Everyone from my generation remembers where they were when certain life-ending events occurred. JFK and MLK were assassinated before we were born (or at the most we were toddlers.) We were a little older when Elvis Presley and John Lennon passed, but we missed seeing them in their primes and didn't fully understand their significance and their impact on the culture until later. We were grownups when tragic accidents took Princess Diana and JFK Jr., and yes, that was sad. But for my generation, the deaths we remember most... the surreal ones... the ones that touched us to core... the ones that stopped time... the Challenger explosion, 9-11... and now this... Michael Jackson.Of all the passings I mentioned above, Elvis's best approximates what my generation is experiencing with the news of Michael Jackson. In many ways, the two events are startling similar. Two individuals that were immensely talented singers and performers, but who were also transcendent artists that became absolute phenomenons. Each branched out beyond the world of music to make their marks in television, movies and, in Jackson's case, music videos. Each saw their careers dip sharply in their later years. And sadly, each contributed to their own demise through excess, drug abuse, and increasingly eccentric behavior. Elvis and Michael both died unexpectedly, and at the time of their deaths, left legacies as the best-selling artist of the rock era and the greatest entertainer of all time.
I'm not going to go on and on and provide a retrospective on Jackson's life and career. (There are a hundred websites and TV programs that will continue to do that over the next several days and weeks.) Instead, I'm blogging this largely for the young people out there, many of whom I suspect, don't fully understand the impact Michael had on music and our popular culture. The same way my generation couldn't fully understand Elvis' impact, anyone under the age of 30 probably doesn't fully understand Michael's.
To correct this, I won't rehash the usual list of stats and achievements (this many million albums sold, this many number one hits, this many Grammys.) Again, I'll leave that to others. Truth be told, there've been a lot of artists who have reached the top, sold millions, won countless awards, and will be long-remembered. But Jackson's uniqueness, the "how's" of his revolutionizing of the music world, the way he and his music uniquely resonated with Americans and others all over the world, and the ways in which he continuously broke new ground during his career -- that's what needs to be underscored right now.
The first thing that needs to be discussed, is that the word I mentioned earlier, "phenomenon", is not one to use lightly. As far as the music world is concerned, the Spice Girls and New Kids On The Block tours broke box office records; Bruce Springsteen was on cover of Time and Newsweek; Mariah Carey recently signed a record-breaking $80 million dollar recording contract. But when it comes to actual "phenomenons", there was Elvis, the Beatles, and Michael Jackson.
So how did these phenomenons come to be? Well, Elvis was at the forefront of popular music's defining movement of the 20th century -- rock and roll. In the mid and late 50s, Elvis succeeded in rising above contemporaries like Chuck Berry (who was actually more deserving) to become the face of rock and roll -- the genre that would come to dominate American popular music.
The Beatles were a little different. One of the definitions of phenomenon is "an unsually significant, often unaccountable occurrence." The key word in this instance is "unaccountable". In no way am I disparaging the band or dismissing their talent, but the Beatles phenomenon began, in many ways, as a case of "right time, right place", as the charismatic group inexplicably captured the imaginations of first Germans in Hamburg, then their fellow Brits, and finally Americans.
The Michael Jackson phenomenon has similarities to both The King's and the Fab Four's. Jackson came along at a time when the new medium of music videos was fundamentally changing the way artists were performing, connecting with their fans, defining their images, and marketing themselves and their music. Many of the top acts of the time (Springsteen, Billy Joel, Jackson Browne) as talented as they were, struggled with how to leverage this new medium to its fullest. But Jackson's natural ability and creativity as a singer, dancer and performer gave him the total package and he alone emerged as the single greatest artist of MTV's golden age (1981-1991.)
Indeed, Jackson revolutionized the music video, taking it from its primitive beginnings as simple live or studio performances (sometimes enhanced with cheesy special effects) to expressionistic narratives with creative art direction and cinematography and elaborate choreography. With "Beat It" and "Thriller", Jackson pioneered the "performer out front with backup dancers" style of video, which became the paradigm for many other artists from the 80's (Pat Benatar's "Love is a Battlefield"), 90's (Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation"), 2000's (Britney Spears' "Oops, I Did It Again") and even today (Beyonce's "Single Ladies".)
Also with regard to music videos, Jackson's "Billie Jean" (along with Prince's "1999" and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue") were the first videos by black artists to be played on MTV.
A gifted dancer from birth, Jackson enhanced this natural ability by adding in double and triple James Brown-like spins, as well as pops, locks and moonwalks he borrowed from 80s B-boys. The result was Jackson forever raising the bar for what we could expect from artists in concert. Singing AND dancing became much more of an expectation, and Michael represented the zenith of the multi-talented performer, paving the way for the likes of Madonna, Paula Abdul, M.C. Hammer, Jennifer Lopez, Usher, Shakira, and countless others.
