You kinda wish Michael would have followed his own advice in "Off the Wall": "When the world is on your shoulder / You gotta straighten up your act and boogie down." But he wrote and sang that line a long time ago.
When I heard about Michael Jackson's death yesterday, I was a little surprised at my own rather strong emotions. I stopped following his music by the time Bad was released in 1987, so it is not like I was waiting for his next masterpiece or anything. Yet Thriller is so undeniable, as much a part of my culture growing up as Star Wars figures, an MTV that showed music videos and Ronald Reagan, I had to stop and contemplate his passing for some time. Fortunately, thanks to the wall to wall media coverage, I had lots of help.
I could tell some of the media talking heads were feeling the same thing. Sheppard Smith on Fox News held court for some time talking about Michael Jackson. As he was waiting for the Fox interns to scramble together some organized reporting, Smith says "now, this is just off the top of my head, but..." and he proceeded to recount Jackson's entire career and history in great detail, hitting every milestone. Any person within a certain age range could have done likewise. Sheppard couldn't help himself, he then had to talk about his own Jackson memories, such as the Jackson posters and red jacket that he begged his parents to buy him and how many times a day he listened to Thriller as a kid, etc. Over at CNN, Anderson Cooper got lost in his own memories of meeting Jackson when Anderson was 10 years old. Perhaps it is appropriate that each of these reporters focus on childhood memories.
The Michael Jackson story, of course, is really two quite separate stories. The first is the remarkable musician and performer. In that respect, yesterday's loss was akin to the loss of John Lennon or Elvis Presley. (Some parallels too, in the sense that when Elvis died, he wasn't exactly at the top of his game either; and John Lennon was about to embark on a comeback attempt after a long exile). It is a cliche, but in this case it is true: We will never see the likes of Jackson again. He revolutionized performing and dancing, he revolutionized music, he revolutionized the music business (in fact, reset the rules of the game entirely), he revolutionized pop culture. Any one of these accomplishments would have made him a superstar, but all of these accomplishments combined made him beyond a mere pop icon. Simply, he was Michael Jackson. Think about that. In dancing and choreography, in music, in the entertainment industry, in pop culture...all of those industries were fundamentally changed, not merely effected, by Michael Jackson.
You want the facts?
* Jackson in his prime could do it all. Songwriter, producer, singer, dancer, business man (don't forget that he controversially bought the rights to the Beatles catalogue from under an enraged Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono. Paul and Michael were friends in the early 80's [remember "The Girl Is Mine" and "say Say Say"?], but McCartney hated Jackson after the Beatles catalogue fiasco)
* 14 #1 hit songs on the U.S. Billboard 100
* Thriller. The highest selling non-compilation album in history; stayed at the #1 spot for 37 weeks; stayed in the Top 10 for a year and a half; seven Top 10 singles from the album (a feat only matched by sister Janet Jackson and Bruce Springsteen)
* When Jackson appeared on the Motown 25th anniversary special in 1983 and debuted his moonwalk, it was a musical/television event for that generation that was akin to The Beatles or Elvis appearing on the Ed Sullivan Show for the previous generation
* Bad didn't do so bad either. Five #1 hits (the only artist ever to have five number ones from the same album); stayed in the top five of the Billboard 200 for 38 weeks, longer than any record in history
* 37 Top 40 hits overall
* Jackson's video for "Billie Jean" was the first video by a black artist that was played a substantial amount on the previously all white MTV. Crossover? Jackson arguably completed (notice I said completed, not started) the bridge between black and white music
So far I've only talked about his solo career. He had already "completed" a hugely successful career as the face of the Jackson 5 (later, The Jacksons) before the age of 30 or any of the accomplishments listed above.
I promised two stories. The other story has nothing to do with music. That is a story of a sick, sad, crazy, lonely person who may or may not have committed horrible crimes and who became a media sideshow. You know that story, and that is not what I want to remember or honor this morning. You cannot deny that it happened (and shouldn't), but that just is not what I want to commemorate now. Because no matter what happened post-1987, Michael Jackson changed history and contributed a very positive force to the world before that turning point.
ABOVE: History made. Michael Jackson performs his greatest song, "Billie Jean," at the 25th Anniversary of Motown celebration in 1983. The first moonwalk ever is at about 3:43.
RIP Michael Jackson.
7 comments:
Shep Smith begged his parents for a red jacket "as a kid"? Um, Shep Smith had to be 19 or 20 when he was doing that. (Insert Nelson's laugh from The Simpsons here.)
Alright, Shep would have been 19. So maybe the jacket was a different correspondent. But the other part I said about Shep was actually Shep. I listened to a lot of news coverage last night.
One other Jackson memory for me: sometime in the late 80's he had his own video game. Up to four Michael Jacksons could play, and the Jacksons fought their way through various villains and thugs to save children. Each time you killed a bad guy, your Michael would go "Oooh!" or "hee hee!" If you saved up enough power, you could hit the "dance" button and it would kill all the bad guys on the screen. I can remember playing this game in college somewhere with John and George Wang. I can remember during a particularly difficult level when we were getting swarmed by bad guys, John shouting at the top of his lungs in the arcade, "somebody dance, dammit!"
I went to an MJ concert in Buenos Aires. Unfortunately, that was about 1991. It was mostly very disappointing. At one point in the concert, he stopped in the middle of a song (I think the song was about his brothers) and first knelt and then laid on the floor and basically cried for about 5 minutes. I think this was just a week or two before the child molestation charges and his disappearance in the UK.
Still, he was an amazingly talented performer.
This game?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_sSjMr3AME
That's close. I think that was the Sega Genesis version, but I remember playing the actual video game in the arcade. Same premise, though. That's awesome how the hot girls are dangerous and to be avoided; he is only supposed to find the little kids.
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