And after shows when I was a little older we taught ourselves Thriller which came in handy for dance breaks at cast parties.
That's just me. That's just part of what this one singer meant in my life. Think of this:
From the mid/late 60's on, there has not been a time where Michael Jackson was not tearing it up. This is the youngest person to have a number one single. He and his brothers were the first black teen idols to appeal to a mainstream audience. Have you ever heard Micheal at 11 or so singing Who's Loving You? THIS IS A KID. You see, he's always been a man-child. When he was a boy, he was an 80 year old man in this little child's body, with huge, sad eyes. When he grew up, all he could do with himself is try with all his broken soul was try to get back what he lost.
That's fine, you say, but I don't care about Michael Jackson.
WHAT?
If you like any popular music made in the last 25 years, you owe a debt of gratitude to this guy. At the very, very least, you need to recognize that if this man had never made music, music would not be the same. And Justin Timberlake would just be another kid working at McDonalds.
Respect this:
Socially conscious and self aware, his music was more than good. To sell 750,000,000 units you have to be much more than good. It was and remains a level of prodigy that comes along once on this side of never. No artist will ever sell that many copies of anything ever again. The music industry has changed so drastically that it is just no longer possible. Piracy and entitlement of the listening audience has turned the system on its ear where it remains broken. Michael embodied an era in our world, and in the vernacular of our culture that we will not see again.
When you look at the collection of work, the songs, and the moves... The marvelous short films, music videos that are still as brilliant today as they were when they were made- you are looking at something perfect. Something that washes over this broken man who gave of himself until there was nothing left. When you listen to the words that he wrote, you realize that he wasn't ever ignorant to the jibes and jeers. He tackled every punchline, and still turned around and sang about fixing this world for even those that would want to tear him down. There's something to a person like that, and you can say cynically that a song like "Heal the World" was over sentimental, that it was no better than Kumbaya. But... Stop. Take a moment. Don't just hear. Listen. See it like he did. Without irony. Breathe it in. You DO start to feel better.
As you peruse his body of work, you start to get a feel for what bothered him. What he thought about and what mattered to him. The things that made him angry and the things that made him smile. When you hear the vocals go from soaring angelic highs to panted whispers to frustrated screams, the picture starts to come together. And while he lived his life as a somewhat tragic figure, in dying he's perfectly complete once again. Maybe more so than he ever was to start out.
The whole world lost something on Thursday. Something that can never be repeated or reclaimed. And I miss him.
tl:dr? Pour out some jesus juice for this old weirdo- you owe him the contents of your ipod.
Michael Jackson wasn't my first major concert, but he was maybe the second. At the memorial sports arena here in LA. it was 1989. I had yet to turn five. At that point I had never seen anything greater in all my life. Even from the distance I was at, where Michael was about 3 inches high, he held my interest for the full two and a half hours or whatever it was. Every second. It was all I could talk about for months. I told my teachers at ballet, at preschool, strangers I saw when I was out with my grandma, and every single person in between. I lorded it over my cousins as we danced to his music out on our sidewalk on my Fisher Price tape deck.
He was never far. In the dance classes I took as a child, we studied his moves. Janet's too, even the Jackson 5. In one jazz class we learned the choreography to Bad. And after shows when I was a little older we taught ourselves Thriller which came in handy for dance breaks at cast parties.
That's just me. That's just part of what this one singer meant in my life. Think of this:
From the mid/late 60's on, there has not been a time where Michael Jackson was not tearing it up. This is the youngest person to have a number one single. He and his brothers were the first black teen idols to appeal to a mainstream audience. Have you ever heard Micheal at 11 or so singing Who's Loving You? THIS IS A KID. You see, he's always been a man-child. When he was a boy, he was an 80 year old man in this little child's body, with huge, sad eyes. When he grew up, all he could do with himself is try with all his broken soul was try to get back what he lost.
That's fine, you say, but I don't care about Michael Jackson.
WHAT?
If you like any popular music made in the last 25 years, you owe a debt of gratitude to this guy. At the very, very least, you need to recognize that if this man had never made music, music would not be the same. And Justin Timberlake would just be another kid working at McDonalds.
Respect this:
Socially conscious and self aware, his music was more than good. To sell 750,000,000 units you have to be much more than good. It was and remains a level of prodigy that comes along once on this side of never. No artist will ever sell that many copies of anything ever again. The music industry has changed so drastically that it is just no longer possible. Piracy and entitlement of the listening audience has turned the system on its ear where it remains broken. Michael embodied an era in our world, and in the vernacular of our culture that we will not see again.
When you look at the collection of work, the songs, and the moves... The marvelous short films, music videos that are still as brilliant today as they were when they were made- you are looking at something perfect. Something that washes over this broken man who gave of himself until there was nothing left. When you listen to the words that he wrote, you realize that he wasn't ever ignorant to the jibes and jeers. He tackled every punchline, and still turned around and sang about fixing this world for even those that would want to tear him down. There's something to a person like that, and you can say cynically that a song like "Heal the World" was over sentimental, that it was no better than Kumbaya. But... Stop. Take a moment. Don't just hear. Listen. See it like he did. Without irony. Breathe it in. You DO start to feel better.
As you peruse his body of work, you start to get a feel for what bothered him. What he thought about and what mattered to him. The things that made him angry and the things that made him smile. When you hear the vocals go from soaring angelic highs to panted whispers to frustrated screams, the picture starts to come together. And while he lived his life as a somewhat tragic figure, in dying he's perfectly complete once again. Maybe more so than he ever was to start out.
The whole world lost something on Thursday. Something that can never be repeated or reclaimed. And I miss him.
tl:dr? Pour out some jesus juice for this old weirdo- you owe him the contents of your ipod.