Friday Shuffle - Already Said My Goodbyes Edition
Like many of you I've been watching a lot of coverage of the death of Michael Jackson. I was shocked but not particularly surprised. Actually it would have been surprising for Michael Jackson to not die before becoming an old man. I don't think many could really feature a seventy-five year-old Michael Jackson.
I loved the Jackson 5 starting back when I was just a little kid. I loved Michael when he released Off the Wall and I thought Thriller was brilliant. And it's at that point where I stop. To me his subsequent music didn't have the same quality. Every song seemed to be filled with that hiccupy phrasing he used and all those annoying "Heehee!"s he'd throw in. Each album would be just a pale copy of the last pale copy. After Thriller I never spent another penny on his music except to replace in CD or MP3 what I'd lost in vinyl. Michael Jackson stopped being relevant to me sometime in 1984.
So when I heard that Michael Jackson had passed I didn't have the reaction that I'd miss him or his music. I have his music - the music he made that mattered to me. And the Michael Jackson I grew up with and loved faded from view about twenty-five years ago. I'd already lost an icon of my youth back in my youth.
I'm not sure what to think of the post-Thriller Michael. The duality of his personality is hard for me to understand. He seems to have been used by his family and yet remained close to them. He talked about how he didn't have a normal childhood but didn't seem to be letting his own children have a normal one either. He was known for being a kindhearted man who was compassionate and caring and yet he was accused of doing heinous things to young kids. If what he was accused of doing is true then it's repugnant and yet he truly didn't seem to get that anything he did was wrong. I don't mean that he was deep-down evil or he didn't care about consequences. I mean he just didn't get it. He just didn't seem to get what the real world was like. I have pity for the man while at the same time I have irritation at him.
I'm sorry for those fans of Michael Jackson who are mourning now. I'm sorry for his family and I'm sorry for his friends who will miss him. I wish I could feel sadder about this but I don't. I suppose it's because I did my mourning decades ago and the Michael Jackson who passed yesterday was a stranger to me.
Let's shuffle.
- Heavy Cross - Gossip
- Guitar Town - Steve Earle
- You Never Know - Wilco
- Her Diamonds - Rob Thomas
- Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot
- Constructive Summer - The Hold Steady
- Golden Skans - Klaxons
- This Ole House - Bette Midler
- Leaving On A Jet Plane - Peter, Paul & Mary
- Somebody To Love - Queen
Labels: Friday Shuffle
posted by Dixie at 9:16 PM
6Comments:
Well said. I am just a few years younger than Michael was so I've followed his career since childhood. Seems weird that he is gone - I would have liked to have seen his comeback to see what he would bring to the table next. What a sad and unreal life he had.
well you are right.i think that he was never connected to reality.and i feel there is big lesson in it.again and again,we have seen that money and fame does not really do anything for anyone.i am gald that he is gone.he was a unhappy man and i think he is better now when he is away from all this madness.
I, too, am in agreement that just as he hit the absolute height of popularity, stretching to the outer limits of his talent, he lost all touch with reality and he never came back. I think that's what was wrong with him. And it's sad that seems to happen when people (especially people who had good reason to be mentally messed up anyway and are additionally burdened with talent and/or beauty that overwhelms everything else in their lives) hit the stratosphere of popularity and success, nothing is real for them. It must be irresistibly easy to lose yourself and the things that have real meaning when your entire worth (and think how big that is for someone like Michael Jackson) is based on an act. Over and over again it has been shown that real human beings simply cannot deal with that: Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, Britney Spears, Elvis, etc., etc. It looks so pretty... but it's outrageously destructive.
I didn't realize until today how little of his music I've ever heard -- I know some Jackson Five songs, but the only Michael Jackson song I'm vaguely familiar with is Billie Jean, and only from hearing it in the grocery store or someplace. I remember being aware of who he was as early as age six, but we just never listened to his music. And listening to it today, I realized... I just don't like it that much. It's not my style, I guess.
You are totally right. And hopefully the person who gets his kids will dress them and treat them like normal kids. Let them have the childhood that Michael never had.
Oh Dixie...he made some wonderful music after "Thriller".
If you can, go back and really listen to "Man in the Mirror", "Human Nature", "The Way You Make Feel", "Heal the World", "You Are Not Alone" - a beautiful ballad. And he also released the brilliant music video for "Black or White".
I regret we won't see what was coming next - maybe the sold out tou he was planning would have produced something amazing - now we'll never know.
I agree with you in that I didn't expect him to grow old - to be honest I thought he would wind up killing himself. Sadly, I don't think he was mentally equipped to handle the world.
Having said that, I was still shocked at his death, and I'm still getting a lump in my throat when I think about it. What's weird is that although I loved his music - I wasn't really a fan. I saw him in concert, was awed by his talent and lamented his downfall, but I didn't feel a connection. Yet strangely - I feel his loss.
Maybe I'm moutning what could have been.
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