As Things Were
By Mitch Berg
It occurred to me last night; my kids have no concept of Michael Jackson, other than the freakish tabloid-fodder plastic-surgery nightmare figure he’s been their entire lives. Indeed, I dont’ think anyone under age thirty has any other reference for Jackson.
But walking through the parking lot at Rainbow yesterday, I did hear three different people cranking Thriller and Off The Wall in their cars.
After the past twenty years of tabloid fodder, it’s easy to forget…
…well, I almost wrote “Who Michael Jackson really was”. I don’t know if Jackson himself, much less anyone else, knew that answer.
But it is easy to forget the swathe he cut through popular music from the late sixties to about 1988.
It’s hard to remember sometimes that the Jackson Five were not just a child-prodigy novelty act,
…or that Off The Wall, cut when he was barely twenty, was not only one of the highest points of seventies R’nB…
…but a hell of a lot of fun.
Of course, there’s been plenty written about Thriller – the biggest selling record of all time, and one of the soundtrack albums for the entire decade.
Plenty has been written about Thriller. I really have only one thing to add. Growing up (at that time, going to college) in one of the very whitest places in the world (I never met an Afro-American face-to-face until my late teens), I didn’t encounter a whole lot of R’nB as a kid. Or late teen. Or college kid. It took an album like Thriller to crack places like…
…well, everywhere. Especially where I was at the time.
The early eighties were one of the great periods in the history of popular music not because of Thriller, necessarily, but because of something that helped producer the album: in the early eightes, like the mid-fifties and the mid-sixties, “black” and “white” music cross-pollinated like ever before and, sadly, never since.
In 1981,popular music was divided as strictly as Berlin was. R’nB and rock met on the top forty, but only as a measurement of sales. Black audiences and white audiences prett much kept to themselves. And MTV was getting beaten on for only playing white artists (back when, for those who remember, they actually played music videos).
And then, Eddie Van Halen played on a Michael Jackson song.
And for half a decade or so, the black and white divide in music evaporated. Almost overnight, the best rock band in America was two white guys, two white girls and two black guys led by a pint-sized prodigy from Minneapolis. Suddenly synth-pop imported R’nB conventions wholesale. Suddenly Aerosmith led rap’s crossover to the mainstream. For half a decade or so, black
Could that happen with music today? At all?
Of course not. I doubt it could ever happen again. But while it lasted, it was amazing.
All of the King’s psychologists, and all the King’s prescription meds, couldn’t untangle the workings of Jackson’s mind; growing up with a psychotic stage father who almost literally tortured his children to stardom, the mind-warping fame in his early teens, being the biggest star in the world at a time when most kids are just getting over acne and learning to drive inside the speed limit.
Jackson was poised for a “comeback”, starting next month. It’s tempting to wonder – could it have worked? If it had, it’d have been a first. Most superstars – like Jackson’s ex-father-in-law and, now, fellow casualty of fame, Elvis Presley – are motivated by very different things in their fifties than in their twenties, and so are their audiences. Some superstars – Bruce Springsteen, Prince – lose their original muse, but manage to find another one, more or less gracefully. Others keep flogging the same horse that got them to where they’re at. Could Jackson have extricated himself from the baggage of his own hyper-success, to say nothing of the problems in his own mind, and found that new spark?
Anyway. Too much thinking. RIP, Michael Jackson.
June 26th, 2009 at 9:24 am
The most insightful thing I’ve read about Jackson I found in Slate. The facial feature that he changed the most radically, and that he ended up destroying, was his nose, and it was in this feature that he most resembled his father.
I wonder if Jackson ever ran into peev while he was rambling around his hall of mirrors?
June 26th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Michael always kept getting weirder and weirder, then became down-right strange… and eventually uber-creepy.
With his death maybe his family can find some kind of peace.
[Snark]God knows that children around the world are now breathing a sigh of relief.[/Snark]
June 26th, 2009 at 10:29 am
Do to his antics of the past 15+ years, I had forgotton how big he really was. Listening to local radio yesterday, many people (mostly women) who were youngsters in the 80s called in to talk about their memories. They didn’t talk about the freak in the scarf, but the great entertainer of 20-25 years ago.
