Okay, He Was A Freak…
…with major personal problems and a probable sexual attraction to young boys. That’s all bad stuff – but give Michael Jackson his due. Before the celebrity and the freakiness took over, he put out two heavyweight albums – Off the Wall and Thriller. The latter will remain the top-selling album of all-time forever, because albums don’t sell like that anymore. Sales aside, the music – at least for those two albums – was pretty damn good, too. It’s almost impossible to hear Billie Jean come on the radio or in a bar and not start moving to it and singing along, personal feelings about the man aside.
I say all of this not to excuse the man, nor to judge him – neither of those are my area. He never answered to me, dead or alive…but as I said yesterday with Sanford, I take no joy in the misfortune of others, and despite his fame and one-time great riches, the story of Michael Jackson is ultimately a sad one…
RIP to Farrah Fawcett, as well…her story is, to me, much sadder, because she seemed a much more normal, sane person for a celebrity…
I’m older than you and so the three deaths this week are of people that were truly pop icons during my youth. Ed McMahon was a fixture, with Carson, on the Tonight Show when I was in high school. Everyone I knew watched that show. The famous poster of Farrah Fawcett was on the wall of every (freshman, at least) dorm when I went off to college. And Michael Jackson was a permanent pop fixture during the middle three decades of my life. I think you say it well, he was a truly odd human being, but also a pop music, and entertainment, genius.
It’s been an strange week.
Agreed, Mark. I was too young to remember when Thriller came out, but I certainly remember all of its songs, as they were imbued in the public consciousness when I was growing up.
I really agree that ultimately his story is a sad one. Whether he did what it was alleged he did (and regardless of actions, like you said, the underlying weirdness remains), the story is tragic. Personal circumstances of his life don’t excuse what he may have done, but they help explain it, at least to a degree.
But really, his talent was an amazing thing. I went back and watched a bunch of Jackson 5 stuff last night, and it’s ethereal. Then, watching videos of him performing his stuff through the ’80s, his moves are just amazing. He could move his body in ways I still can’t understand. His personal proclivities had become the predominant image of him for the last 15 years, but it would be a shame if he were remembered for the worst of himself, since the best was so astoundingly good.
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And that is all I have to say about that.