Right around the same time that MTV and music videos were taking hold, radio was also changing. FM had recently surpassed AM as the dominant band, and stations were still scrambling to define their formats and find their niche among listeners. Radio though, was still sometimes segregated. As far fetched as it may seem these days, the fact is that right until the early 80's, there was much more of a gulf between the musical preferences of whites and blacks. "White music" and "black music" and "white radio stations" and "black radio stations" were often mutually exclusive. This is not to say that black artists weren't played on white radio (Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and others certainly were) but as he did with MTV, Michael Jackson, moreso than any other, was the artist that contributed to erasing any remaining color lines once and for all. Tracks from his debut solo album, Off the Wall dominated Top 40 stations. In an era when the public was railing against disco, Jackson was able to blend it with elements of other traditionally black music (pulsing R&B, horn-driven funk, lush Philly soul) and inject it with a pop sensibility that appealed to a wider (and "whiter") cross section of listeners. Radio stations, which typically leak singles out six to eight weeks apart, took Off the Wall and ran with it, and "Rock With You", "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough", "She's Out of My Life", and the album's title track all got airplay concurrently. Tracks from 1982's Thriller and 1987's Bad would get the same treatment.
His ability to cross color lines, songwriting ability, mellifluous voice, dancing ability and other considerable talents aside, there was also something undefineable about Michael Jackson. Despite his shy personality, he was tremendously charismatic. Even going back to 1968, when he was signed (along with his brothers) to Motown, Suzanne DePasse, Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy, and others at the label agreed that the group had talent -- but ten year old Michael had "it."
Jackson was long considered a prodigy, but by the time he was twenty-one, he would exceed everyone's expectations by breaking free from both his brothers and Motown and proving himself one of the best voices and creative forces in the business. Everyone recognized this, even his peers and the most famous names in music. During the last three decades of the 20th century, many of the top singers (Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Lionel Richie, Stevie Wonder, Boyz II Men), producers (Quincy Jones, Bill Bottrell, Teddy Riley, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Dallas Austin, David Foster), and studio musicians (Rod Temperton, Brothers Johnson bassist Louis Johnson, Toto's Steve Lukather and Steve and Jeff Porcaro) collaborated with Michael on projects. And when Michael enlisted axemen Eddie Van Halen and Steve Stevens (Billy Idol's guitarist) to play on "Beat It" and "Dirty Diana", respectively, many fans were introduced to hard rock guitar licks for the very first time.
Pop culture figures outside the music world also teamed with Michael on various projects. He shot videos with Marlon Brando, Michael Jordan, Naomi Campbell, Eddie Murphy, Martin Scorcese and John Landis; made movies with Academy Award winners Sidney Lumet, Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas; performed onstage with Diana Ross, Cher, and James Brown; and launched the careers of Siedah Garrett and Sheryl Crow (whose first big break was as a backup singer on the Bad tour.) Little sister Janet owes a debt to Michael as well. Her career was floundering (with a mediocre debut album and an even less successful sophomore effort) until the fallout from Michael's fame helped refocus attention on her and her Control album.
As I suggested in a previous blog post, there often comes a time when a man meets his moment. For Michael, that moment was at the Motown 25 TV Special, where he reunited with his brothers onstage for the first time in eight years, and then brought the house down with a solo performance of "Billie Jean." Though the show included performances by legends like Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder and The Supremes, all anyone could talk about the next day was Michael. It was this performance that precipitated Michael's instantaneous ascension into the pantheon of not just pop music but pop culture as a whole.
It's hard to deny that Michael was an icon of the highest magnitude. He had the highest selling album of all time and was featured in his own animated TV series. He starred in his own prime time variety show and had Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire publicly marveling at his dancing ability. He was honored by President Reagan at the White House and guest voiced on The Simpsons. And, lest we forget, Michael was also one of the creative forces behind U.S.A. for Africa and co-writer of "We Are the World". Indeed, Michael contributed so much time and money to charities and humanitarian causes that the Guiness Book of World Records honored him as the "Most Charitable Pop Star of All Time."
For the last week, I've listened to the MJ tributes on radio stations and watched retrospectives on BET, MTV, and VH1. What sticks out to me and offers the most consolation for this loss is the stunning amount of music Michael left behind. I'm staggered by both the volume and quality of the music he produced with the Jackson 5, The Jacksons, and on his own.
And it's great that Michael is being shown so much love. It seems very few are remembering the negative about him, including those disturbing allegations of child molestation. I, like most, certainly haven't forgotten about that, or the fact that in this, the age of steroids, philandering politicians, and rampant corporate corruption, you simply can't believe in anyone anymore. (In light of the prevailing evidence, the claims made against Michael may very well be much more than just "allegations.")
We also (regrettably) have to acknowledge, the way he destroyed his face and body with cosmetic surgery. (It's sometimes difficult to even view pictures of him in his later years.) And we all remember the sham of a marriage to Lisa Marie Presley (which then and now seems like a clumsy attempt at damage control) and all those disturbing eccentricities -- from allegedly seeking to purchase the Elephant Man's bones, to dangling his baby over the balcony.
But through all of this, what we'll rightfully remember most about Michael Jackson is his music, his amazing voice, and all the good memories... J5... Motown... The Ed Sullivan Show... "I Want You Back"... "I'll Be There"... the giant afro... "The Robot"... The Jacksons... Thriller... the glove... the moonwalk... and on and on...
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