SURMISING ON THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MICHAEL JACKSON

When the news broke, on Facebook last night, that Michael Jackson had passed away I was unable to put my hand on any of his work, not because of the emotional impact of his death but because I do not own one Michael Jackson song. A student last year loaned me his Number Ones album and I thought it would be great to have some of his songs but in the end he recorded nothing that resonated with me at all. June 25^th also saw the death of actress Farrah Fawcett, who was one of the original Charlie’s Angels, and she had more impact upon my life in those mid seventies days of adolescence than Jackson ever had.

This is not to say that Jackson is not a major pop icon. The 60 million plus sales of Thriller gives him his place in the upper echelons of music history. And if he had something to contribute in an artistic way then the cross over nature of that album and the follow up Bad to put white electric guitar over a black dance beat is significant. He is the Motown artist who became the universal star. Then there were the dance routines, the moonwalk and the videos. Objectively speaking Michael Jackson was a great entertainer and genius is not used carelessly in describing him but did he have the same cultural transforming power of Elvis Presley, John Lennon or Kurt Cobain? I don’t think so.

My jury is still out on Pop as a transformational art form. I will not deny that Elvis and The Beatles were pop when they started out; merely entertainers. The Beatles became artists when pop and art merged, when they and Dylan caused the merger in the mid sixties. But Presley, who really was never an artist in the true sense of the word, and The Beatles caused cultural change by the nature of their pop. Elvis’s hip swivel changed the world as did the Beatles hair styles and attitudes that somehow found a sound in their “yeah, yeah, yeahs.” Jackson on the other hand might have changed pop but long after pop had changed the world.

No doubt we will, in these next few days and weeks, assess Jackson’s contribution. Mangled up in it will be his bizarre behaviour that seems weird even in the eccentric world of pop music; the accusations by little boys, the baby dangled over hotel balconies, the monkey mate, the facial disintegration, the debts and the marriages. Many will celebrate the life of Michael Jackson and there are things to commend but what about Michael? When he looks back and casts his eye over his life what will he make of it? Or is it yet another of those too familiar stories – he had it all but what he most wanted; peace of mind.

Comments

[mike]

Great post Steve!

[Jonny Currie]

Good post although I think it might be an age thing stocki. As a child of the eighties Farrah Fawcett didn't really mean anything to me. Yet probably like others born at the same time the cartoonish persona of Michael Jackson helped to introduce me to the world of music for the first time as a kid. For many my age (though they maybe wouldn't admit it now!), their first tape or record was a Michael Jackson album!

[Geoff bailie]

Well I was surprised to find that I own Thriller. I can only assume that I decided to buy it on account of the fact that its the number one all time seller. Oh that and I love Eddie Van Halen's guitar solo on Beat It !

[Seb Morrow]

Steve your piece is an absolute morass of contradictions (especially paragraph 3). What "cultural transforming power" do you propose Kurt Cobain unleashed on the planet before he blew his brains out? And in what way exactly did Elvis'"hip swivel" routine "change" or "transform" the world? And in what sense was the latter culturally transforming rather than "merely entertainment"? Do you find Beatles' hairdos a significant indicator of cultural transformation? I doubt even a hackney sociologist would. You use a lot of big words Steve, I am unconvinced you have thought through their meaning.

[neil]

I don't own a single Michael Jackson song. But when the Sunday evening news leads with "further developments" on Jackson's death over the coup in Honduras there's something totally screwed up in our culture.

I fear we are turning in a valueless culture that prides entertainment over reality. Perhaps Huxley's prediction was right and we are addicted to soma and trips to the feelies.