Entertainment For Lively Minds
The Monster of Neverland
Looking out across the night time, the city winks a sleepless eye
I heard a record the other day – it was fantastic. Brilliantly written, produced, executed. Brought back a flood of memories – but wait…oh heck, it’s a Michael Jackson record
I just don’t know if it’s possible to like Michael Jackson any more.
Is it possible to feel the same untainted joy when first we saw him with the Jackson 5 - performing “I Want You Back”?
Can we admit that “Don’t Stop till you get Enough” or “Billie Jean” are just some of the most viscerally exciting things in Pop music?
Can we acknowledge that he is as good a dancer as Astaire, as good a singer as Marvin?
Can we recognize that he is at least as important a figure in popular entertainment as Elvis or The Beatles?
Or have his “alleged” (lawyers please note) sexual activities and his increasingly erratic behavior made him so morally repugnant or so a big a freak show that we can no longer play his music or watch his videos without the darkest of shadows falling?
When his story comes to be told it will no doubt become an endless allegory about race, ideals of beauty, the nature of celebrity, the corporatization of entertainment, perhaps about America itself. But beneath the metaphor and mythologizing – there was – is – a human being.
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You're right, sheeve,
it's tricky.
And you're equally right - MJ was involved in some of the most thrilling records ever made.
http://jukeboxjunior.com/2008/10/
(Just scroll down a little...)
Uh-huh. If your feet don't start twitching involuntarily
from the opening bars of this - it's quite possible that you are actually dead
It's a shame
The first album I bought was 'Got to be there' I can still remember the excitement of walking out of the co-op in Archway London proudly letting everyone know I was now a cool record collector! Now I can't bring myself to be interested/support his musical career. I certainly wouldn't attend his concerts even if they were was free. I still enjoy hearing the odd track on the radio as he has made some fantastic singles. I also miss hearing some of Gary Glitters great singles(which like it or not were part of my musical youth).
I also have very serious doubts whether MJ is in a good enough state to manage this long series of gigs.
Shame all round really
Re MJ gigs
A certain musical news website has just reported that Jacko thought he was only up for ten gigs and not fifty!!First he cancels the first batch due to production problems and then......
Don't hold your breath.
Side 1 of "Off The Wall"...
... is as good as pop/soul/dance gets, and I'll defend it to the death, but I must admit that in my head it's by a completely different person to the sad, shuffling, human car crash now walking around under the "Michael Jackson" name...
Perhaps
it's not just in your head. The human car crash is in fact an out-of-work jobbing actor found languishing in the seedier pool halls of the wrong part of L.A. and hired to 'be' Michael Jackson'.
The REAL Michael Jackson is working as a waiter in a small tapas bar in a remote fishing village on Lanzarote, and has a nice sideline in dance classes.
No way
I have got Off the wall and Thriller, like everybody else in the whole wide world, plus the best of the Jackson 5. I admit he was fantastic (once), but up there with the Beatles and Elvis? I don't think so. Mind you, it would be great to see him doing a cover of I am the walrus.
I am also up for a bit of Gary Glitter (maybe I should rephrase that).
At least as big as Fab 4 and EP - at the very least
In terms of influence, the entire sound of today's biggest acts and that all pervasive Pop/Soul/(New)R&B - Beyonce/Justin T/Usher/Girls Aloud - was formulated back in the late 70s/early 80s by Jackson/Quincy Jones/Rod Temperton
And all the pop choreography since - up to and including the nation's favourites - Diversity.
In terms of global impact and recognition probably much bigger the either F4 or EP. Who do you think might mean more to a little African kid - Michael Jackson or Paul McCartney?
I doubt there is the tiniest hamlet in the Himalayas or the remotest Andean hill-tribe that does not possess a worn-out VHS copy of Thriller.
Indeed, one of the tribal elders would probably intruct the youngest of his 27 sons to perform the "Mikaru Jakso 'moonwalk'"
I would agree, but the problem with nostalgia
is that it's based on how much you feel able to love the artist (I hope that makes sense). The Beatles stayed fairly loveable and although Elvis wound up fat and sweaty, lurching around a Las Vegas stage in search of a peanut butter and bacon sandwich before dying on the loo in his undercrackers, at least he only did damage to himself (for the most part). Anyone growing up with either act would have their memories fairly unsullied.
