Unlike what seems to be 95% of the people I know, I’m not a huge Michael Jackson fan. Love the Jackson 5 stuff, love Off the Wall, like Thriller a lot…and them I’m pretty much good. It’s interesting because the MJ stuff that I like, I really, really like, and it has the instrumental brilliance and lyrical depth and dexterity I crave in music (the most underrated part of Mike’s game was that he was a fantastic songwriter).
On one hand, there’s no explanation for why I’m not crying in the streets like other people.
Then it hit me. Michael Jackson has never seemed human to me.
Off the Wall was released in 1979, and it established him as a star. I was born the year after. Then Thriller, which made Mike into a megastar, came out in ’82. He’s been on megastar status ever since, more an entity than anything else. He was his own brand, and he was larger than life.
Humans are not larger than life.
I just never saw anything in Michael Jackson I could personally relate to. Maybe part of it was growing up in red, black and green schools that didn’t have much good to say about Mike and all the ridiculous incarnations of a process that he wore. But with the totally excessive videos and promotional campaigns, Mike did so much to get into my world that he kinda kept himself out.
The music is great. It’s technically perfect. Mike’s amazingly emotive as a vocalist, and the songs were usually pretty good. But it was always sounded perfectly aware of the fact that Michael Jackson was the biggest star on Earth.
And when I listen to music, I want humanity. It can be good, and it can be bad, but it must be human. Music is the most perfect medium ever created for expressing a range of emotion. Each instrument can speak to a certain part. The lyrics and melody can be linked by irony, and their combination can be an ironic juxtaposition with the music. There’s no way in the world to express so much in such a short period of time and in a way that endures like music does. It’s taught me mch about myself, given an interesting peek into the worlds of others, and brought me closer to people I’d probably have a hard time talking to otherwise.
But we’ve got music.
I adore the Jackson 5 catalog. It’s amazing how deep the emotional resonance of that music is, considering that Michael Jackson was being asked to convey adult emotions as a 13 year-old. Hell, the J5’s first album had a friggin’ Funkadelic cover on it (a kinda weird cut at that)! That Isaac Hayes and David Ruffin could cover J5 songs and STILL not nail all the emotion tells you how cold Mike was. If David Ruffin could do nothing else, he could sell emotion. That’s the reason you know his name…and Mike may have been colder than he ever was when he was a teenager.
I can relate to that music, and Mike’s voice speaks to me in a way that makes me sing with him.
The solo catalog is different. And it’s interesting because the folks that are calling out from work are doing so, largely, because of some combination of Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad. That’s what has them so enraptured.
No wonder I don’t feel it the way they do. I’d rather listen to the Jackson 5, in most cases.
What I don’t have from Michael Jackson is one of those songs that just speaks to me. There are plenty that entertain me, but none that hit me in that place that gets me to run a song on repeat for an afternoon. At every turn, I couldn’t bring the music closer to me. At every turn, I was perfectly aware — and reminded — of the fact that I was listening to Michael Jackson.
That was the biggest thing out there, so I get why so many people are so distraught today. However, I don’t need big from my artists. I need human, and I never felt that from Michael Jackson.
Now, those of you that know me could probably ask how human I think Prince is. Very, in fact. Weird as hell, but very human. That dude is off on some other shit, but so are many people I know.
I don’t know ANYONE like Michael Jackson. And that’s saying a lot, considering I hang out with you degenerates and reprobates.
But it hit me when I was on the way in to work. I heard “Wanna Be Startin Something” on the TJMS, and it just jumped out of the speakers. Mindblowing stuff, and I was rockin’ right with it. Then they went to commercial, and I flipped it up to Van Morrison’s “Saint Dominic’s Preview” on the iPod.
Which song is better? Probably Mike’s. But I’d rather listen to Van, because there’s a quality in this voice that I can relate to. Forget stardom and how big anyone was. That’s never been why music has captivated me. It keeps my heart and mind going constantly because I can relate on so many levels. Even if I don’t hear my life, I hear someone else’s and can take something from it. It’s why, in spite of my lack of any discernible musical talent (save for the occasional freestyle on the air), I love songs like I wrote them myself.
I don’t care much about star power, and I really don’t care about dancing from my singers. Impressed by it, but I can do without. I can do without pyrotechnics and jet packs, too. Just not my bag.
But those things are a dominant part of the legacy of MJ’s solo career. If you loved the music, chances are you were into the total package. And seeing how so much of the MJ discussion is about the Thriller era, I’m inclined to believe it was about the jacket, the glove, and everything else. It was about the magnitude.
And magnitude just doesn’t do it for me. Wanted a bit more of the human Michael Jackson.
Oddly enough, I bet he did, too.