Like most people around my age, I have memories of Michael Jackson from back when he really was the king of pop. I remember attending a "Thriller" video premiere party, I remember my sister once getting all excited about the song "Thriller" (mostly because of Vincent Price's voice over though). I know somebody in my house owned the album but I don't remember who it was that bought it. I remember where I was when I heard "We Are The World" for the first time (sitting in a college cafeteria eating a late breakfast). I remember watching the Motown 25 special live that more than anything put Jackson on the map. My most personal memory was when I was in Auckland, New Zealand in 1996. Jackson was on tour and performing in Auckland at the same time I was there, and I remember the cab driver who drove me from the airport to my hotel asking me if I was in town for the concert and then talking about nothing but Michael Jackson the whole rest of the way. It was also in Auckland that I saw the newspaper headline that called him "Wacko Jacko." I thought it was so good that I have been using it ever since, even in my American Idol recap of the show that Fox is re-airing as a "tribute" to Jackson on Monday. Of course now that he has passed away this may be the last time I do.
To be honest, the guy was a freak show for the last 10, 15 years or so. I liken it to a car crash; everyone will slow down to take a look, but then they will turn there heads and drive away. It also occurred to me today that Jackson was a real life Benjamin Button. Here you had this 8 year old kid singing about love and girlfriends who turned into a 48 year old man hosting slumber parties and riding Ferris wheels every day. I suspect that this is why he had kids around him all the time, even in situations that everyone else thought was inappropriate. I think he thought he wasn't acting like a creepy 48 year old, he was an 8 year old in a 48 year old body.
I listen to "I Want You Back", one of the Jackson 5's first hits (I think it may have even been their first) and I wonder what happened to the enthusiasm, the maturity, even the toughness that Jackson exhibited in his voice back then. He somehow went from being a confident and mature person to a very fragile, brittle figure both physically and mentally. He seemed to be someone who was one false step away from a total breakdown.
While the suddenness of Jackson's departure was surprising, the fact that he died at such a young age perhaps was not. Icons like Michael Jackson, Elvis, John Lennon, and so on typically don't go slowly into that good night (well, except maybe Sinatra, but he had connections). That Neil Young lyric that Kurt Cobain allegedly wrote at the end of his suicide note, "It's better to burn out than to fade away," seems to apply to icons like Jackson even if their departure was of no fault of their own, and if Lisa Marie Presley is to be believed even Jackson thought that this was his final fate.
While he was a freak show there is no denying the impact this cat had on the entertainment business. Justin Timberlake, among many others, have been imitating him for years to some degree. MTV owes its very existence to him. Indeed, I think every cable and satellite operator in the world do to. I would bet that there were millions of kids in 1983, including friends of mine, who pushed their parents to get cable TV just so that they could see the next Michael Jackson video. Music videos before 1983 featured white guys lip syncing their songs. Music videos after 1983 became 5 minute movies (or in the case of "Thriller" 13 minute epics) that told a story with pictures as well as words. In the age of New Wave he made R&B cool again, and in the process opened the door for the rap and hip-hop movements that now dominate the airways and music downloads. I think in terms of the extent of his talent and his impact on the music business Michael Jackson ranks right up there with Sinatra, Elvis, and The Beatles. There may be others that will one day reach similar heights (U2 comes to mind as one possibility) but there won't be another one quite like Michael Jackson, even if he was wacko.
Ironically I was in an electronics store on Sunday (4 days before Jackson died) buying a new battery for my camera, and on the TVs there they were playing the full length "Thriller" video, the first time I had seen it in years. Now that really is creepy.
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