With Jackson, it just isn't possible. Anyone who had their formative musical tastes influenced by him (i.e. truckloads upon truckloads) can't wallow in the warm glow of nostalgia without considering what happened next. If he'd stuck to just being weird without actually damaging others, we'd have a different perception. I think that over the last couple of decades, I think a lot of people feel quite betrayed.
Whether I should or not
I can separate the man and his music. Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with the man, right? Apart from the face and general nuttiness, obv.
The peaks of the Jackson Five, Off The Wall, Thriller, fair chunks of Bad - all unimpeachably brilliant, far-seeing and (yes) seminal. Shame he's not coming to the UK after all. Ahem.
I just have to hear
'Don't stop till you get enough' and I can easily forget everything else about him apart from the music.
Typical Rock/Pop Star/Actor career graph
As paraphrased so eloquently by Renton and Sick Boy in Trainspotting...
Renton "Right. So we all get old and then we can't hack it anymore. Is that it? "
Sick Boy: "Yeah."
Renton: "That's your theory?"
Sick Boy: "Yeah. Beautifully fucking illustrated."
And that, ladies and gents is the greatest truism in entertainment.
One Mistake!
Should be "Cannae hack it anymore"! The Scots have a good point though!
The hilarious 'Yacht Rock', episode 5:
The story of how Michael Jackson got his 'smooth' back.
Some profanity, so probably not safe for work.
Think of the rhyme not the crime
I started a thread posing a similar question a few months ago, and we all agreed it's OK to like their music. You don't have to like them.
Which is a relief, cos this record's a corker:
Yep - he certainly knew how string a song together.......
Rock n Roll etc........
but nada airplay whereas MJ is still on heavy MTV rotation.
and will remain so until proven guilty
and there's the rub.
You put it so well
Spot on Five-centres.
Do you want to be in my gang
I have many happy memories of singing the "come on come on" bit from the start of the song as Oxford United ran onto the pitch in the early 1970's, Including a 1-0 win against Manchester United when they were in the second division (in old money). Still love that song
Christ I am getting old - time for my ovaltine.
I sort of can do the "separation" thing
but find it complicated
Perhaps it's because a record like "Don't Stop.." summons an innocent joyful spirit and recalls my youth to me.
Whereas his alleged crimes are a violation of innocence, a descration of childhood. The knowledge that he himself may have endured abuse as a child makes the case more complex, more poignant although not necessarily more forgiveable.
Glitter is a parallel example but he means less to me - although a similar issue arises. It is not possible for me to listen to GG with the same unalloyed joy I once had. And anyway, there's always Sweet, Mud, Showaddywaddy, Wizard instead. He was a borderline novelty act even in his heyday. He was also a lot older than me.
Michael Jackson is (was,perhaps) an utterly unique talent and he is barely ten years older than I am. We kind of grew up together. His songs are the soundtrack of teenage parties, finishing exams, first loves. You were always allowed to like MJ and go "wow" when you saw him moonwalk - - even the 6th Formers who claimed to really like Amon Duul II or whatever they were "really" into.
His loss of innocence feels like a last rites for mine
The end of Dont Stop
could go another 10 minutes for me, I love that little guitar circular thing at the end. I still think "Off The Wall" is his greatest achievment. Yes it is hard to seperate the music from the molester. Put a track on at any gathering and there is a guaranteed knee-jerk reaction from at least half of the crowd. But once the music kicks, the foot taps and the body twitches involuntarily and you cannot help but acknowledge the sheer genius of Wacko, Quincy Jones and the superb songwriting of Rod Temperton
I know it's sacrilege
But I hate his voice, and I've never seen the genius of the moonwalk.
I also found all that yelping and grabbing his crotch deeply unconvincing and embarrassing.
Some of the songs are catchy, but I can't say I've ever cared much about Michael Jackson.
Me neither
It was all in the production and those around him, not much to do with him except he turned up and squeaked and danced in a few self-indulgent videos.
I always thought it was kiddies' disco music.
Thirded
What you said. Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo on "Beat it" is one of the high points.
I bought Billy Jean on 12 inch,
spent a day isolating the record deck from the rest of the space time continuum, and then used the record to test the upper limits of my newly acquired bodacious hi-fi.
The only other record I used in this baptism of decibels was the 12 inch of U2's 'New Years Day'.
Both seminal records, both works of utter genius, both worthy of your respect and both heard best on 12 inch through the finest equipment available to man.
and two of the best bass lines in the firmament
Richard Williams in The Guardian today
get its right I think
"Looking out across the night time the city winks a sleepless eye"
Rest in Peace, Michael
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-greatest-ent...