When I first heard about the death of Michael Jackson, my first thought was that I would do my best to ignore the media feeding frenzy that would certainly (and did) ensue.
But being a professional musician, a lot of people kept asking me “What do you think”?
Full Disclosure: While I can respect Michael Jackson’s accomplishments in the entertainment business, I must admit that I am not a fan. I have never owned any of his music. I have enjoyed some his hits like Billie Jean, Black & White, and Smooth Criminal but none of those songs are on my ipod. (I do own and enjoy a number of Jackson 5 songs though).
I think that it’s interesting that prior to his death Michael Jackson was the butt of every one’s jokes.
He had become known less for his music than for the trainwreck that was his personal life made public.
And while allegations of child molestation where never proved in two court cases, I think it’s important to bear in mind that this was a man who in taped TV interviews, said that he felt that he could see nothing wrong with sharing a bed and sleeping with young children that where not his own. That this was a also a man who, dangled his own child over the balcony of a 4 or 5 story building as if it was a funny joke.
I think it’s important to bring this up, because now that he has rather unexpectedly passed on, a lot of the same people who called him a freak are now eulogizing him and raising him to sainthood.
If you doubt me, read some of the online comments made about him.
As for the music. I think that Michael Jackson recorded some very slickly produced and enjoyable pop. I am sure that his hits will be considered classic standards 20 years from now. And I while it is enjoyable I don’t think it was groundbreaking music....but this is just my opinion.
I think that his real real genius was in how he used the media of the time to promote himself.
The Jackson 5 had been popular, but when their day ended they where looked on as teen pop band
His album previous to Thriller “Off The Wall” had done well within it’s genre of R&B, but it didn’t make a global impact.
But with Thriller (The album that started his snowball of hype and glory). He did two distinctly different things. First he did some genre crossing collaborations with former Beatle Paul McCartney on “The Girl is Mine” and with Hard Rock Guitar Hero Eddie Van Halen on “Beat It” (A trick that he would repeat by teaming up with Slash on Black and White).
These two things began to open the door to his crossing musical
boundaries...but in the grand scheme of things, they only opened it a crack.....What really opened the door to world wide popularity was his use of the new video platform that was MTV. During MTV’s early days he filmed some of the most groundbreaking and cinematic music videos of the time. MTV actually played videos 24/7 back in the those days and Jackson was really the first to make cinematic videos, and for better or worse, they continue to influence the music industry to this day.
It was these videos and these collaborations that helped open him up to a wider audience and allowed him to cross boundaries at a time when music was still segregated by race but even more so by genres.
The first publication to call him the King of Pop was Rolling Stone Magazine. proclaiming him as the King of pop was a condition the magazine had to agree to in order for Jackson to grant the interview.
This was before the internet and before the current growing fragmentation of media that exists today. Media was a lot more concentrated back then so he was better able to build hype and allow it to snowball....and snowball it did. Michael knew how to use the media of the 80’s. He became a global star on the level of Elvis and the Beatles.
During the 20th century, he managed to maintain this level of popularity for a number of years, but he didn’t know how to use the media of the 21st century and this was apparent in his inability to recapture his former glory, when he tried to use the same marketing tricks, with his 2001 release “Invincible”.
What I am trying to say that if you took the Michael Jackson of the 80’s and put him in the digital modern world and had one all the same
things...He might have become popular, but I doubt he would have
snowballed into the the level of popularity that that era’s media allowed him to become.
I would be remiss if I did not bring up the after effects of that Michael Jackson's considerable vocal and dancing prowess have had on the current state of pop music. It is obvious (even to someone like me who is not a fan) that he was an amazing singer, dancer and performer. Prior to Michael Jackson (and all those aforementioned videos) there where vocal pop groups like The Temptations or the Spinners that would have some choreography with their performance. But Michael brought it to a whole different level and set a standard within mainstream pop that is still being felt today.
......For this reason he is to a certain extent, unwittingly to blame for the current crop of phony pop stars who lip synch in concert, & use software like auto tune to correct their voices in the studio.
Let me elaborate: I am not saying that Michael Jackson has ever lip-synced in concert (there is certainly no reason to believe this).....What I am saying is that he made dance a requirement for mainstream pop stars. Many of them could not keep up with the level of dance and vocals that he performed with.
Many of them could not maintain the level of dance required and still be able to sing, so many of them started lip syncing. Many of these same Mainstream media pop stars couldn't sing at his level either, so they started using computer software like auto tune to current their vocal inadequacies in the recording studio. Now once again, I want to state that I am not saying that he is solely to blame for this. I am saying that he set a very high standard as a performer, and that to many record labels who wanted the next Michael Jackson and that too many so called artists who wanted this too where pretty much willing to do anything (even resort to fakery) in order to achieve it. This resulted in a proliferation of phony pop stars that exist in the mainstream.
It also sadly contributed to the current climate of live music performances where dancers on stage have become more important than the musicians actually playing the music.
There have been those who have tried to compare his death with that of John Lennon’s. I couldn’t disagree more. If there is any comparison it’s with the death of Elvis. They where both huge global stars who’s
unexpected where considered shocking....and I have a feeling that those comparisons will become more apparent when the autopsy report comes in a few weeks.
Artist: The Bird & The Bee
