Michael Jackson is dead.
Before we start ungraciously quibbling about whether or not he invented the Moonwalk, let’s not forget that this was a man who never stood a chance.
Stuck on the stage at five years old, with not a hope in hell of enjoying a normal childhood, he became a fabulously rich black man – an easy target for the spiteful.
Weird? Yes, I dare say he was. But if a ‘cool’ artist like David Bowie had a zoo full of pets we’d probably be quite charmed by his eccentricity. Hell, I’d love to have a zoo full of pets and a ranch like Neverland.
Sexually deviant? I’ve never put much creedence in that one. Speak to anyone who ever worked with him and the word that crops up again and again is ‘childlike’. I’m inclined to believe he was, in many ways, an innocent.
I’m not the world’s biggest fan of his music but he made millions of people very happy even though it never seemed as if he could find happiness himself.
That’s one hell of an achievement.
I suspect, in the coming days, we may see a Princess Diana-like explosion of repressed media guilt, as all the goons who profited by portraying Wacko Jacko as a maniac or a monster suddenly realise that, compared to many, Michael Jackson was one of the good guys.
To balance that, there will be maggots crawling out from under his corpse with accusations even more vile and degrading than the ones he suffered while he was alive.
He’s gone. He’s irreplaceable. He was magic but he was also frail and human.
Leave him be.
6 Responses to Goodbye Michael
Thanks for that Johnny. Off The Wall and Thriller were simply great albums, and before anyone starts claiming that it was all about Quincy Jones, let me ask this question: what else has Quincy done that reached those heights?
Personally I shall never forget the thrill – the shock – of hearing “Don’t Stop ’til You Get Enough” for the first time. It took American dance music into a new dimension. And the rest of OFF THE WALL weren’t bad neither. Actually, I’ll never forget the thrill of hearing (and seeing) the J5 doing “I Want You Back” either. I do think it’s heartbreaking how that beautiful innocent kid got so grotesquely messed up by the fame machine. Maybe it was the prospect of descending once again into the maelstrom – with all those 02 shows – that killed him. I hope his spirit is finally at ease.
I just never understood why he was so despised.
I was thinking about Earthsong this morning and how MJ didn’t need to write songs about environmental issues. That wasn’t exactly a clever marketing plan. So I can only assume that he cared. Which is more than I can say for the 90s UK Britpop elite who took such delight in sticking the boot into him. Some of those people were so unbelievably far up their own ironic backsides that they wouldn’t know talent if it bit them.
The media and music-biz hatred of Michael Jackson was, to my way of thinking, little more than the continuation of the racism that went underground when political correctness became the new language. It was, somehow, considered OK to attack Jackson, probably because he was in a different category – he was a mega rich black man – so he could be attacked for his wealth and success by people who couldn’t hold a candle to him as a musician and performer.
Come to think of it, were there phenomenally rich black men in the public eye before Michael Jackson? There were successful black entertainers and sportsmen and political figures, of course there were, but not on a level that approached MJ’s universal acceptance by the young.
I suspect he opened a lot of doors for the black community. We just didn’t have total crossover black hero figures like Tiger Woods or Will Smith or, dare I say it, President Obama.
No, I’m not saying he was their inspiration or their role model but I do think that without him blazing that path the complexion of the world’s elite would probably be a lighter shade than it is today.
“A man who never stood a chance.”
Very well put, Johnny. Why people seem to think that a musical gift, which he deffo had, made up for his lack of any (obviously much longed-for but understandably strange) normality always yanked my chain. He was a human being, fer chrissakes!
“Don’t Stop ’til You get Enough” – f-ing great record!
He’s gone, he’s replaceable. He’d been replaced long ago. Better for his music if had had died before he trashed himself in a dozen different ways.
Now we can do some of that for him in time, but had he lived I don’t know if the music would’ve changed but his persona would have had to for his reputation to move up a few notches. His death sentimentalizes everything about him and obscures his place among many others in music, not a king at all.
Agreed, let’s not argue over the moonwalk.
So long as there’s equivalent lamentation when Jeffrey Daniel shuffles off…