I like his work with the Jackson 5.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:32 am
They didn’t talk about the freak in the scarf, but the great entertainer of 20-25 years ago.
That’s who I prefer to remember, too. Anyone who saw him perform Billie Jean on the Motown 25 special back in 1983 will never forget it. It was an absolutely electric moment.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:48 am
You are probably right that most under 30 year olds know him more for the oddball behavior of the past 10-15 years. Today though, my kids (tweens) who have watched his videos on Youtube and have downloaded music from Thriller and Off the Wall on to their I-Pods, had to ask what all of the talk about accusations, trials and acquitals was about.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:12 am
Thriller was an undeniable phenomenon… changed how audiences expected music. Videos were different because of Michael. Thankfully, Weird Al became a great novelty act because of Michael. The whole routine in the Thriller video was fun and funny and exciting and brilliant.
He just started to get more bizarre as the 80s ended and the 90s started up… and by 2000 he was completely creepy.
Then, the really creepy stuff happened.
It’s kind-of like enjoying “The Naked Gun”… great fun, but when OJ is on the screen, you feel strange.
June 26th, 2009 at 11:30 am
Goldberg’s got a great piece in The Corner at National Review.
June 26th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I think its sad (but not surprising) that the media is so focussed on the last fifteen years and not the first fifteen years of his life.
No one truly knows what it’s like to be, and the pressures incumbent upon, being such a freak.
Well, save Angryclown that is.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:10 pm
As to your question about “the comeback” I think the only people who do it reasonably successfully actually reinvent themselves and use their experiences to give their performances new depth and meaning which compensate for the fact that they can’t hit those notes or dance like they could when they were 20. Tina Turner did that successfully and even if she wasn’t a megastar, she probably made a decent chunk of change for the retirement kitty. I don’t think Jackson could reconcile himself to getting old ever and if he was shooting up pain killers it was probably due in part to the fact that he was trying to recreate his Thriller dance fame with a 50 year old’s body.
June 26th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
There was probably no way, ever, that a man-boy would ever succeed in recreating his star image much less surpassing his 25 to 30 year old fame.
June 26th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Please don’t ever again refer to Elvis as Michael Jackson’s father-in-law.
Read a column a while back on what happens if you don’t have a real childhood. How that messes you up when you are older. The writer said Jackson never progressed into a full adult because of that.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
Well, save Angryclown that is.
Now now, Johnny. We’ve no way of knowing if Clownie’s earlier accomplishments can match what he has achieved in these SitD forums. Frankly I don’t see how they could have.
June 26th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
We’ve no way of knowing if Clownie’s earlier accomplishments can match what he has achieved in these SitD forums. Frankly I don’t see how they could have.
True dat. When it comes to world-class anonymous snark, he’s pretty much the exemplar.
June 26th, 2009 at 5:49 pm
The Clown has actually written a ton of funny stuff.
And due to confidentiality agreed to a long time ago, I don’t care point you to any of it.
Take my word for it.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
The first person in history to be born a poor black child & die a rich white man.
June 26th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Not to mention a drug addled freak.
June 26th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
But he wasn’t the first to die as a drug addled freak.
June 27th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
The Clown has actually written a ton of funny stuff.
No question. For example, It didn’t get any more side-splitting than when he declared the Democrats have a pretty good Presidential candidate for 2012. I think I injured myself upon reading that.
June 27th, 2009 at 7:31 pm
MJ was an incredibly gifted entertainer and an incredible train wreck at the same time.
His untimely death is worthy of considerable media attention.
However, a huge political story also worthy of equal attention is going almost unnoticed. Cap and Trade passed the House. This will add hundreds if not a thousand or more to every Minnesotan’s Utility bill every year.
Also Conyers drops the investigation into ACORN the same day his Wife cops a plea. Finally Obama decides he can hold terrorists indefintely without a trial. All on a Friday, all on the day MJ dies.
June 28th, 2009 at 2:02 pm
I never really liked his music. Sure, he was a pioneer; sure, he did a lot of stuff that a lot of people liked. I just wasn’t one of those people. I especially didn’t like his take on R&B; he compares poorly to Al Green, Barry White, and for that matter his own sister, whose “That’s The Way Love Goes” will break your heart if you have an ex.