Michael Jackson

I suppose I will chime in and add to the bloviating on the death of Michael Jackson. As someone who was not a fan of his, the passing has not effected me emotionally, but as the non-stop coverage has gripped the world I've been forced to come to terms to what he meant to American culture.

One of the newscasters mentioned that he was likely the most famous entertainer in the world, and after a moment's thought I had to agree. Even though he's been out of the spotlight for quite a while--and when he was last in it he was being tried for child molestation--he was certainly the biggest celebrity on a global scale. There was no corner of the world he wasn't known, as music is much more universal than films. Furthermore, Jackson was famous for four of his five decades, and this fame ultimately consumed him. Like Anna Nicole Smith, who worshipped Marilyn Monroe and ended up dying like her, Jackson, who sought to emulate Elvis Presley (why else would he have married his daughter?) ended up succumbing the same way.

As I said, I am not a fan, but that has more to do with my particular music tastes. I can agree with anyone who declares him a genius, and a hugely important person in the history of music and American culture. Perhaps most importantly, he and MTV found each other in the early eighties and both were transformed (he was the first black performer to receive regular airplay on the station, something that seems incredible now).

I'm just not into his type of music. R&B and dance music doesn't hold a big sway over me. When Thriller was released in 1982, and I was in college, I sneered at it. I was listening to classic rock and college-radio stuff like Peter Gabriel, Talking Heads and The Police. I don't own any of his records, but even my grandparents bought a copy of Thriller. Then, as his lifestyle became more bizarre and grotesque, Peter Pan mixed with Phantom of the Opera, any admiration I had for him was replaced by a general sense of disgust. He may have been acquitted five years ago for sexual crimes against a child, but O.J. was acquitted for murder, too. Nothing will dissuade me from thinking him a pedophile. I'm somewhat amazed that this hasn't tempered the adulation of more people.

In watching all the coverage of Jackson's death, I'm struck by a few things. One is the interesting contradiction of his life: he was a precocious child, but as an adult he grew more and more childlike. Most TV chatterers imagine that he was in search for the childhood he never was allowed, which is certainly a sad way to live. Also, after seeing a lot of clips of him as a boy performing with his brothers, I think that his best stuff was those early days. The hit singles of the Jackson Five--ABC, I Want You Back, I'll Be There--were brilliant, and he was a mesmerizing performer. It's a shame that he was destroyed by his demons.